Why You Are Not Your Writing
Perhaps, you disagree with me. Perhaps, you envision your writing as some small (or large) piece of who you are. You wouldn’t be alone in that belief.
Reflections by Camil Tulcan
Many writers see their writing as an extension of themselves. And there have been times when I felt precisely the same way.
Writing can be gut-wrenching work. Sometimes, when we write, we feel we’ve put a piece of ourselves onto the page.
Plus, consider some popular metaphors for writing, such as “sweating” or “cutting open a vein and bleeding onto the page.” These metaphors emphasize how writing is a tangible product of the writer’s own body.
However, in this article, I argue that you are not your poetry, your novel, your memoir, your blog post, or that heartfelt scribbling on a napkin.
In short, you are not your writing and your writing is not you.
A Break Down of Distinctions
Perhaps, it’s a matter of semantics, but I believe the difference between one’s identity and one’s writing is an important distinction for any writer.
Let me break it down like this: If you write, then you’re a writer, and your writing is a creative expression of your experiences, thoughts, and feelings.
For instance, your writing of a personal experience isn’t the experience in itself. It’s a creative retelling, a reshaping of experience into language such that the writing becomes a new experience—one that can be shared with others who read it and make their own experience of it.
Some writers think of their writing as a kind of “giving birth” and consider their novels, plays, memoirs, and poems to be something akin to “children.”
However, when a mother gives birth to a child, that child is a separate human being, and parents who see their children as extensions of themselves are not only cultivating familial dysfunction but are in for a whole world of hurt. If you don’t believe me, ask my mother.
My point is this: for your growth as a writer and for the well-being of your writing (as well as your sanity), it’s necessary to make a distinction between your identity as a writer and your writing.
Why the Distinction is Important
So, why make this distinction? Here are just a few reasons:
- Because, like the parent who balks when their kid strays from the neat path that’s been laid out for them, you’ll have extra trouble when your writing suddenly takes a strange turn and won’t conform to even your best outline. If you closely identify with your writing, then you may unnecessarily stifle your own creativity. Rather than nurture your writing into the unpredictable creative product that it is, you may let your ego–your sense of self–take over and force it to go in the directions that you assume best reflect you as a person or as a writer. And in such an instance, I believe your writing will suffer. In my opinion and my experience, brilliant writing happens when we go off the pre-designed maps in our minds and we suddenly discover new creative landscapes, new creative possibilities. That’s a lot harder to do when you believe and act as if your writing is an extension of you.
- Because, if you want to improve your writing, then constructive critique will feel like an assault rather than a literary exercise. Some writers get their feelings hurt, become overly defensive or angry about negative critiques of their writing. I’d suggest part of the problem here is a failure to draw a boundary between their writing and their egos. And again, by “ego,” I mean a sense of identity. Plus, if we let another person’s opinion of our writing get the best of our egos, then maybe it’s time to work on some creative self-esteem.
- Because, if you want to publish, it’s going to hurt more than necessary when someone takes an editing pen to your writing and starts slashing whole paragraphs or deleting all those lovely poetic lines you labored over. When I was freelancing, this happened to me several times, and the very worst of it was when the editor completely changed what I intended to mean. While that’s a definite “ouch” for any writer, it helped that I knew another article was right behind that one, and in the end, it was just a magazine article. It wasn’t my right arm.
- Because the quality of your writing does not reflect your worth as a writer. Whether you write brilliantly or you write poorly, you are a writer who possesses a unique and perfect creativity. Your identity as a writer rests solely upon the fact that you write—not on whether or not you’re published, famous, or rewarded in critical praise or money for your writing. In other words, your identity as a writer doesn’t rest on the “success” of your writing.
A Personal Lesson
And this last reason is perhaps reason enough to believe you aren’t your writing and you’re writing isn’t you.
In my twenty years of writing professionally, there have been times when my writing was hot. I was publishing and actually getting paid for it, and my writing was garnering positive attention and receiving great reviews.
And then came those other times, when I missed crucial deadlines and suddenly I was receiving rejections and outright negative critiques. Twice, I pulled my submissions from publications because I was “offended” by the editors’ suggestions. In other words, I let my ego, my sense of identity, get in the way. So, that’s two less publication credits for me, and one metaphorical gunshot wound to the foot.
When I identified my writing as a part of myself, then when my writing wasn’t successful, suddenly I wasn’t successful either, and it was only by suffering the pain, messiness, and drama of not drawing a distinction between my sense of self and my writing that I finally came to understand:
I am not my writing. My writing is quite simply an expression of my creativity—not a reflection of my worth as a person or an artist.
So, tell me, are you your writing? Is your writing a part of you? Why or why not?
If you’ve enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it.
Flickr photo courtesy of Camil Tulcan
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[...] blog posts get to the heart and soul of writing, such as on “Why You are Not Your Writing” and “Inner Solitude: Or What You Absolutely Need in Order To [...]
Everyone who writes should read this. Excellent post, Ami.
Maureen´s last [type] ..Thought for the Day
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Ami Mattison Reply:
June 14th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Thank you, Maureen! I always appreciate your encouragement and support!
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What you have written here is so important, and reminds me of how my writing students, who had no trouble accepting less than perfect grades on calculus or physics exams, could be crushed by a B on a paper. I think it is because, as you wrote, they identified with their writing in a way they did not in other subjects. They felt I was grading THEM, not their work.
Thank you!
Lisa´s last [type] ..What are your daily writing goals?
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Ami Mattison Reply:
June 15th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Thanks, Lisa! Student papers are a great example of how writers of all ages identify with their writing. My writing students felt the same way!
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Hey Ami…. this is terrific. I would just add that if a person is born to write as in gifted, it can be death to the psyche not to write. A bird without a song. For me being a writer and my identity are necessarily synonymous after a long time of denying that I write therefore I am– as in, how critical participating in the creative process is to one’s life. We all need a positive sense of self and a sense of purpose. Articulating the world, which writers are driven to do, is so linked to “being” that one can’t exist without the other. Being able to detach from one’s words enough to be open to critique, and strong enough to handle rejection, to me, are somewhat separate issues.
Bravo to you for these great posts. Would you go to my site and tell me whether or not my videos are playing? xx j
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Ami Mattison Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Yes, Jenne’, you highlight an issue that I wasn’t able to really address in this article and that’s the writer’s close identification with the writing process itself, which is, of course, necessary if not inevitable for any writer. Coincidentally, I’m working on another post that tries to address our identities as writers–our identification with the writing process–and why we write. So, definitely I have something to say on the issues you raise here.
As you note, our detachment (or not) from the product of our writing is a separate question, which is what this particular article addresses.
Anyway, thanks so much for your thoughtful and insightful comment!
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This was something I have never thought of but I am glad you made me question whether or not I feel that I AM my poetry. Hummmm—-no. I am fascinated by the magic that happens through us, but we, as writers, are just the facilitators for the magic that happens when words and images fling themselves at one another in our brains and we watch and try to catch them when they are expressing their most interesting and ,sometimes, if we are lucky, their most absurd relationships with one another. I love revision because nothing reveals its true face at first.
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Ami Mattison Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 8:01 pm
This is a really interesting way to think of the question, Jean. I agree that there’s a bit of “magic” in poetry, how it happens, how it slowly reveals itself to us. Thanks for sharing!
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Hi Ami–
Finally catching up on your recent posts. This is another one that makes me wish I were still teaching so that I could share it with students. I forget sometimes how I felt when I was a much (much!) younger writer, when any critique of my writing felt like critique of me. In my last writing group, one of our norms was to not talk directly to the writer when discussing her work. Our talk focused on what we saw in the work, not on what we knew of the writer. If we felt we needed to talk about the writer (as in “On page X, the writer seems to be saying…”) we said “the writer” rather than “Sharon.” It felt a little false to me at first, but I can see that it helped me, when I was the writer whose work was being discussed, feel that the talk was about about the work, not me–and that the work was something that exists separately from me. I always knew that, but feeling it is a different thing from knowing it.
Thanks for sharing this–I always see something interesting or valuable in your posts.
Rita
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Ami Mattison Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 5:24 am
Rita, you highlight a really important distinction between “knowing” that our work “exists separately” from us and “feeling” that truth. Ultimately, I think it’s primarily through experience that we come to really “feel” it. For me, I had to struggle through a bunch of internal drama before I could accept that my work and its success (or failure) did not define me as a writer. Thanks for the insight!
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Thank you! And thank your post!
This problem has been bothering me for a long time.
And finally I got the answer… I wish I could have read this ealier.
Somehow it makes me feel very relieved.
I guess like you said, I worry too much about how people would view me through my writing. I am jumping to your another post”creative self-esteem.” now…
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Ami Mattison Reply:
June 26th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
You’re welcome, seeing2sea! I’m very glad you found the article useful in some way and that it gives you some relief. Thanks for reading and commenting!
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Hi,
amazing post, this really hit home for me as I have also identified my poetry & short stories as an extension of myself & believe that it has held me back some. I found this post via Tayari Jones’ blog, so glad she highlighted you. I will definitely continue to read your blog.
sMichelle´s last [type] ..homage
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Ami Mattison Reply:
July 25th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Thanks, sMichelle! So glad you enjoyed the post, and it makes me happy that you’ll continue to check out the blog!
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At last a lucid description of something I believe strongly: ‘you are not your writing’.
With your blessing Ami, I shall link this to my blog. Great stuff.
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Ami Mattison Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 10:19 am
So glad you enjoyed the article, Elisabeth. And thank you for linking it to your blog! I really appreciate your support!
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I’ve been considering just this lately and I’m not so sure. I do believe that writing for me, is less an outside extension, than it is a right arm or a really big ear or some other fleshy thing hanging off the side of me, but which feeds from the very wet life inside of me. I think of Elizabeth’s spit in the cup (as I came here from her blog) and I think that when I write it does go into a cup but there is always a spittle trail between that keeps it warm and familiar to me. But then I’m not sure if this is true, or if I’m perhaps emotionally reacting.
This is a very interesting piece. There’s much to learn from examining this. Thank you for this.
xo
erin
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Ami Mattison Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Thank you, Erin, for your thoughtful comment. I think I understand your reluctance to wholeheartedly accept the premise of this particular article. On an emotional level, it’s difficult for me to “let go” of my poems and to see them as outside of my sense of identity.
My more recent article “Writing for Our Lives” (which I consider to be a companion piece to this one) addresses the question of our identification as writers with the writing process. I think it begins to answer a question that this article raises: If we aren’t the products of our creative efforts, then who are we as writers?
Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to engage!
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Elisabeth’s posting led me here. Reading your thoughts helped me know that what I write is not different than a cake I may bake. It is OF me but is not me…that is another creature altogether. What I write now exists because I feel a direction to create; the form it assumes is organic, not something I impose. I write because I can’t not.
Marylinn Kelly´s last [type] ..Must be demon rasslin time
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Ami Mattison Reply:
August 9th, 2010 at 3:15 am
Thank you, Marylinn, for your insight. I really love your cake analogy. And I believe that letting our writing grow organically from our desire to create helps us to make that distinction between ourselves and what we creatively produce. Finally, I really like your last declaration–”I write because I can’t not.” Right on!
Thanks again, and good luck with your writing!
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Thanks Ami. Sorry I’m so late in checking out this post (I won’t bore you with my litany of lame excuses). I want to post this above my writing desk so maybe I can let go a little and not take criticism so personally … even the constructive criticism. It was becoming such a heavy burden, first to find the strength and self confidence to call myself “a writer”, then to believe I “was my writing”, it sometimes made me freeze up, fear of failure.
Julie Jeffs´s last [type] ..Wait but let me explain!!!
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Ami Mattison Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 6:56 am
Thanks, Julie, for your honest and heartfelt comment. For many creative people, it’s a painful struggle to take up the identity of “writer” or “artist.” And then it can be even more painful to strongly identify with the product of one’s creative efforts–its success or failure. As your experience exemplifies, it can keep us immobilized in fear. I’m happy that you found this article useful, and I do hope that you’re able to remember that your identity as a writer and your perfect and innate creativity don’t rest on the success or failure of your writings. Good luck!
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What a lovely, sensible article. Thanks so much for your insight, which I’ve shared on Facebook
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Ami Mattison Reply:
August 24th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Thank you, Amy, for your comment and for sharing this article. It makes me happy that you found it useful and worth passing on.
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I’m really glad to have discovered your blog, Ami, (by way of another, but I’m afraid that was a few days ago and I’ve forgotten which!). Browsing several posts I find them all impressive: useful, and well put.
I used to talk in terms of gestating and birthing my work, but for me moving away from that has been part of moving away from dependence on the muse striking – which is haphazard – and becoming as much craftswoman as artist.
Either way, it’s to do with identity in some sense. Very much looking forward to your post about the why of writing.
mmSeason´s last [type] ..Professionalised!
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Ami Mattison Reply:
January 2nd, 2011 at 9:06 am
Thanks, mmSeason, for your very kind words about my blog. I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed it. As for the issues raised in “Why You Are Not Your Writing,” I think you highlight a significant point about how “gestating” and “birthing” writing depends upon a fickle muse.
Definitely this article was attempting to discuss creative identity. And if you’re interested you might read my article “Writing for Our Lives,” which attempts to get at the writer’s identification with the writing process (rather than the products of our writing). Thanks again!
Happy New Year!
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mmSeason Reply:
January 3rd, 2011 at 12:18 pm
Happy New Year indeed.
mmSeason´s last [type] ..Loads of words- compensating for lack of words
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