Sunday, May 15, 2005

Finding Myself

Lately I've been feeling a little lost. Call it a midlife crisis if you want, but I don't know exactly who I am any more. I know I'm a wife, and a mother. I know I'm a slave to a finicky guinea pig and four cats, and I realize I'm the heart and soul of my family. But I'm also a writer. In fact, at my core, I'm a writer more than any other role. But what do I write? That is where the threads start raveling and the labels fail me.

What do I write?

I used to think I was a humor writer. Then I expanded my labels to include satire and politcal satire. I mostly wrote nonfiction. I was satisfied writing nonfiction until I stumbled into the Zoetrope Virtual Studio. It turns out Zoetrope doesn't really have a section for nonfiction, and I wanted to take advantage of the benefits of membership, so I tried my hand at fiction.

I haven't stopped any trains with my fiction writing, but I feel I've slowed a few down. I like fiction. It's powerful and interesting to write. And I think I do a decent job when I set my mind to it.

Fiction demands further labeling. "What sort of fiction do you write?" Oh, how I hate labels, yet they're a necessary evil at times. So I thought a good while about what sort of fiction I write.

My Southern fiction has been well-received by Southern journals, so I suppose I can claim that I write Southern fiction. I've written some stories that are lauded by other women, not so much by men; so I suppose I can claim I write fiction for women. But I don't write romance, and I rarely write happy endings, so I can't claim to write traditional women's fiction. I'm not a true feminist in the commonly accepted sense of the term. And I'm interested in the plight of my black brothers and sisters -- intrigued by how different their lives are from those of white people -- so I'm not exclusively a traditional Southern writer either. I'm more of a every-person-is-valuable-in-their-own-right type of writer.

So far, I've decided I'm not a traditional fiction writer. I knew that much when I started trying to figure out what kind of writer I am. So I'm still lost.

I'm keeping this blog as a sort of journal to try and work it out. Maybe you can help me find an appropriate label, or maybe you will just read along silently and observe. Whichever you choose, welcome to my blog. -- GHC

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