In other words, I’m my own worst enemy, as the cliché goes, and struggle daily to change.

Yesterday, at my son’s doctor appointment, the doctor mentioned that his niece’s young adult book had just been picked up by a major publisher, and that Sherman Alexei (someone I greatly admire) was one of the people who had written a cover blurb for her. Trying to be brave, I mentioned that I, too, had a book out. I asked him to give my compliments to his niece, and we had a nice conversation.

But inside? The whole time I was thinking, wow, his niece is a real writer. Followed by instant fear that he would ask me who published my book, to which I’d have to admit, ‘me’. Or, I figured I could say, ‘it’s an Indie publishing’ hoping he didn’t know that meant ‘me’. I felt embarrassed and even a tiny bit ashamed. My inner writer immediately cowered in her dark, dank, closet, cringing, while the voice that sounds like my mom shouted outside the door, ‘YOU’RE NOT A REAL WRITER! YOU’RE NOT EVEN VERY GOOD!’

Come on, really? At this time of my life, I still cower before that inner critic? How absolutely stupid. And yet, being very honest here, I do.

So what is a real writer? I know the answer to that question. Anyone who writes. What is an author? To me, anyone who is published. I have friends who have published their own books and are very successful at it. Susan Schreyer comes immediately to mind. Multiple books out, always busy marketing in a very professional manner. She’s a real author.

Okay, I just had a lightbulb moment. I don’t feel like an author because I only have one book out, I’m not wild about the cover (which was a mistake), I’m not doing a huge amount of marketing because I don’t think marketing kicks in until you have more than one book out, and I always feel my writing comes up short. So success to me, is multiple books, a marketing plan, and most importantly, the confidence to say, I’m in charge of my writing and publishing. I don’t need a big name publisher behind me to feel like an author.

In spite of feeling like a failure as an author, and feeling like a not very good writer, I honestly love my story. I’m having fun working on the sequel. I think it will be a good story, too. I know I do a good job with setting because that soars for me. I like my characters; some even make me laugh. So why isn’t that good enough?

I guess because I am from that generation that wrote during the time when publishing meant being accepted by someone else. My brain knows that is no longer important in this day and age, and that publishers and agents are struggling. But my writing soul still assumes the mantle of inadequacy.

I know, it’s stupid. But it’s honest, and I haven’t figured out how to change.  And I know exactly what is going to happen now. My friends are going to send me emails bawling me out and telling me I’m a good writer. And I’ll thank them, and inside I’ll think, ‘of course you have to say that, you’re a friend’. Continuing the self-defeating role.

For now anyway. I’ll get this figured out. I’m actually a stronger person than that writer cowering in the closet.

A friend of mine, Ré, posted a poem on her blog https://sparksinshadow.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/drunken-poem-free-drink-event-vodka/ and I liked it so much I asked her if I could post it here to share. If you go to her blog you’ll see the story behind the post, but for now, please take a moment to go to the sidebar under ‘Poem or Quote’ and read her words.

I hope the poem will resonate with you as it did with me, especially the last lines.

I know the link is long but I can’t get the ‘insert link’ button to work. Sorry!

I met a new writer this evening. He’s working on a memoir, and just to pique your interest, he was famous from the ’70’s on. When the memoir comes out I’ll tell you his name but for now you’ll have to forgive me for honoring his privacy. Besides, this isn’t about dropping names. It is, of course, about the story.

He’s almost done with the first draft, handwritten in tiny words across several notebooks. Recently a relative told him, ‘you should put more family in there’. And you can guess what happened. He rewrote the first chapter and added to it and everything ground to a halt. Which is when his wife asked me to come talk to him. I told her I’m no expert, but she’s pretty hard to say no to. He didn’t know that she had talked to me about the problem. He only knew another writer was going to visit.

This afternoon I climbed steps to their A-frame in the woods, composing all the things I’d say. You writers will recognize these clichés. Don’t accept criticisms until the first draft is done and edited by you. Write what you want, what resonates with you; don’t write for an audience.  And so on. When I sat with him, this brave man pulled out the revised first chapter and started reading to me. And all the things I planned on saying faded.

When he was done I told him that I could pick out his revisions and pointed to one particular passage about a brother. And then I told him why that passage stood out so starkly. The previous vignettes started with a humorous story that captured you and had you smiling, until they very seamlessly segued into things like an essay on Vietnam and war in general, on how that war impacted him, his way of looking at life, and the things he did and came to do. I went from laughing to getting teary. In those pieces, he pulled up his emotions, placed them in front of the reader, and made the reader feel them.

The added insert was a simple, ‘he said this, he did that’ type of family story. He was telling, not sharing.

To prove my point, I told him that I bet that insert was a lot easier to write than the rest. He agreed, surprised. I said that was because there was no emotion, no connection, no soul. We talked about how you can’t get a reader to drop tears on the page if there are no tears in the words.

We also talked about how, when someone says ‘you should do this’, what you really need to do is run the other way. I used to work with a therapist who would say, ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda; the paving stones to hell’.

So I didn’t give him all the writing advice I’d planned on, but when I left, we’d decided that for the way he writes, from now on, anytime this memoir is coming easy, with no effort, then that’s a flag for him to go back and see if he’s there in the words.

I’m no expert but I feel pretty good today. My friends have supported and helped me with writing and it was wonderful to pass a little of that on.

And I can’t wait for the book to come out.