The Right to Write

When meeting someone for the first time, there's a 50/50 chance I'll express my desire to be a writer. For when I do, it's an easy way to deflect questions surrounding dissatisfaction with my current job. Oftentimes, this backfires when I'm bombarded by questions regarding my writing. I immediately freeze up, overcome with shame, when asked if I write and what it is I write. Truthfully, I have done very little writing in the past year, which makes me think I'm doomed for wannabe writer's hell.

Even worse, I'm often put on the defensive when inquiring minds demand to know, "If you want to be a writer, why aren't you writing?" Logically, it should be that easy, shouldn't it? Believe you me, I wish it were. My parents are the poster child for my pro-writing campaign. My contempt for their encouragement grows day-by-day. They mean well, but they do more harm than good. "Why don't you write a book about _____." You name it, I've heard it -- in one way, shape, or form.

With self-doubt as my arch nemesis, it's a battle of good and evil. The angel, on one shoulder, reminds me of all the positive feedback I've heard over the years. But the devil perches on the adjacent shoulder, spewing negativitity, "This is garbage. You'll never get published. No one would read this." After all, the odds of making it as a full-time writer are...well, too depressing to discuss.

Ultimately, you write for yourself, but there's part of you seeking validation for all your hard work -- the part that dreams of seeing your name in print. Not only do you want nothing more than to prove it to yourself, but publication provides evidential support to others as well, particulary those who rejected or questioned your ability.

In 4th grade, we were given an assignment to write a fictional story for class. I remembered thinking, this is my time to really shine! The day we were supposed to hand in our stories, my excitement turned to terror when my teacher told us we were doing peer review before handing in the final draft.

To my dismay, I was paired up with the biggest bully in the 4th grade and one of his ground-worshipping followers. Here I figured these guys would be bored out of their minds listening to my 11-page (2 was the minimum), handwritten story about a female protaganist with terrible luck -- she fell down the stairs a lot and had a brother who played cruel pranks on her. Sadly, that's all I can remember.

I don't recall any details of their stories, but if I had to wager a guess, they'd probably written theirs on the 10-minute bus ride to school that morning. They both rushed through reading their stories so I was completely mortified when it came time to read mine. That is, until I realized they genuinely seemed to enjoy my work and even laughed aloud at certain parts. After I finished, it came time to critique and their only comments were to have the girl fall down the stairs more. Typical guys. Not only did I feel relieved, but I felt proud for having entertained the biggest bully with ADD in my grade.

I still have the story so perhaps I'll dig it out and post it. Then again, I already feel embarrassed enough by all this talk of my writing. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way, but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier. I'd been planning to post about something entirely different until I read a thread on the Absolute Write forum that got me started on this.