Woe and Discovery

I don't really write on here anymore. I'm so taken up with my other blog that I never think of it. "One creative outlet at a time!" I think to myself. And because I've committed to every day on that one, that's the one I'm focused on. I always have my camera with me and it has become an obsession. And, me being me, I say rather a lot on there for a photo blog.

There's no picture to go with what I want to say this morning, though. So, here I am.

I have a job. I have a job with insurance, with plenty of time off, with my own office, with enough money to pay my bills, and with co-workers I am close to. In these financial times (especially in Michigan), I am fortunate and blessed to have this job. I know this. I am grateful for this.

But there are times when I can't help wondering if a paycheck is enough of a payoff for feeling like a constant failure. And those times are coming more and more frequently of late.

My professional life has always involved writing. I have been a writer of radio scripts, of newspaper articles, of human interest profiles, of advertisements, of book covers of wide variety, and of sales copy. My current job is no different--I write for a living. Yet I have recently been told that I am a disappointing writer, a careless writer, a writer who makes no sense.

And I believed the person who told me this. I believed every word.

The problem is that it's all I really know how to do. I write. I'm a writer. I have always been a writer. So what do you do when your identity is taken from you? How do you anchor who you are when your self-portrait is destroyed?

This morning I clicked on Me Ra Koh's photography blog and found the following quote from Madeleine L'Engle:
“This (the rejection) seemed an obvious sign from heaven. I should stop trying to write. All during the decade of my thirties I went through spasms of guilt because I spent so much time writing, because I wasn’t like a good New England housewife and mother. When I scrubbed the kitchen floor, the family cheered. I couldn’t make a decent pie crust. I always managed to get something red in with the white laundry in the washing machine, so that everybody wore streaky pink underwear. And with all the hours I spent writing. I was still not pulling my own weight financially.

So the rejection on the my fortieth birthday seemed an unmistakable command: Stop this foolishness and learn to make cherry pie.

I covered the typewriter in a great gesture of renunciation. Then I walked around and around the room, bawling my head off. I was totally, unutterable miserable.

Suddenly I stopped, because I realized what my subconscious mind was doing while I was sobbing: my subconscious mind was busy working out a novel about failure.

I uncovered the typewriter. In my journal I recorded this moment of decision, for that’s what it was. I had to write. I had no choice in the matter. It was not up to me to say I would stop, because I could not. It didn’t matter how small or inadequate my talent. If I never had another book published, and it was very clear to me that this was a real possibility, I still had to go on writing.

I’m glad I made this decision in the moment of failure. It’s easy to say you’re a writer when things are going well. When the decision is made in the abyss, then it is quite clear that it is not one’s own decision at all.”

I read this quote and I cried.

I realized that in the midst of this crisis of self, I've still been writing creatively. I'm still finding characters and seeing stories and my imagination is still throwing out huge, heady, brilliant blooms--so many that I can't possibly get to them all and am sometimes completely overwhelmed.

I'm a writer. I'm a creator. I may not be the world's best, I may not live up to certain expectations in certain areas. But that doesn't negate the fact that I am a writer. I'm just not his kind of writer.