On Being a Writer

I should start by saying that I feel like one of those super trendy writers right now because I'm sitting in Starbucks with a grande flat white instead of at home near the bay window in my PJs, where my writing typically takes place.  Now that that important fact is out of the way, we can move on.  I've thought for a long time about what it means for me to say that I'm a writer.  If you asked me to tell you who I am, I'd tell you a lot of different things.  I'd tell you that I'm 24, that I'm a runner, a wife, a nurse, a dreamer.  I'd tell you that I love coffee and Earl Grey tea, that I hate bananas.  And I might tell you that I'm a writer, but chances are, I wouldn't.

For reasons unknown, I'm scared to tell people that I am a writer.  Maybe because I don't know what it means for me to call myself that.  Maybe because I don't believe that I really am one.  What does that term even mean?  I'm writing a book, but more often than not, I spend my time writing small essays that become blog posts.  But I don't identify with being a "blogger."  No offense to bloggers, but I just don't think I fall into that category of writing.  I don't use my space to try to build a bigger following or offer giveaways or freebies or anything like that.  In fact, the only regular feature on my blog that could be considered "blog-esque" are the Small Joys posts that I try to write every week.  Otherwise, I'm just writing short essays that so happen to be displayed on a blog.

Recently, though, I've become ok with owning the fact that I am a writer.  I take it more seriously and spend more time developing my craft.  I look forward to writing every chance I get and I get frustrated and upset when I've gone too many days without doing it.

This past weekend when I listened to Shauna Niequist speak, I felt so inspired by owning my identity as a writer.  She talked about how writers have to love reading, how this isn't an option.  I could feel my whole body nodding in agreement, thinking about how I couldn't wait to get home and crack open a book of my own at the end of the day.  I loved her reasoning for why writers had to be readers though, and that's something worth sharing with you.  She said that writers had to be readers because you can't join a conversation without knowing what's been happening in the conversation.  And I see what she is saying in that.  You could be trying to write a book about a certain topic, and maybe there's already a lot of books about that topic.  You have to know that what you're contributing is valuable and important, that it's different than what everyone else is saying.  Or that it's the same but a new way of presenting the information.

I'll confess to you that I love writing.  It's in my blood in a way that nothing else has ever been in my life, not even nursing.  I wake up with thoughts that I want to put on paper and I see things in my daily life that are so poetic and beautiful that I know I must capture everything about them in my mind, both for writing and also for the pure beauty of that moment.  Writing makes my life so much richer, my thoughts so much deeper.  I feel full after writing, like I would after eating my favorite meal.  Writing a book scares me because I don't want it to change me.  I don't want to pursue publishing so much that I lose sight of why I write in the first place.  I never write to an audience, it's always just for whoever is out there that will listen or read.

If I could rent out a beach house for a few months to claim as my writer's home, I would do it in a heartbeat.  Or a cabin in the woods, or a room out in the country.  I recently finished Donald Miller's book, Scary Close, in which he mentions such writer's retreats to write and finish his books, and I was insanely jealous.  I thought about how nice that would be to just wake up every morning, go on a run, brew a large pot of coffee, and write all day, every day.  Except that I would miss something in that.  I would miss the real living that inspires my writing.  I'd miss the emotional rollercoasters and the interactions and the happenings that inspire me in every way.  Maybe then it is best that I squeeze writing into the midst of a busy, chaotic life, between dishes and laundry, between night shift nursing and being a wife.

I think that when you love something enough, you make time for it.  You do it as much as you can, whenever and wherever you can.  Whether it's writing on index cards on a road trip to Nashville (this is how an entire chapter of my book was born) or waking up to practice your craft in the wee hours of the morning, you make time for it in your life.

I hope that you have something in your life that makes your heart sing, and that you find the time to practice that often.

Lots of love,
Cristina.