Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Back in the Santa Rosa office.
I’m not only “our” editorial assistant here at Books & Such, but I’m a writer myself.
I’ve written at least five novels (with others lying around in various states of undress), three family histories, three travel tales, and one memoir. You probably haven’t heard of me before (which is a shame, because the New York Times crossword puzzle really needs my last name), but that doesn’t mean I’m not a writer.
I used to visit my children’s classrooms and talk about being a writer. I’d show the kids articles I’d authored, talk about writing letters and about describing things to other people–being a storyteller. Then I’d pull out several “books” I’d written. Their favorite was always Daddy’s Book, written for our toddler, which tells the story of my husband going to sea for three months while my second child grew in the womb.
“See,” I would say, “you can be a writer, too. You can put your words together in a way that means something to someone you love, and illustrate it with your own pictures.”
But that wasn’t good enough for my then-seven-year-old, and it may not be good enough for your spouse or family members. “When are you going to write a real book?” she asked. “One I can check out of the library?”
I don’t know.
I just have the drive to put words on paper, to tell a story, to communicate truth. You probably do, too.
A writer is a person who writes, not a person who is published. (That individual is called an “author.”)
Still, the ambition to see your words in print pushes you on. But if your project doesn’t interest a publisher in this extremely competitive market, what’s a writer to do?
For immediate gratification, many writers blog or comment on blogs. I get a lot of my thoughts into cyberspace at World Magazine’s blog.
But if that’s not good enough, the options for holding a physical book in hand are myriad. Yes, we like the idea of finding an agent and selling a book to a royalty-paying publishing house. But the world is changing. You can take your same manuscript to a self-publishing house, you can create word and picture projects on Mac computers and have them printed, or you can go to the old spiral-bound version I’ve used several times.
It may not look like a real book to some, but you’re still a writer.
Thank you.
The first time I got paid for an article I’d written, I was so excited to show the check to my husband and say “See! I’m a writer!”
I feel like the only way to justify using the word “writer” is by proving that someone was willing to pay for it.
*sigh*
My wonderful mother wrote down the stories I made up as a child and once sewed me a handpuppet so I could make one into a play. My third grade teacher, another marvelously nurturing lady, bought me a story-starter workbook. I still have the first “book” I wrote and illustrated, bound with Scotch tape.
No one could have told me then that I wasn’t a writer!
Thanks, Michelle. I needed that affirmation today.
Beautiful post, Michelle. Writing and publishing are two separate ingredients, which sometimes find their way into the same recipe… Writing allows me to work out problems that I can’t seem to dissect verbally–to learn more about myself and those around me.
Publishing is fun–but sometimes it just creates more problems that I have to write about!!!
Writing also allows this creative bent in me to seep out–something that I long for more and more as I age. I think it’s in response to getting old–and I’m truly grateful to have this outlet.
Uh, Jane, dear, you aren’t old–you’re getting older–a category we all fit in. And your writing is a beautiful way to work out problems, ending is such lovely prose.
I think sometimes it is easy to get too focused on getting work published, but writing is so much more than that. Every year, I write a letter to my kids (to be given to them when they turn 18). When I sit down at the computer and pour my heart out about all they’ve done throughout the year, and all they mean to me, I am very much reminded of the power of words, published or not. Thank you for this!
Wonderful reminder of what it means to write. Thank you for sharing that.