My grandma was a writer.
Small time writer of small town folk stories. A small press published 300 copies of her story collection.
And I always knew that writing was in my bones. When I was a preteen I started novels. When I was a teen I started journals. Nothing went beyond a few pages. The only finished thing I had was a novella that my best friend wrote and gave to me as a birthday gift. That handwritten novella, held together by a pink hair clip, was proof that girls can write. And finish.
For my 40th, I promised myself to actually write and finish something. That year I wrote my first short story, for the 12 short stories challenge, by Deadlines for Writers. It was too long for the word count and I couldn’t cut it down, so it didn’t get posted. But I finished it. The next year I wrote 12 short stories. I developed a theme for a collection of short stories and many of them came from that time. I went on to write many more stories and am currently editing them with an editor. I also blogged on and off for a few years. Mostly off.
I feel like I got the hang of the writing thing.
I found an editor I love and am learning to work through the edit process, without procrastinating for 2 months.
My strategy to build a name for myself so that I could eventually find a traditional publisher for my short story collection is to publish my stories in journals.
Insert screeching brake sound here. This is where my process falls apart.
I really struggle to submit stories to journals, or even post stuff on a blog. I have written many blogs, mostly not posted, hidden in my google drive. I forget the address of my blog, I lost the login to my medium account. I have 2 followers on my social media blog.
I have been struggling with this for a long time. Even though they’re anonymous blogs and I write under a pen name. I’ve talked to my therapist about this for 2 years. I know that it comes from a basic fear of showing myself. I know where the fear comes from. I know that publishing on my blog is something within my control I can do to practice showing myself. But. But. But.
I want to transition to seeing myself as a writer, an artist, rather than associating myself with my day job (from which I no longer derive satisfaction). And although I have 40 stories and 20 blogs in the bank, I can’t think of myself as a writer. Because I know that
Writers write
Writers edit
And
Writers submit and post.
I’m still a little girl hiding.
Writers, artists can’t do that. Writers are brave and show up. Artists show their work.
