Maybe this happens to you all the time.
Yesterday, I was introducing myself to another parent at the roller rink. And a friend standing nearby asked if I were skating too. “Yes,” I said. “I’ve been at my computer so much this week, I need to move.”
And this father, who knew nothing about me other than I’m a mom of a speed skater, said, “Why do you spend so much time at the computer? Are you a writer?”
Of all the people who have heard me say something about spending too much time with my laptop, no one has ever asked me if I’m a writer. They’ve asked what company I work for. They’ve asked if I teach. They’ve asked what I did that required so much computer time. Never has someone looked at me seriously and asked, “Are you a writer?”
My first impulse was to say, “Oh! Do I look like one?”
My second impulse was to lie. Well, it wouldn’t be a lie. I am a teacher. But I still thought of just dropping the writing bit of my life for the conversation.
But I said, “Yes. Yes, I am.”
And then I realized he’d probably ask me what I’d published–and inwardly I groaned at my foolishness.
But he didn’t. He asked as if it were the most normal question in the world, “What kinds of stories do you write?”
I find that question—-are you a writer—-difficult to answer. Do you? Or did you ever? And if you used to, but don’t anymore, why did it change?
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And I’ve got an excerpt of story 21! Ten more stories to go.
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 
When I have difficulties with my confidence, when I’m insecure about my ability, then yes it’s difficult for me to answer. But it’s been a long time since I’ve been that insecure about that aspect of myself. It was the word “author” which presented the biggest stumbling block for me. Writer’s easy; author is harder. Or it was.
Nothing’s hard anymore. Except trying to explain to people why I don’t sit around in tweed jackets with leather elbow patches smoking a clay pipe and developing crow’s feet.
In this age of Stephanie Meyer and JK Rowling do people still think that about writers? Okay, so those are women, but in this internet/video age, I don’t meet people who seem to think writers still have elbow patches.
And doesn’t everyone get crow’s feet?
But that just shows how different are life experiences are. It is good that you’ve got the confidence to call yourself a writer. I mean, you are a writer, so you should, Obviously.
Now I am more neurotic than many, but I also think that women have a harder time calling themselves writers than men do. Men seem to question this less. Not saying they don’t, but still.
Oh, I could ramble on. But I’ll spare us both.
Since I work half-time, I’m forced to admit that I’m a writer or make up some other profession. I find that “writer” pretty much shuts people up. If it doesn’t, I then tell them I write an anonymous story blog and that definitely ends the conversation.
Well, for me sometimes it shuts people up, but usually it leads to questions I don’t want to answer.
Yes, I find it hard to describe myself as a writer at all really, but maybe that’s best because I write in splurges, and in ways that never will be read. Often friends send me an email of maybe eight lines …… I’ll be generous here…. maybe ten lines, and that’s fine…. It’s what most people send I guess. Me, I reply with anything from a thousand to three thousand words. I call them ‘rambles’, and I should cut/paste them into a single document….. maybe someone would like to browse it one day. God alone knows who that would be, but then again the one thing that you can never predict is what’s going to be interesting to who in the years to come.
Reminds me…….. the blog needs writing to. I promised it I was going to write to it regularly this time. Trouble is, I’ve promised it that many times before. {:o)
K.x {:o)