A writer, alas

Note: I wrote this the other week but did not edit and publish it until today. I am not *that* prolific, nor that fast, of a writer to pen these two entries for Sept. 4 in the short span the post times would seem to indicate. -- Yours always, UCM, advocate for truth in advertising

There is a part of my identity that troubles me, even though I regularly indulge it and even do so publically. I am a writer.

People always ask me when I'm going to "write something." This has been one of the most frequently asked questions of me for the past 20 years. Nearly every friend and acquaintance of substance I've known has asked me this question in one way or another, whether they've read my personal writings (such as this public bog) or my professional work.

"When are you going to write something?"

That question confounds me, because as far as I'm concerned, I've been doing just that. I worked as a journalist for about 10 years, created (on my better days) what could be called "literary marketing" for four years, keep a private journal, write this blog and periodically pen a really awful poem. I am also an enthusiastic e-mail writer. There was also a gut-wrenching 350-page book that could've been titled, An Autobiography of Shame, readership of which was mercifully very limited.

And yet I am still asked when I'm going to "write something." I interpret this as an assumption that the asker expects me to create a single gigantic work, such as a novel. Some of the people who ask this question have implied -- sometimes directly -- that I'm "not living up to my potential" or am otherwise an underachiever. Others are a little more flattering and less judgmental about some supposed "lack" of meaningful productivity on my part and simply say they'd be curious to see me put my mind to a novel or a book.

I've never been terribly comfortable with these expectations or desires. I've always felt that my writing just is what it is: I was a journalist, a columnist, a person who simply opens my hands as anyone else might open their mouth. To me, that describes a writer.

Why is something more, something bigger, something different than the writing I've done and currently do ... why is *something else* expected? Why can't I be just the kind of writer I am?

People say the art of letter-writing is lost. That's bullshit. I write letters all the time. They just happen to be delivered electronically in e-mail. While they're hardly the work of Thomas Jefferson or Hunter S. Thompson, both prolific letter writers, I can reasonably say, based on my own experience, that they are not your typical e-mails, nor your typical letters. They are a mash of the colorful details of my daily life, reflections on conversations and the occasional political rant or emotional expression mixed with mundane questions for or replies to questions asked by the recipients.

And my blog? Well, what the hell is this thing? Sometimes it's a big open public letter, sometimes a creative non-fiction short story, sometimes a little opinion piece, sometimes an aimless journal, sometimes a small work of humor.

Here's the thing: It's writing. And as far as I'm concerned, I'm writing "something."

For a while, I got so tired of The Question that I wanted to deny I was a writer. I do not see a traditional "work of substance" forthcoming, and I have started to feel very tired of the suggestion that I'm not really a writer until I create such a piece.

But the truth is, I *am* a writer. I enjoy writing. I made my living by it one way or another for 15 years. Now I do it for pleasure and for the personal insight it provides. It is a way in which I give order to a very small fraction of my thoughts, put them down in fixed form somewhere, engage my friends in dialogue (or attempt to do so but sometimes fail miserably), and even a way in which I relax.

Last week on a flight to Hawaii, I wrote 15 pages in my private journal, much of it about two conversations I had just before I left town. A woman on the plane commented about the time I took to write, told me she and her mother had been watching me "burn up the pages," and asked if I was a writer. I told her yes, and yet at the same time, I wondered if we had the same understanding of that term.

Sometimes when I think about the expectations people have so persistantly voiced about my writing over the years, I see that scene from "As Good As It Gets" in which Jack Nicholson walks into his psychiatrist's waiting room and asks of the people waiting there: "What if this is as good as it gets?"

My writing is what it is. I write this blog, my private journals, e-mails and the rare handwritten note. I don't know if there will ever be anything more, unless these ramblings of mine are someday published in a thematic piece, ala Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in America." Here's what I often feel like saying to people who ask when I'll "write something:" This *is* something, and maybe this is as good as it gets. I can live with that. Why can't you?