Writer: You Are Separate from Your Craft

I don’t know how many times I’ve watched Elizabeth Gilbert’s first TED talk. I know it has been at least once a year for the past dozen or so, but there were some years that I needed to watch is more often. It is easily my favorite.

Despite all this, I have still struggled with my identity as a writer, with my belief that I’m competent in this craft I have chosen to pursue. The failure of a manuscript to find a publishing home has all too often equated to a failure of me, of identifying myself and my work as one in the same. If a critique group didn’t go well, I suck. If my agent doesn’t want to represent a particular idea, my ideas are stupid.

I am at the point in my mental health journey where I can start to recognize when the voices are amplified by my depression and anxiety. I’m getting better at calling them out as liars and doing the work to ground myself in reality.

But I’m an English professor, teaching composition to college students and I see it creeping into their writing process as well. Even though I have them read Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts,” even though they read how it is hard for Stephen King to write, the process of getting words on paper, of seeing what they made versus what they meant to make, of recognizing what they are able to write and what they are reading are not the same. Very competent, smart students who are thriving in different subject areas stare at a blinking cursor, paralyzed by the fear of unattainable writing perfection.

Separating yourself from your craft

Recently, I learned about the importance of separating ourselves, of taking the time to find out who we are, as people, and then who we are, as writers.

So, take a few minutes and ask yourself who you are. Without roles or responsibilities or expectations or titles, who are you? Are you naturally funny? Are you laid back? Are you driven? Are you serious?

Now, who are you as a writer? I know several people who are naturally kind and funny and who write very dark stories or poems. There are several people who are lazy in real life but prolific writers. There are people who feel like a character from their book.

But here’s what I want to help you understand (what I’m trying to help myself understand):

The work you are creating is honed by practice, awareness, and the tools you have. The work you are creating is not a manifestation of you. The work you are creating does not have a single bearing on who you are.

You are not your work and your work is not you.

You are a person, full of characteristics that allow you to love and live and celebrate and notice and share and laugh and eat and sleep. And when it is time to create, we need to create space for ourselves to mentally, physically, psychologically, emotionally, and subconsciously cross the boundary and allow the writer self to enter into a maker state.

The work done during the maker state is not a reflection of you.

If we are going to work through this, we have to understand that while there are many writers who have practiced and studied and read and written and received feedback and even won awards, every single one of them will acknowledge they reached that point because of intentional persistence and also because of a bit of luck.

Luck that the market was looking for what they were writing at that exact time.

Luck that an agent/editor saw the vision they had for their work and helped them hone it.

Luck that some influencer/award panel/etc. loved that particular book at that particular time.

They are not worth more than you. You are not worth less than them. You are a creator, honing your skills and practicing with tools that will allow you to make better work.

To repeat: your work is not you and you are not your work.