Aesthetic of the writer

I don’t look like a writer. I don’t sound like a writer. I don’t dress like a writer. I don’t behave like a writer. I don’t enjoy genre fiction conventions and I despise writers' forums. It's not me.

I realised a long time ago that I was never going to be like other writers. Fresh off a backpacking trip and riddled with dreadlocks and high-octane travel stories, I sat in classrooms and discussed texts with mature age students who all looked and sounded very different to me. There was a type, an academia, an eyebrow, an aesthetic, to writers.

Writers who were not me.

That’s a perfect recipe for a crippling complex. Dude. You are not meant to be here. You’re far too social. Far too thrillseeky. You swear too much. You’ll never make it like the [insert antisocial writer stereotype].

But one day I realised that there is no prerequisite to becoming a writer. There is no pressed uniform and no way of thinking that would make me a better writer, other than being exactly me. Perhaps the very fact that I so defied the stereotype gave me a leg up in the industry, a fresh perspective, and a story.

Once I overcame my identity complex, then came the imposter syndrome. Are you even a good enough writer, you fucking fraud? –the evil little ego-voice would snipe at me no matter what I scrawled. Suffice to say, my first semester in my master’s degree was brutal. There was a lot of money at stake for me to discover that I simply sucked.

But something shifted – and exceptionally fast. (It could have been the therapy sessions I wailed myself into.) But it doesn’t matter how I shifted the problem, because I’d shifted the problem.

I realised that I had been in my own way with all my own excuses the whole time. I didn’t need to be a clone of my classmates. It’s great that I’m different. It’s ok to have fear – just do it anyway. And my favourite lesson of all: I don’t have to be perfect, because practise and mastery cures everything. (And editing. God bless editing skills).

The great unknown

There are great unknowns and crippling uncertainties in producing art. You’re making things that don't necessarily run by a tried and tested formula. In fact, the more genius work you are producing, the less likely you are going to be abiding by society’s so-called rules. Producing original, creative works means going against the grain. It means stepping outside of the norms of society. It means taking risks. And we have so many hang-ups about doing something that may not result in success – well, it’s no wonder we block ourselves so often from finishing that project. We want to know before we put it out to the world – is this the right dress for the right party?

Take French artist Claude Monet: when he first unveiled his Impressionist works, they were widely dismissed as childish. Now, history has proven his artwork to be genius, widely beloved, and deemed exceptional in execution.

What’s the story that stands out for you? Are you afraid of failure? Afraid of being poor? Unsuccessful? Afraid of what people might think?

Or are you even secretly afraid of success, and how people might judge you, target you, envy you for your genius?

Journal Question: Are you actually going to let everyone else’s self-serving opinions dictate your life? This is one of the first tasks we tackle in HeartWriting: listening to, honouring and loving your own heart, and your authentic voice, first.

Practice and mastery

I believe... that you can become a successful and deeply fulfilled creative, if you tune in to your heart rather than the fear. Working on my heart and self-belief has become everything. I also believe that it takes a lot of work to become a writer. That's kind of comforting. It's not just luck – anything can be achieved with hard work. This is called mastery, and according to writer Malcolm Gladwell, it takes ten thousand hours to master anything. So let's put in the hours, and the hearts.

Feel the fear… and do it anyway

I know what it's like to feel the fear – and do it anyway (in the words of Susan Jeffers). Too afraid to follow my dreams in the beginning, because “writers don’t make money, sweetheart”, I stepped into a stable teaching career. However, everything leads us eventually to exactly where we need to be.

This tangent in my career turned out to be a blessing, because I used the time to learn more about literature. I eventually stopped listening to fear and started working on my craft. I went to more classes. I workshopped and listened eagerly to critique, using it as a learning tool rather than a personal attack.

It doesn’t matter what I do with my writing – I know I just need to keep writing. I need to keep believing in myself. The more words I write, the more doors keep opening up for me. Just like the law of attraction, it’s all about my beliefs changing first. Sometimes we just need to do the thing, so that we have evidence of the magic that we have created. Work creates progress, which creates results, which creates evidence, which creates belief.

Anything is possible.

I hope you keep writing through the madness. I hope you find your sparkly light in the darkness. You have a voice, and you have words that can change the world. All you can do is write – and let the universe deliver wings to those words. When they are ready, they’ll fly off the page to wherever they are meant to go. Watch. You’ll see. You will suddenly feel the urge to pitch them. And the right publication will house them. Or the right person will come knocking for them. Or the right friend will read them. That’s when you know the magic is working. Things become effortless, available, possible, fantastical, implausibly plausible.