When I get to be a Writer.

 "When I get to be a writer, I'll never read anything that is published less I'll still think it's unfinished. When I get to be a writer I'll keep the stories imperfect and frazzled, like the people who read them--a collection of memories within a biological body and a soul attached. I'll let the stories take their place and fill the cracks breathing and expanding, waiting to be filled with more.When I get to be a writer, I'll plant a garden in people's minds. I'll bury the seeds and sprinkle them with water and I'll let their imagine make them grow, stretching out to the sky with a freshly woken yawn.When I get to be a writer I'll look fondly at the ones I know, the ones who guided me and who have been telling me when I say when I get to be a writer no, you don't get it, you already are. "

I am taking this class entitled 'The Writing Process' and we had to write a flash fiction based around the idea of Langston's Hughe's poem "Daybreak in Alabama", which follows the pattern of 'when I get to be a composer.' We were through the poem, given the prompt with the word 'writer' replacing 'composer' and given five minutes to write. The above is what I came up with, a scattering of thoughts out on the page (though of course I removed quite a few portions.) It's weird to look at it, though, because I don't think I can really list off what being a writer would be to me, how I would really act or think. It's even stranger still when you figure out how one would define a writer, because it all comes down to one question, "Do you consider yourself a writer even if you're not published?" My answer is this, sometimes yes and sometimes no. There are times when writing feels so physical to me, not just the act of it, but all of it, it's like it's this badge that I can grab and put on myself. I am a writer and I know, I know I can write and I know I do, and it doesn't matter if it's published or touching to someone else, because it matters to me. And to me, as a writer, it's the only thing that matters. Then there is the other part of me, the one who doesn't want to call herself a writer, because it just doesn't seem valid to me. I could write the most beautiful phrases and metaphors that leave people stunned, but unless someone validates it, unless someone with the power says this is so moving I need to make it official for other people to read, it feels useless. And there's also the fact that it sounds a little pretentious to me, calling myself a writer, already? I am twenty-one years old and have so much left to go and so much left to learn and yet I have enough nerve to go ahead and call myself a writer? The thing is, I think I'm always going to think like this. I know so much that I am a writer. But how many thousands
(maybe millions) of people have called themselves writers and never really been a writer? I think it's all logistics, really. I think maybe part of it is up to the person and part of it is up to everyone else. We talked about this is my class, and we talked about more, and it just seems like it is going to be really good. It seems like it is going to be worth it.

And in general it's class starting that is bringing me up. Because summers are always hard and broken and summers always fuck things up. School, above all, is my healer, and I'm surely going to cherish it.

Fin.