someone with a really really really fancy job asked me the other day what i do for a living. i told her i'm a writer.
oh? what have you written?
and that is exactly when my stomach clenched and my breath caught on one of my ribs and i bit my bottom lip so my cutie dimple appeared. i call it a dimple even though it is not actually a dimple. it is a chicken pox scar. and yes, that thought went through my head at the same exact moment as the thought that sounds a lot like i call myself a writer even though i am not exactly a writer.
i hate when that thought busts in.
i get paid for writing. but magazine articles and speeches and words for other people...oh, i forget all about those the moment i give them away. easy come, easy go.
to me, books make a writer real.
perched on the left corner of my desk are three and a half unfinished proposals. good stories. one could be great. none you've ever heard before. one i'm not sure i should tell. which makes me want to tell it. a lot.
back to that woman with the really really really fancy job. i almost told her that i write nonsense. nothing of consequence. truthfully, i bet i almost told her about my dimple.
but i didn't. i think i waved my hand away and escaped the convo with something like "oh, probably nothing you've read..."
yet.
one of my friends with a really really really cool job asked me what i was writing lately. after i told him, i could feel his shrug through the internet. "we all prostitute ourselves at some point in our careers," he replied. gulp. hey...have you ever been back to look at the sweeterie? remember that? man, i spent about an hour there yesterday. some lovely images over there, i am not afraid to say. speaking of lovely images, i leave you with a quote from uncle sugar in response to the friendship bracelet cuh-razy train, on which i am an enthusiastic traveler. also, i would very much like to find this watch and make it my own. it's me, yes? say yes, please. xoxo.
18 comments:
*yet*
I'd read any book you wrote...even if it was in another language or written about something I hated. And if you were my writing teacher, I'd never skip class--even for a shoe sale. Actually, I'd probably even read your grocery list.
You are most definitely a writer, and having your words in a book would not make you more real than you already are. Of course I'd read your book in a heartbeat, but I already love that I get to read your blog.
Oh my. This happens to me, ALL. THE. TIME. Fancy jobs and cool jobs really get me feeling just a little less shiny and a little more questionable. And then I see your blog and see your little Yet there at the bottom of your post... which is a BIG YET. And I think about my own Big Yets and I go back to work. Thanks, Karey.
craving you + wine{ i know white cause the red stains} + hours and hours of your stories. someday. yes? xoxoxo!!!! and please write a book NOW. i just finished attachments by rainbow rowell and something tells me that your emails would be so much better. like the kind that would turn a two week blue mood into a instant rainbow sherbert mood. :) i bet you have that affect MS. WRITER.
See I think the only requirement of being called a "writer" is for your words to have touched someone.
Your words speak to me in a way not many others do.
For that, I gladly call you one of my favorite writers.
You KNOW I believe in you and your beautiful words. Sometimes it just takes the right time and right moment in the universe for things that are unfinished to be pushed out into the world; finished. No? And you are not prostituting yourself....you are making things happen. There is a difference. Sometimes you just have to jump in, right? Whether the water is the perfect temperature or not. And that watch? It is SO you....so you, in fact, that I can't believe it isn't already on your wrist!
xoxo
Melis
swoon, writer-girl. but stainless is better. xo
my response to several who have asked "...favorite writers?", has been "karey mackin, tom robbins, anita diamant, etc."
true story. and i'm not a writer, i am just a lover of words.
you know, i looked at my sweeterie calendar just this morning and thought those are some well penned words.
and fancy is all in the eye of the beholder. plenty of fake rolexes look real - it's all in how your carry them off.
xoxo.
I miss the sweeterie, I have it saved to my reader so I can look at them and smile! They introduced me to you and it's been lurv ever since. I hope you do it again.
Back in the olden days when I was an actor... used to have the same feeling. Started telling people I was a Realtor, Pilot, Nanny, Fireman... ANYTHING ELSE. Someone needs to give you a book deal already! Move over Stephanie Meyer and JK Rowling, make some room!
there is that saying "fake it till you make it" that my therapist person loves to say. I pay her to tell me that crap btw.
to be honest it doesn't apply to you at all - you really have already made it.
all these short stories you write for us daily? I would pay any book store for {seriously}. In fact I've told you, lets do a blurb book for you, it will be real and you can sell it / I'll lay it out for you.
I understand though...as a mostly self taught designer...I never could tell people at my old job that I was a graphic designer or an art director because they all had real careers and degrees saying so. turns out, after I left them [or they let me go] that I'm just as good and some of them have even said they're jealous of what I've done since.
you guys are nice friends. you just are.
xoxo.
I love that you write, I love what you write here everyday. It really makes my day more special to read words that you wrote. I have read this blog from beginning to end and it's better then any books I've ever read. A fancy job is nothing more then a fancy job... but a heart and soul and words like yours are miraculous.
Oh and I also revisit the sweeterie loads and loads of times. It makes my heart smile.
you are already a writer. a brilliant one. i keep your sweeterie stuff on my wall. it inspires me every time i look at it to both live an incredible life and to be a writer myself. a writer, in my mind, doesn't become a writer because a book is published. a writer is made a writer by what's in her heart.
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