Dear Friend,
I was recently invited to be interviewed for the blog of a small press who published one of my stories. It was nice of them to ask me, I’m happy to do it. The questions they have sent are lob balls, and yet somehow—as with every statement of purpose essay for an application I’ve ever had to write—I can manage to turn them into existential fast balls. Here’s the very first question:
What made you want to become an author? Did you have an “Aha!” moment when you knew you were born to write?
Part one: What made me want to become an author?
Already, the what made me want portion of this question feels overwhelming. I don’t know! Haven’t entire books been written about why people want to do anything? I think it involves nature and nurture or emotions or neural pathways or hormone receptors?
Then there’s become an author. For this blog-about-writers, I think I’m supposed to put a confident foot forward, be a little inspirational even. So I probably won’t mention that I don’t think of myself as an author—that, after years, I can finally sometimes say I’m a writer without immediately reciting all the caveats going through my head, but author is a bridge too far.
Although technically, I can lay claim to the title, when someone says author, I think, they wrote a book. Which I have not done. (Here’s a quick Thesaurus.com take on the Author vs. Writer question.) I would like to become an author someday. But writing a whole book seems like a very big project and when I really contemplate it I start to feel the physical symptoms of an anxiety attack.
Part two: Did I have an “Aha!” moment when I knew I was born to write?
I get that the correct answer to this question—to these two questions combined — should be something like, “I read Nancy Drew #3, The Bungalow Mystery, and that was when I knew I was destined to be a writer.”
I wish. I did like that book, but it did not make me know I was born to write. It only made me want to go to the library and check out Nancy Drew #4.
I do, however, have these memories:
At the age of seven or eight, I saw a roll of adding-machine paper at a yard sale, and had a vision of the entire scroll filled with my writing, and how cool that was going to be. The adult by my side procured the scroll for me, and I commenced the project.
The scroll was the first of many creative projects where my initial ambitions overshot my abilities or attention span. I started out strong, but after a while, each time I wrote, I’d have to un-scroll the paper to reach the blank part. At first I draped it across my white painted desk, but as it got longer, it the paper began to get tangled and twisted and caught under my chair legs. It took longer and longer to re-scroll when I was finished. Ultimately, I admitted it wasn’t sustainable. I cut the written part and rolled it into its own mini-scroll with a rubber band around it. I could have made a collection of mini-scrolls, but the passion for scrolls had subsided. I was ready to move on to my next great idea – a spiral ring notebook I planned to fill by writing only in runic from The Hobbit.
In case you’re wondering, writing in Hobbit runes is a time-consuming endeavor. I did not fill up the notebook.
Retrospectively, it’s clear how these events were fractals of my larger life —which was to be filled with delightful writing-related projects, and haunted by ghosts of those left unfinished.* But somehow, they were not “aha” moments for me.
These days, it’s not uncommon for people to talk about discovering their sexual preferences or gender identities later in life. Some people might ask How could they not have known? How can one be “in the closet” to oneself?”
But I think I understand. I’ve spent years saying I just need to do this one cool thing, then I’ll figure things out. These one-cool-things have included: in college, writing my own monologues for directing projects. In my twenties, taking writing classes at UCLA extension and Santa Monica College “for fun.” In my thirties, buying a book of 365 days of writing prompts and doing them, taking online writing classes, attending weekly writing groups and publishing a restaurant guide for Western Australia. One might think that these things, in addition to a lifelong habit of filling notebooks, floppy drives, jump drives and hard drives, would add up to a moment of realization.
But no.
I applied to an MFA program in Creative Writing with the attitude that it would be one-cool-thing to “go to grad school.”
Only midway through that program, did I begin to acknowledge the truth —that I was going to write for the rest of my life. But even then, it would take more years, and another one-cool-thing writing degree (okay, two) to truly come to terms (to whatever extent I have) that I was born to write.
And I guess that’s my extended “Aha!” moment?
For the interview, I just need to answer that question… and three or four more. No problem. It’s going to be great.
Thanks for letting me work this out.
Warmly,
Barrington
P.S. Though I’m happy to be described as a writer, it would be helpful if the word “projecter” existed:
Projecter
noun
One who conceives of and undertakes projects.
I think this might be my true essence — but that’s a topic for a different day.
P.P.S. I changed the name of this letter. What do you think? It might change again.
l love this! And think you're a great "projecter"! And writer!
Awww, thanks!! Here's to our projects!