I Am Not An Author - My American Life

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/120/be-careful-who-you-pretend-to-be

In middle school (and then later in high school) I started to pretend and play with the thought that I could write. I played around with it a bit in grade school with an entry level drug of a fan fic that only a fifth grader could write, but the biggest time came in my freshman year of high school.

I got in trouble, and I started writing. A few people payed attention to it, and it quickly became a thing. I wrote. I wrote a lot. I wrote only because I had nothing else to do, but I still did it.  It was right around that point in my life that I imagined that I was a writer.

I've been lying to myself ever since that point.

There has yet to be a single story that I have written that I've been proud of. That by the end of the time of writing it I can sit down and say, "you know what, that really is the best work that I could produce for this book."

I am able to say, "I'm sick and tired of this story, if I have to see it even one more time I'm going to hurt someone." Or maybe even "Due dates passed a week ago, if I want to get anything in to say that I actually accomplished something, this is the best it's going to be by this point." 


In college I tanked multiple English exams. There were classes that I took that I look back on and wonder how in the world I ever passed that class, let alone ever graduated. The knowledge that I should know as a graduate of an English program is significantly more than the knowledge that I have in my head.

The worst part about the entire deal was that creative writing was just sort of a thing. I enjoy doing it, but the entire time while in school I just said that I was into creative writing because I enjoyed doing it (still do). But actually being GOOD at it? That's where the lie came in. That's where I started to pretend.

Every single time that I write something I pretend. I pretend to be an author. I pretend to know what in the world I'm talking about. Even at my job as a professor I feel like very often I'm just pretending to know what in the world I'm doing when talking about writing because I don't even know what I'm talking about.

Even now, when I'm out of school, I fool myself by saying that I'm a writer.

No I'm not.

I have published nothing.
I am writing nothing.
I am creating nothing that is anything even slightly involved in what I like because of the cripling fear that I'm just making it all up.

I am not an author.
I'm a kid in a grown ups body, still pretending that I know what in the world I'm talking about when really I have no clue what in the world is going on.