"I had the idea in my mind of what it took to be a real writer. Time, of course, brilliance, of course, voluminous correspondence and wry wit were all necessary to the profession, as were ink-stained foolscap, a gabled study and cups of coffee going cold by the hot fires of genius. " - Josh Ritter, "Book of Jubilations: June 14, 2012."There are so many cliches in writing - the courier font for this post, the scratchy handwriting title of my blog, and the idea that to be a writer there are a multitude of prerequisites.
Ritter's blog post hits on this idea perfectly: he wanted to write a novel, so he believed he needed a great desk. A desk with history, a large desk that could hold the weight of his words. After all, great writers had great desks, didn't they? Oliver Wendell Holmes surely did not pen his works on a breakfast table.
This summer I had the privilege of sitting behind one of those desks, three days a week, from 9 AM until 5 PM. My desk had belonged at one time to Isaiah Bowman. It was massive, and heavy, and had all sorts of drawers and compartments and stories to tell.
Sitting behind that desk did not make me a writer. Behind that desk, I completed the mundane tasks of an unpaid intern - checking Facebook, looking up grants, sealing envelopes, checking Facebook, organizing spreadsheets, and checking Facebook.
Right now, it's 1:08 AM and I'm writing not from a desk, but from a full sized bed in a suburban town on a Macbook that's seen better days - my laptop is so antiquated that Firefox has to remind me several times a day that it's outdated and cannot be updated, and I have to compose my tumblr posts in HTML because pressing attempting to add a line break with the return key erases my entire posts.
The cliches of writing - the cups of coffee (which I don't drink), the heavy desk (which I no longer have access to), the courier fonts (guilty) - are just cliches.
Sure, they might make a writer more comfortable, but they will not, alone, make a writer. The only thing that makes a writer is, well, writing. I'm guilty of having the same visions that Ritter confessed to having, and I think that's why I really stopped writing. I tell people I'm not a writer, but I feel life so strongly that I know, deep down, that I just might be a writer. So, here's this blog. Maybe I'll write book reviews, because I know I need to make more time for reading. Maybe I'll only write late night posts about nothing at all - for only the dreamers of the day are dangerous. I'm not really worried about the direction this blog will take, because trying to tailor it means trying to be a writer, and I'm done with that. I am no longer going to "try" to be a writer, because I am a writer, and I am writing right now.
Goodnight, y'all. Enjoy the fonts, and I'll enjoy my umpteenth attempt to "become" a writer.
