Writer
Writer! How does one describe oneself as a writer? Describing one’s career as a consultant, as a professor, as a gardener are straight forward tasks based on credentials and interests. But writer! Now that presents a challenge.
I have been privileged in my life to study with some great writers. Edward Albee, Harry Crews, Ed McCourt. They told me I was a writer. I am still trying to believe them.
You see, writer conjures images of Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, D.H. Lawrence.
How could I be so bold as to say, “I am a writer!”?
I love to tell stories. I tell pretty good ones. I write them down. And I make enough money doing it to buy the property that enabled me to include the section, “gardener”.
So, in that sense, I am a writer - down - of - stories. I can do that. And I can teach others to do it, too.
The writing down of stories isn’t a career. It isn’t a hobby or a habit. It is a thing you must do if the stories are in you. You must get them out, or like demons they haunt you.
But it is an exquisite haunting. For as long as there are demons, there are more stories to tell
I never wanted to be well-rounded, and I do not admire well-rounded
people nor their work. So far as I can see, nothing good in the world
has ever been done by well-rounded people. The good work is done
by people with jagged, broken edges, because those edges cut things
and leave an imprint, a design.
—Harry Crews