Over the past week, I’ve once again run into some very strongly-stated ‘opinions’ about writing. These are almost always negative: You aren’t allowed to decide if you’re a writer, someone else has to make that judgment. You have to meet certain standards, do things a certain way, and only write certain kinds of things to be a ‘real’ writer. You shouldn’t tell people you’re a writer, or be proud of being a writer, or even think of writing as something special – and gods forbid you should ever think you’re special. In the opinions of some people, being a writer is at once a membership in a very exclusive club – in both meanings of the word – and a dirty little secret. More than once, and quite a lot this year especially, I’ve run into roaming herds of these nasty little opinions and just felt beaten down by them. Are they right? Is that the way it really works? Am I just making an idiot out of myself by ‘claiming’ to be a writer when it’s a title I don’t deserve conferred by a club I’ll never get into? Should I just pull all my work, from everywhere, and hide in a closet in shame?
But then, right on the heels of those dark doubts, a light will always flicker on. Someone will post Neil Gaiman’s awesome commencement speech in a place where I’ll just happen to stumble across it. Or Seth Godin will write about the worst trolls being the ones inside your head, or the importance of accurate and positive self-talk. Or someone will send me awesome feedback telling me that a story I wrote made them happy when happy was what they needed most.
Or, best of all, a new story will show up to be told. Usually you just get an idea and decide to tell a story about it – that’s the part of writing that the trampling herd can and does shut off. But sometimes, much more rarely, a story comes trotting along and tells you that you’re its writer in no uncertain terms. And in that moment you know that you’re a writer, and that no one else’s opinion matters. Because the story has chosen you, and the story is always right.