I remember being a kid and jumping rope outside in front of the building. I was so good at double-dutch, and even though I was never really competing with anyone but myself, I still didn’t think anyone was as good as me.
Before I could ever think it, a family member sees me and tells me, “ you can’t make a living jumping rope.”
I was ten.
I wasn’t living at all and I sure as hell didn’t know how to make one or what that meant. It didn’t help that was a very self-aware and self-conscious child easily swayed by the words of those I loved.
I can’t remember jumping rope much after that.
It got in my head really early on that, if it’s not going to make me money and if I won’t be able to make a living doing it, then maybe it wasn’t worth my time or effort.
It’s a similar comment from the same family member that made me let go of my interest in dancing.
I’m not one of those writers who have been writing since I could hold a pencil. I was the student who never knew what to put down on paper when it was handed to me.
How did the other kids know what to draw? Did they know their work would be looked upon with judgment and then graded? Because surely if it’s being graded there was a right and wrong thing to put on the paper and I didn’t want to put down the wrong thing, because I didn’t want a bad grade. And so, I drew my sun in the corner with a house and stick figures like a kid who knew what she was doing.
This is how I went on to approach all of my creative ventures when I knew it would be looked at by eyes meant to judge or grade my creative abilities. I gave them what was expected because I’m never in the mood to be judged.
It wasn’t until I was in the eighth grade, after writing my first short story for a homework assignment that I allowed myself to explore the idea that I could write like the writers I enjoyed reading.
As with most things, I was a little slow to register that the fun I’d had while writing the story actually meant something.
The story wasn’t the best thing an eight-grader had ever written by any means, but it had been inspired by everything I’d been reading at the time and … let’s just say I was reading far above my grade level and my story contained things I was too young to have ever understood first hand. But it was mine. I wrote it and turned it in like it was any other homework assignment.
( I should note: I also waited until the last minute to write it so, balls to the wall was the only way to go and the combination of last-minute-adrenaline and a little inspiration pulled me through it. It forced me to table my very loud inner critic because I just didn’t miss homework deadlines.)
It wasn’t until my teacher was handing the assignment back to me and expressed to me how much she enjoyed what I’d written and was only disappointed there wasn’t more to read, that made me proud of both my ability to do good things last minute and more so that my original idea was liked by someone judging my work.
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like my mother didn’t give me praise or not hug me enough or something but there is a difference in the encouragement you get from those who love you and receiving encouragement from someone who is critiquing your work, especially when it’s of the arts, and their job is to point out the flaws.
For me, this teacher had done something in expressing her interest and excitement about my story.
It was something like turning on a light, only it was one of those energy-saving ones so it took a little time for the light to be bright enough for me to see what it was trying to show me.
The light bulb was also labeled: “You really enjoy writing, and you’re pretty good at it so what are you waiting for?”
But I waited anyway because I didn’t see how I could have a career in writing. I didn’t count myself as one of the “lucky” ones.
A few unfinished stories and three jobs later, I finally did notice the light that had been turned on so long ago in the Writing corner of my mind that I also had been avoiding — or maybe trying to find — for a while.
It was like there was another version of myself sitting at a desk writing away underneath the light, demanding that I decide how serious we were going to take this.
Yeah, I could try to commit to some other kind of “safe” career with guaranteed money and health coverage and a 401K or something but how long before they would drag me out of there kicking and screaming about “the man” suppressing my innate desire to create?
As quickly as I thought through my options, I immediately dismissed them. Nothing fit. Then I allowed myself to really think about it.
Was there really anything else in the world I was about to let myself pour my energy and life into? I asked my self the very simple yet loaded question: What do I want to be when I grow up?
It was at this moment I knew I was a writer and it wasn’t just something I wanted to play with in my free-time, or once in a blue. I needed to be able to spend my days doing it, or nothing else would work.
I didn’t have a single clue how I was really going to go about it but the decision settled my bones like a home settling into its land. I just had to figure out the right way to make it happen for myself.
If there’s any single universal lesson that any writer will learn is that — this shit is not a linear journey and it’s not about to look like anyone else’s either.
I’ll be the first to say that I am incredibly guilty of reading everything I could get my hands on about writing and being a freelancer and how to make a career through writing, all in hopes that there was some secret answer that made it easier than actually sitting down to write. Or that there would at least be someone telling me what I should be writing to make it all work.
I can tell you right now, there’s no other way around it, and there are too many avenues available for anyone to give you a map on how to get where you want to go.
I tried the college route, taking up a degree in creative writing which is currently on pause, signing up for all the websites for work, buying my own website, stressing about my “niche” — fucking HA! — , attempting to start my own blog, starting an editing business, and then I landed here.
There are a lot of things not listed here that I’ve tried in between all of these things and some combinations of things have been successful while other ventures didn’t take off the way I hoped.
So in the midst of it all, I question it all and why I’m still going at it — why I’m still bothering to try and make my own way.
The thing is, even without having successfully done all of those things, I’m still a writer.
As long as I’m still putting words on a page and as long as I’m driven by the need to write — I’m a writer. Even when I don’t like what I’ve written. Even when I scrap thousands of words of a piece. Even if I never publish what I write. I’m a writer.
Even if this is the only thing I ever publish, I’m a writer.
S. M. Ryan uses her degree in creative writing and every EFA course she’s ever taken to lend her experience to other writers in the form of advice, tips, and resources in her blog posts and Medium articles as it surrounds writing, lifestyle, wellness, and more.
Author of the Morning Mocha Newsletter, dog-mom to a 7 year-old pitbull, plant mom to 14 green babies and counting, she spends most of her time caffeinated, writing, or playing the Sims 4.
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