Confessions and Stereotypes

Whenever I meet a new person and tell them that I’m a writer, that I write novels, they invariably say something along the lines of, “Wow… you have a lot of patience!  Wow, you must be dedicated.  Oh man, you must be smart.”  

All of those are great assumptions, but I always feel like sort of a faker, because the truth is I just like writing stories.  It’s not something I do because I have this amazing sense of self-discipline or I’m just super jazzed about conjunctions and prepositions (to be honest… I’m not sure I know what those are).  It’s something I do because I enjoy it, because I would actually be miserable if I didn’t get the stories in my head out on paper.  

That’s not to say I’m not smart (kind of) or dedicated.  I’m very dedicated to what I do.  But I have like, zero patience for a lot of what it involves.  I’m terrible at grammar, which is probably the most humiliating part.  I don’t want people to read my grammar errors that I post here on this blog or on my Twitter and think, “Oh, she’s dumb.  She must be a terrible writer.”  I think I’m actually a pretty decent writer.  I love my stories and my characters.  I’m just not great at the technicalities.  But hey, that’s why my editors are such an important part of my life!  They are brilliant.    

I don’t write because I have something to prove.  I write because it’s fun and because I have found more joy and meaning in the books that I’ve read throughout my life than pretty much anywhere else.  I hope one day, I can pass that gift along.