Wednesday, April 13, 2011

506 Days of Living Like a Writer

On November 29, 2009 I wrote about my new adventures as a writer, teacher and graduate student.

I began a new adventure. At 28 I started a new job, began my MFA in Creative Writing and moved into a new apartment.

I had a lot of questions:

What does my life look like as a writer? More specifically, a poet? How can I present myself as a writer to the world?

Apparently, I was also worried a lot about being "normal" or "mainstream" back then.

Poets can't pass as mainstream. Automatically you are thrown into a category where assumptions are made (and some of them are true) and those assumptions may make us unrelateable to mainstream society.

I also had to muster up some courage to even admit to myself that I was an artist:

So here I am, a writer, a poet, an artist of words, of language (yes, I said it) and I'm trying to figure out what that means.

I also really loved watching TV. Good thing that hasn't changed. But what has changed is that I don't feel like shit for wanting to watch TV, because I'm also really committed to writing.

After my boyfriend had to take a job in California, I was left to my own devices the following weekend. I wasted away (not just hours but) days of my week watching television, surfing Facebook and Twitter, sleeping and talking on the phone. I finally had the chance to delve into my writing, yet I found myself avoiding writing at all costs. 

I made my boyfriend block websites like Facebook and Hulu. Then I had even more questions!

Many questions came to mind. What was I doing with my life? What did being a writer mean? How should my life change? How should my day be organized? How should my writing and space and home be organized? How does one live like a writer? These questions only spawned more questions. 

That seemed to do the trick. I wrote like a mother fucker:

I've been writing rather prolifically this past week too, beginning a number of new poems and voraciously editing many as well.

Then I decided I needed to a blog to sort through and share my experiences of becoming a writer:

So here is where I will be discovering what it means to live like a writer, a poet, an artist. 

Well it's been 506 days and here are the most important things I have learned about living like a writer:  fall asleep each night and dream about writing. Wake up everyday thinking about writing.

But, most importantly, write.

1 comment:

Casandra said...

Um, this is pretty cool. I am proud to be the friend of a poet, artist, television fiend, writer, teacher, someone who dares to be outside norm, and someone who knows how to make long distance relationships work. Such accomplishments, just look at you fly! Love you lady.