How Do You Define Yourself?

‘You can’t define yourself with negatives. You have to choose adjectives.’ Stacy London, What Not to Wear

While Stacy was talking about a particular woman’s very low self image it occurred to me it could also apply to writers.

Especially given all the the pressure going on now with NaNoWriMo. Especially for those people that feel they have no hope of really finishing it.

And so they feel they have failed.

I’ve heard that from a few friends recently and I was surprised. Not at the feelings of being upset or disappointed, but the fact they used the word Failed. In regard to something like NaNo.

Perhaps I don’t take NaNo as seriously as some people do, but hey, they aren’t paying me for that writing. They aren’t giving me any particular benefits for doing it. The benefits that we get from participating - whether we finish or not - only come from us. And our expectations of ourselves.

So to go along with Stacy London - but paraphrasing - Don’t define yourself - or your writing - with negatives. Choose adjectives. I say Choose Good Adjectives. You are a Writer. You can do it!

As for Failing at NaNo … You only Fail if you allow yourself to feel you did.

And if you didn’t learn a darn thing from it.

Have there been times I didn’t finish NaNo - you betcha. Did I feel I failed. NO. Because I learned invaluable things about my writing, my story, my characters, my scheduling….my voice. I learned all kinds of things, writing and not writing.

So if you are feeling a bit down right now - you don’t have to give up. There are NaNo get togethers going on all over town for ‘write in’ kind of things to get as much done as you can.

If you have already given up, don’t feel like you failed. Sit down and figure out what all you learned this month. Maybe you learned how much time you really need, or don’t need, to really get some writing done. Perhaps you learned you hate these characters, you need new ones - So, get some. Maybe the story needs new characters. Or a new angle. Maybe it’s really a short story or novella, not a novel.

If you sit down and think about it, even a bit, you can find all kinds of things you learned from what you did do. Or even what you didn’t do. Perhaps your heart just isn’t in it. Or in the story.

Whatever your experience you can learn from it.

If you want to. If you choose to.

If you need more thoughts or ideas, I can help with that.

But you have to choose what words you are going to use to define your experience this month.

Choose good ones.

Defined by our choices.

Each decision we’ve ever made in our lives has brought us to where we are in this exact moment.

Whether they were good ones, or bad ones – and what really would be the difference, being that we learn from all of them in different ways.  Or whether we have Really learned, or even want to.

In the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun” the main character says - any little turning along the way she’d be different, she’d be elsewhere.

And so would we.

So if we desire to be different, to be elsewhere, we must make different choices.  Right now.

….we define ourselves by the stories we tell others…..So says a character in Megan McCafferty’s book charmed thirds.

And in her fourth comings book another character writes ‘….The tales we tell ourselves about ourselves make us who we are…”

So really we All are storytellers in our own ways.  Whether by profession or not, we all tell stories to others, and to ourselves.  They help us understand each other, and hopefully, ourselves.

And they help us to be better storytellers as we write.  Which is what a writer should really be doing, right?   Telling a story.  Hopefully really good stories, and learning as we live and grow to do that even better than when we started.

And contrary to some popular advice, I don’t think we have to write what we know or about ourselves at all.  My stories aren’t about me.  At all.  And whether some might believe we are all our characters and our stories, well, I don’t see me in mine at all.

My decisions I’ve made along the way, the choices I’ve made, the things I’ve experienced, give me an insight into myself and into others.  It helps me to understand others, a little anyway.  Or at least to get somewhat of their feelings, or what they might be feeling.  And the choices they might make.  The choices my characters make, while so totally different than what I would do or say or even think, are not so alien when touched by the experience and edges of my own.  I might not understand someone completely, even one of my own characters, but I at least have a touch into their inner life that tells me, whether I feel their choices are right or wrong, they are the choices they choose to make.  And as with me, brings them to where they are right now.

And while I need to work more on actually sitting down and getting my characters' stories down – in coherent form at least.  At least I’m learning each day how to tell their story better.  And how to make my turnings be where I want to be.

Where are your turnings, and choices, taking you?