Learning to Call Myself a Writer
I once took a writing class.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I took quite a few of them over the years. Some were online courses, others were adult education classes. I enjoyed every one of them and learned something from each, but none of them helped me overcome my basic shyness about showing my work to strangers.
The funny thing is that I never worried much about what people thought of my blog posts.
Writing a blog felt different.
Writing a blog was like sitting down and talking with friends. I’d start typing and somehow the post would take care of itself. There wasn’t a lot of planning involved. I simply told the story I wanted to tell and hit publish.
My instructors, however, rarely seemed as satisfied as I was.
I’d submit an assignment and it would come back covered with suggestions on how to “improve” it. That’s what the class was supposed to do, right? Help me become a better writer. Instead, it often left me feeling less confident than when I started.
The truth is, I never thought of myself as a writer.
When I sat through Composition 101, I certainly wasn’t dreaming of writing the Great American Novel. In fact, I thought most writing classes were pretty boring. It’s hard to believe that all these years later I spend so much of my day sitting behind a keyboard.
The Best Writing Advice I Ever Received
There was one instructor, though, who left me with the most valuable piece of advice I ever received.
He said that if you want to be a writer, you have to write every day.
Some days you’ll stare at a blank white page and nothing will come. Other days you’ll write something that belongs in the circular file. But you write anyway.
I’ve been trying to remember that advice today.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the passage of time. Maybe it’s because so many of the people who shaped my younger years, whether through books, television, music, or film, are reaching the stage of life where we’re reminded that nobody gets to stop the clock.
And that realization brings an uncomfortable thought with it.
I’m not getting any younger either.
There are still too many places I want to visit, too many photographs I want to take, and too many stories I want to tell.
More Than a Blank Page
Then I realized something this morning.
Since picking my blog back up, I’ve written every single day for 468 days. That’s more than a year of showing up and putting words on a page.
And since my blog first went online in 2011, I’ve published more than 2,500 posts. As I write this, the count stands at 2,562 published posts, with another 10 waiting in the queue.
That’s a lot of words from someone who never thought of herself as a writer.
Now, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably noticed that I’m rambling a little. My thoughts are bouncing from writing classes to blogging to aging and back again.
But that’s okay.
Because I’m doing exactly what that instructor told me to do all those years ago.
I’m writing something.
It may not be perfect. It may be a little rough around the edges. It may wander off course once or twice.
But it’s no longer a blank page.
