It is that time again, the time in which I tell you that you’re a real author. Or a real writer, if you prefer, but that’s more imprecise as of course, you know how to write. You’re reading this.
Anyway: We must be the only profession in the world that not only has impostor syndrome in the sense of “I can’t believe I’m doing this and people think I’m real.” No, we’re like some kind of Velveteen author who just wants to be real.
When I started out I was sure I was profoundly unreal. Sure, I’d been published (a poetry chapbook) in Portuguese, but this was a new country, a new language, and….
Have you guys ever stood at the bottom of a mountain looked up, and it goes on and on, and it gets lost in the clouds, and what keeps going through your minds is “I don’t even have ropes.”
That was me, metaphorically speaking and “ropes’ in that case was “language.” I mean there were a million other things, including that I didn’t get the culture, and that I’d spent the last several years taking literature courses in college. It was the only way they’d let me take languages. And literature courses distort everything and are almost the anti-how-to-write teaching. But it started with words, because well, those are the tools of the trade.
How did I make it here on top of the mountain (the mountain being being published and read. The mountain of publishing? I’m stuck on a rock halfway up, wondering if my fingernails and my remaining life span allow me to climb it.) Well… blood, sweat and tears, fits, screaming, giving up, picking up again… (I never managed to give it up for more than 3 days. And that one was bad.)
I have a process. It’s just a bad process you shouldn’t imitate. It’s called: be very bad at something, try it anyway, scream, cry, throw things, say a lot of swear words, read everything on how to do it, then scream, cry, throwing things, invent new swear words. Eventually pick it up by the wrong end, and push on that until something gives, it goes sproing, and suddenly I know the thing/program/subject better than most “experts.”
(The other day Dan handed me a new program — I can’t even remember for what! — and told me to use it. I immediately told him “You know, you’re going to hear a lot of cursing from my side of the office.” And he laughed and said “Yeah, I know your process.” Which is when it occurred to me it was in fact a process. Just not a good one.)
Anyway, given my process, it took me a while to sell a novel. Heck, it took me a while to sell a short story. It took longer to sell regularly.
I don’t know now — I’m old — at what point I realized I was a REAL author and velveteen no more. Must have been when the first middle aged man squeeed on realizing he was in fact talking to me. (There are now dozens. I swear it’s a thing. Does this happen to anyone else? No? Yes?)
But anyway, right now I don’t doubt I’m a writer. I have the scars to show for it, too. The t-shirt wore through and is in the rag bag. I’m a writer. I’ll even admit to author, as distinct from writer. I also cop to novelist. And M.C.A.Hogarth has metaphorically chased me around the room hitting me with dictionaries until I admitted that someone with my bizarre and erratic “process” is in fact an artist not a craftswoman. (Yes, I know. I’m so shocked at Jaguar. She’s such a nice lady. But… well… when she’s right…)
Anyway, for all of you who are out there going “But I’m only indie. I just put a story or two up.” Stop that. You do the work, you’re a writer. (And if you’re not doing the work, go do it.)
People with that mind set end up signing really bad trad pub contracts or falling for all kinds of scams, because they want to feel real.
You don’t need that. You’re real. You write stories, you’re a writer. Work on getting better, not on being “real”.
So you can get off that circular track and start up the mountain (Come on up, the granite is fine) I am out of the goodness of my heart providing you with a certificate, suitable for printing. All you need to do is fill in your name. I signed it and everything. And look, I was “professionally published” (dear Lord) … 29 years ago, and sold my first novel 25 years ago. So I know whence I’m speaking.
You’re a writer. I said so. now go write.
Mad Genius Club 
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