It's been a new problem, sort of. New to me. Something I never really had to contend with in the past.
For most of my life, I’ve had an answer ready on my lips - clear, precise, unwavering. School student, college student, post graduate student, banker, equities trader. Each one definite, bundled with a set of assumptions I was comfortable with.
I used to be all those things at various points in my life. And then I wasn’t.
For a while, I wasn’t anyone in my own right. I reverted to an identity defined by relationships. Somebody’s daughter, sister, wife. There’d be an adjective that made it seem more substantial. NRI daughter. Elder sister. Expat, or even trailing wife. These combined with other identities defined by interests - reader, quizzer, traveller - creating a composite whole I hoped would be greater than the sum of the parts.
When I went back to school to study Mandarin full time, I reverted to being a student. It’s a title I will happily bear for all my days. And I began writing - freelance. Articles, interviews, reviews. I had an answer again to that most innocuous of questions - “So, what do you do?”
“I study Mandarin,” I’d say. “And I write freelance.” No problem. Besides, I had begun to challenge myself by venturing into the hitherto uncharted waters of fiction writing, albeit on a very small scale, but I was having fun with it, and learning a lot.
Till last year. At a social gathering, I was confronted with a question for which my new found sense of identity wasn't enough. After the ice had well and truly cracked, my hostess enquired in that polite, matter of fact way - “So Dimple, who are you and what do you do for a living?”
I found myself stammering. One doesn't reply to a “who” question with what one does. Permit my digression into grammar for a second - ‘who’ is a question word that requires a noun in reply, not a verb. And the ‘for a living’ threw me off as well; I wasn't really making a living with anything that I was doing.
But doing what I was doing mattered to me, so I managed to croak out the verbs after all. “Oh, I study Mandarin, and I write freelance.”
“Oh, you’re a writer,” she purred, before squeezing my arm in a gesture of extreme regret signifying she had to leave my side and go meet some other people.
It was the first time someone had enunciated those words out loud. And that someone hadn't been me.
I spent a long time wondering why that was. What was it about about those words that made me balk? After all if someone who teaches is a teacher, and someone who sings is a singer, surely someone who writes is a writer, aren’t they? The phrasing holds true both in terms of concept as well as syntax.
So why the petulance, which, I am given to understand, is not altogether uncommon? I’ve thought long and hard about it, and I think there are several reasons.
First, I don’t quite know why, but it sounds incredibly pretentious out loud. So maybe I just don’t want to sound like a self-absorbed, pseudo-intellectual git. I’m slowly getting used to it, but I still face those cringe-worthy moments from time to time.
Or maybe it comes down to the fact that the assumptions that come with the term are misguided at best and deluded at worst. This arises not out of some form of ill will; rather it stems from misinformation and a lack of awareness about writing and the writing life. You must believe me when I tell you how disconcerting it is to reply to questions such as “What book are you writing?” (Not all writers write books), “Have I read anything by you?” (Um, nothing yet, but I’m working on it), “How long did your last book take?” (See above).
Or perhaps I demurred because you cannot be said to be engaged in a profession unless you get paid for doing it. I mean, we all write, don’t we? Texts, emails, lengthy technical reports? For one to ascend to the top of the heap using a common enough skill that all of us have used since childhood, with little or no further formal training, requires more than just the act of putting pen to paper, or keys to a keyboard, and expressing oneself. A ‘writer’ is one whose efforts are vetted by society at large as approaching the level of art.
And from this starting position, when you begin writing a full length book, you are allowed to take on the title of ‘novelist’. The Holy Grail, of course, is the much lauded ‘Author’, which can be claimed only on publication and modest success of said debut.
Whatever be the reason, to my mind, if there is one undeniable fact, it is this. It takes some doing to get from the verb ‘writing’ to the noun ‘writer’.
You may look askance at this logic and pronounce it flawed. Flawed or not, I decided I would only be comfortable owning the term ‘writer’ when I had, quite literally, earned it. Which meant getting published, and getting paid. The one would signify my commitment to the endeavour, the other would attest to an unbiased, third party affirmation of any skill I might have.
I have been published. Rejected too, more times than I’d like, but that’s par for the course. And I have been paid. Not a lot, certainly not every time, but some. I’m still a novice. I still have a lot to learn. At the moment, I’m trying to use short fiction as a way to better my craft while I plan and outline my first full length novel. I guess you could say I’m learning to walk before I run that marathon.
So, I write. It’s hard work, and a lonely undertaking, but as with all creative endeavours, I’ve found there’s an integrity in the effort that is its own reward.
I create worlds from thin air. I breath life into imaginary characters, put words in their mouth, set them in challenging situations, mould their choices and actions. I am the spinner of dreams, the harbinger of doom, the angel of death, the path not taken.
It’s the closest thing there is to playing God. And I love every exhilarating, frustrating, terrifying moment of it.
Words have power. I should know.
It’s time.
I’m a writer.