I’m fairly new as a writer. I mean I have loved to write throughout my life (mainly journaling) but I didn’t declare myself a writer until about 1.5 years ago. That’s when I first started to type out poems in Google Docs to express the ways that I was feeling. That is what opened the can of worms. I mean throughout my life I wrote lyrics (raps) and viewed life in a poetic way. Now it was concrete, real.
Fast forward to today and I now have two books published, a website, and a blog. I am extremely proud of myself. The only thing that was bugging me was that I still didn’t feel like a writer. I had imposter syndrome. What was it? Why did I still feel like someone who wanted to be a writer, but wasn’t legit?
I boiled it down to this thing: I could finish books, but writing was not a habit for me. I only wrote when it meant that I was fulfilling my own personally-set quotas. I only typed out poems so that I could post them. I only wrote chapters when it fulfilled my deadlines and brought me one step closer to publishing a book. This is not inherently a bad thing. I am a task-oriented person at my core. I love fulfilling tasks and lists. I want to check off my progress and see how close I am to finally reaching my goals. I want to feel accomplished.
Setting deadlines was also my way of ensuring that I actually write a book. Just like how I am committed to entering a bodybuilding show in order to ensure that I start to reach my fitness goals, I knew that I had to force myself to provide a finished product (a book) by a certain date in order to take the first scary step of being an author.
That is okay, and it worked twice for me (two books), but I was left feeling like more of an author and less of a writer. Writing wasn’t a daily or even a weekly habit for me. After each book I would take a break, exhausted creatively from the sprint that I just grinded out. My last two books I completed from first idea to publication within the span of 3-4 months. That is an extremely fast turn-around in the writing world. Most consistent authors write around one book each year. Sure, it was different for me since writing poetry is easier and arguably requires less editing and drafting than fiction or prose, but it was still a rapid pace for such a new and definitely-not-full-time author.
Putting nearly all of my hours outside of work into finishing a book led me to view writing as more of a project than as a creative experience. I didn’t actually have the desire to randomly write something unless it was for a future book idea.
Now, I am trying to write just to write. I write things expecting nobody to ever read it. I write because I want to see what I can come up with, letting my creativity spill out onto the page. My blog was another attempt at making writing a regular habit, but it’s simply not the same as fiction and creative writing. Don’t get me wrong, I love my blog and plan to keep up with it for the foreseeable future.
I want to be an amazing and talented writer, which I believe I can only achieve through much practice. If my only practice comes from my published books then that doesn’t look too good for me or for my potential readers. I must experiment with my craft in a safe place without huge consequences. I need an organic birthplace for new and creative ideas that have room to flourish and be themselves.
All of that to say, I am very excited to start my transition of becoming a writer and not just someone who can finish and publish a book.
