Am I A “Real Writer”?

The question is asked, internally at first, then externally, usually in response to some advice or anecdote about writing. One of the most common is “write every day” which gets responses about how that isn’t possible for everyone and the discussion moves away from the purpose of “write everyday” to something about “am I a real writer”—

People seeking validation, but in the form of pushing against gatekeeping. But the gatekeeper here is, of course, ourselves.

I’ve been writing since I was very young, telling stories longer. Writing poetry since I was 16, first published at 19. I started writing horror short stories when I was 22 and was first published (on horrorfind.com) at 23. I started my first novel when I was 17. I wanted to write epic multi-volume fantasy.

Am I a real writer? I’ve not completed a story in over a year, and have only composed a handful of poems worth reading in the same time. I’ve got over a dozen half finished novel drafts on my computer archive, none of which are finished.

I certainly don’t feel like a real writer no matter how I stack the statistics, the metrics, nothing I put together gets past the gatekeeper—me.

I do write everyday, most every day, journal entries, sometimes little poems or scenes from stories. Writing everyday is about practice, it’s about using a skill so you get better at it.

It is not about “real writer”–you can practice a sport everyday and not be a player. Writing everyday is just one of the things suggested because, statistically, you will get better the more you write. But, to push the sport metaphor, you still have to play the game.

In this moment the game, for me, is finishing a thing, a collection of poems, a novel, a short story collection. The “game” itself isn’t so much publication, as it would be more commonly referred to, but instead bring to fruition a work of art.

“Real writer” is a bad term. There is a difference between a published writer and an unpublished writer, but both are still writers. There is no marker or metric that defines ‘real.’

Then how do we, how do I, find validation? And for me the answer has always come to being read, which to do I would have to finish something.

Are you a “real writer” if you write everyday? You tell me. What is it you are seeking?

Because this is a journey, and no two people take the same path.

A Year in Reading, 2020

This was not a year for reading. By 26 December 2020 I had read one book.

One.

Granted, it was a great book, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It is a fantastic gothic horror book, and if it had been the only thing I read in 2020, it would have been a good reading year.

On the 26th, I decided I wanted to do a little better, so I picked up a book I had started in July, but only got about 40 pages in before life got in the way—The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo, who I had discovered a few years ago with The Ghost Bride with a random, but successful Amazon recommendation. Both are historical novels in Malaysia, and both are fantastic reads.

And then on the night of the 30th, thought, why not one more? Why not. I picked up Black Sun bu Rebecca Roanhorse. Another great book, and a great way to see out the year.

As always, I read a lot of LampLight submissions, and can never discount the amount of work and emotional energy that goes into submissions. And I am always grateful for the writers who send me stories.

BRO!

For poetry, there is one shining ball of amazing from 2020, and that is the translation of Beowulf from Maria Dahvana Headley. It is fantastic, and so readable. I haven’t finished yet, but will do so tomorrow, bringing in the new year right.

Bro, tell me we still speak of kings!

TL;DR

Here’s what I read in 2020 and I recommend them all.

Mexican Gothic – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Night Tiger – Yangsze Choo
Black Sun – Rebecca Roanhorse
Beowulf – Maria Dahvana Headley

Haiku Monostich

One of the Haiku writers I’ve been reading, Hiroaki Sato, talks about how in Japanese haiku and tanka are written as a single line poem.

The three lines are a product of translation, and are an interesting discussion about ‘what makes a poem a poem’ and how that can change between cultures and languages.

In English the requirements for poetry have become less rigid over the years, especially in the last 100. Blank verse, free verse, prose poetry are all poems. But the same would not have always been true. Forms exist because there were rules about what made a poem a poem, and line breaks and stanzas were a major part of that.

Rhyme as well was a major piece of English poetry through most of its history, and as such you’ll see some older haiku translations include rhyme (A B A is the most common scheme I’ve seen). Since almost every word in Japanese ends in a vowel, rhyme is not a defining part of Japanese poetry.

So if haiku in Japanese is a single line poem, should it be translated as such? Sato thinks so, and his books have them as a single line.

I’ve been trying to write haiku, and have started writing them as a single line after reading Sato, and it works well for composition.

One of the principles of haiku that I’ve been working on is the poem is two parts. Usually this falls at a line break in translation, but that is not a requirement. By composing in a single line I can worry more about having the parts, independent of the line breaks, which impose an artificial constraint.

The other thing it does is it removes the initial urge to be rigid about the syllable count. (And yes, there is another translation discussion about English syllables and Japanese ‘sounds’ to be had)

For example, if a poem has 17 syllables, but you would have to beak a word to have a 5-7-5 line break, did you succeed? More importantly, would you have even picked that word if you were forcing yourself to have the line breaks?

For a constrained form, removing some of those constraints during composition, pushing them to editing, has helped. Because a haiku isn’t a 17 syllable poem, 5-7-5; it is a comparison of two things with a turn and seasonal word that has a syllabic constraint.