Rantings of a Writer

I was asked this week if I would come to my son's Senior Kindergarten class for career day to talk about my career as .... GULP... a writer. Ignoring the clammy sweat beading my upper lip, I graciously said "sure" and headed home wondering, "Now why should this strike fear into my heart?!"

Certainly 5 and 6 year olds can be tough crowd. Mostly because they are so delightfully honest! If you are boring them - they let you know in no uncertain terms. But I think my trepidation comes from a deeper place than the potential rejection by 20 Kindergartners.

Am I a writer simply because I say I am? Is that enough? Is it enough that I practice my craft almost daily in either private or public domains? Is it enough that I have been published on the Internet and in one magazine? That I have written a chapter in a published book? Just when can I say that I have arrived?

"Am I enough?" is really what I'm asking.

This invitation has opened my eyes to yet another aspect of my life that I can reclaim for myself. It offers me the choice to live based on my own internal compass rather than seek validation through the eyes of anyone else. This is an inside job and no amount of validation from anywhere else will make a difference. If I believe in my self then...

I AM enough :)

I believe that being a "writer" has little to do with a label or assigned identity and more to do with expressing an essential aspect of myself. That expression finds its way into the world day after day as I practice my craft. I am so many things and yet the whole is still greater than the sum of my parts.

I am "writer" ..... hear (read?) me rant :)