All I Ever Really Wanted To Be Was A Writer

 

I want to write!  But I’m not sure how to be a writer?

 

I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I care to remember. It could’ve started when I was a child and my mother was young, or maybe it came with me?  I don’t know.

Maybe it did come from my mother, who told me often how she wished she would have been a famous writer traveling the world.  She probably wished most of all to be free of me from time to time.

Maybe that’s what I like about writing?  It’s freeing.  Writing sets me free of being me for a while.

I am indeed a writer.

You can tell for yourself, I am a writer! I’m writing this, aren’t I ?

If you insist upon a writer being rich and famous though, I wouldn’t fit into your into your category of writers.  I am neither of those—yet.  Never the less, I am a writer!

I am glad to report to you that an online acquaintance, Jeff Goins, assures me that I am a writer, because I say I am one!

Not because I am depending on the experience of being rich and famous or even writing well, but because I by God say right out loud “I AM A WRITER!

I write as good as I can.

As I am sure you have noticed by now, I may not be that good at the craft, or the art. But one day I realized: that doesn’t matter!  Good doesn’t matter at all as to whether or not I am one, a writer, that is.

Don’t you know mechanics, carpenters, presidents, grocery clerks, and any other title you can come up with, that simply aren’t the best at what they do?

Of course you do.

And now you know me, Mike Mahaffey, a writer.

I am fully aware, much too aware for my own good, that I am not that great a writer. But I must write on, good or bad!

Not writing leaves me in this terrible state of yearning to write.  Yearning to be free of me.  Soaring once again.

What To Write?

I wish to somehow come upon a passion for something to write about, other than my own personal memories.

I wish for the writing muse to come to visit me and even stay for some period of time. I wish for her to bring some desire to write about a particular thing, or topic, that I simply must pour out of myself.

That could be because I am lazy, or merely lack imagination. I could be waiting on her arrival to shirk my own responsibility to my own responsibility.

It could be anything, but I do wish she would hurry along?

So, now you see what I’ve done, don’t you? I’ve just poured out of myself— something about myself— to you.  That’s just what I do.

That’s all I really want to do with my writing anyway. Just get this stuff out of me!

Get it on paper so we can all have a little look at it.  Once it’s out, we can sit around and poke at it with a stick?  See what it’s all about; see if we can get it to move?

What About Writing Novels?

When I read I wonder things like “does this writer think like this all of the time?   Does he somehow have the ability to just imagine something completely out of character?  Just make up a story out of thin air, on a whim?

For some reason, I think that I will really be a “real” writer when I can sit here and pour out something from my imagination. A novel with imaginary characters that live in imaginary places, and do imaginary things.  Now that’s a writer!

Meanwhile, back at the keyboard, I am a writer!  I evidently am one because I just keep on and on.

A lot of writers don’t like to read what they wrote, but that’s not me.  I hate editing, but I love to poke and poke at it!

So Mom, thank you for being a reader, and always wishing you could soar with the eagles.  Whatever that urge is, I got it too!

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