Your Life as a Writer
The following post is part of a Seed Pod collaboration about libraries. Seed Pods are a SmallStack community project designed to help smaller publications lift each other up by publishing and cross-promoting around a common theme. We’re helping each other plant the seeds for growth!
The smell of books, a scent so familiar, it feels like home. The magical quietness of that place. Voices hushed, the squeak of a chair against the well polished floor, a distant cough. Wandering through the stacks. Listening intently for the whispers of the universe. Which portal would I open today? Which words do I need to hear in the quiet of my own mind?
One of my last remaining material dreams is to have my own library one day. A room in my own house with shelves upon shelves of gateways to other worlds, gateways to another me. I love getting lost in the dreamy realm of novels. I love meeting the characters, who become my best friends. I love that my mind somehow brings their stories to life, it truly is magic. I love how everything I read subtly changes who I am.
I’m getting more comfortable calling myself a writer. I reckon if I keep writing and sharing I’ll be able to keep calling myself a writer. I wonder if my writing will contain the words that another soul needs to hear. And maybe my writing will subtly change someone else. I feel the weight of responsibility within my craft. I’ve started and I don’t think I’ll stop.
My writing practice has changed the way I read. I’m not as in love with getting lost, escaping the present. I read to see how it can be done. I can’t help it. I still enjoy the stories and love the characters as much as ever, but there is now an eye for what’s happening between the lines.
And yes, I do hope that one day my book will whisper out from the stacks, calling to you, asking you to dream. And maybe you’ll be inspired to pick up the mantle. To begin your own life as a writer.
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Hey man, I really liked this. Your point about no longer reading to get lost, but to see how it is done, is very well made. I’m never sure about the notion of getting lost in a story, I think because - for me - it has always felt much more like finding and thinking about aspects of my self, and of the world..
I also find your position on how you feel about calling yourself a writer interesting. I am ambivalent: does the fact of writing make any and all of us a writer? Or does one have to be an externally published (as in by a kosher publishing house, rather than by other routes) and objectively recognised by readers and critics writer to use the term. In my own mind, I tend towards the second interpretation and probably feel better just saying I write. But, equally, I get absolutely the other view and see its affirmative possibilities. However, for me, being a writer (unlike being a reader as you say so well) is not magic in the same way…yes, it is the magical conclusion of reading (I mean one has to read to write well) but I guess there are other layers of external reality that are at play.
In any event, I enjoyed reading your writing here.
When I read this sentence: "I read to see how it can be done." I remember all those years ago why I started reading. I did it solely for the pizzas. I did it... for Book-It. If you put one word in front of the other, Peter, you'll always be a writer. 🤙🏼