It’s Never been Funner or Easier to Pretend to Write

There was a time when you had to tell people you were a writer one at a time.

In person.

Working your publications, your agent, your short-listed story in the year’s best, your zine, into the conversation was hard work. Just blurting this out, creating an awkward silence, was about as good as it got.

Still, the best part of being a writer, then and now, is that no one can make you believe you aren’t one without your consent.

John Kennedy Toole wrote the book Confederacy of Dunces, couldn’t sell it and killed himself in despair. Eleven years later, due to the efforts of his mother and Walker Percy, the book was published to critical acclaim and became a canonical work in southern literature.

If you want, you can skip the despair, the suicide, and just be John Kennedy Toole. You’ve written a classic. Everyone else is wrong about it. You’re a goddamn genius.

Anyone you are talking to, who says they’re a writer, might be a genius.

You can’t prove to them they aren’t.

And the evidence of your industry, as a writer, can be modest. Stacks of manuscripts tied with twine. A pile of hand-written moleskin journals. Nowadays? It can be a thumb drive. “I have written over 100 novels that will be beloved by generations. They’re all on this.” Wave thumb drive. “I’m looking for an agent,” is a good way to end that conversation.

Artists kinda need studios, and gear, and they produce stacks of physical stuff, and if they can’t sell it, the stuff piles up.

A writer, at a certain point, might build a shed. Maybe. It’s not necessary.

So.  You can write a bit. Then think about the next thing you’ll write, for a long, long time. And in the meantime, you can meet other writers on social media and share a lot of inspirational animated gifs.

You can share your process, inspiration, craft tips, your agony, your ecstasy, pictures of your kids, your dog, your protest signs. You get to be a writer whenever you say you are one. Not an under-employed graphic designer, or a retired person, or a kid out of college living with his parents who can’t land a job or a person living on disability or a stay at home parent taking a career hiatus or a person working any number of dead end jobs to make ends meet or a trust fund kid who sleeps till noon and gets drunk every night. So many identities are hard to own.

You can pretend to be a writer instead of being those things.

And… you can always stop pretending, and write; write more; write every day, and work at making your writing as good as it can be.

You can fake it till you make it. Sit down. Make words. Slip inside them.

Be Mr. Orange. Become the bad ass you want to be. Talk yourself into it.

Fool everyone else. Fool yourself.

Accept that we are all fools.

Set aside the dog eared manuscript and write a new one. You’re most writerly when you’re writing.

When you’re ready, stop pretending.

And write.