Call Me a Writer

I’ve done a lot of writerly things for money: reporting, editing, and teaching. I managed to write and teach until I had kids, but parenting was the kiss of doom for balance in my life. Something had to go, and since my spouse was on board, I quit teaching. What little extra time I had, I spent writing. It didn’t pay, but it satisfied a creative need, and it didn’t require a wardrobe. Or parking. 

Yet for fifteen years, I’ve struggled to call myself a writer. I had no income, and the question, “What do you do?” produced an inner squirm. “I write,” I’d say, avoiding the noun. Then I’d add, “That’s what I do.” This phrase was unnecessary and only brought more attention to what I saw as an obvious cheat. Who was I kidding? I didn’t make any money. And in our culture, if you don’t earn a living at what you do, it’s a hobby. 

I published my first novel the year I turned fifty. Finally, I thought, I was legit. By my own life-long definition, a writer was someone who published a book. Yet I didn’t feel any different. I still struggled to say, “I’m a writer.” My book was with a small press, hardly a bestseller. Somewhere along the way, the rules changed. Now, to be a writer I had to have a book that sold a lot of copies. We were back to money. 

Not long ago, I tested my new rules. I was offered a job as a copywriter at a nonprofit. The project was to write their “Our Story” page for the website. I had a gig—a content writer! Filled with joy and pride, I told my family and friends, trying it on like a new dress. A paying job, my first in ten years! I was writing a second novel but so what, I thought. Real writers have other jobs. Most teach. I would be a freelancer and a novelist. That wasn’t unusual. In fact, it was quite normal. It was very, very normal. 

To balance work and writing, I split my week: three days to the foundation, three days to my writing. I interviewed staff and board members, nailing down the history and general feel of the organization. I fell behind on my novel word count goals but didn’t mind. For the first time since my thirties, I would pay taxes. I could legitimately bitch about the roads, mail, and public schools because I helped fund them. 

When I finally revealed my working draft, I could see even through Zoom that my boss did not love it. She tried to articulate what she wanted. I went back to my desk. The following week we planned to meet again, but she delayed by an hour. Then another. When we finally met, she told me she’d sent my draft to another staff member who would send me comments. I was pretty sure I knew what this meant. 

The following week, I was let go. They decided to write the piece in-house. I failed to produce what they wanted. I felt shocked, even embarrassed. I’d never been fired in my life. Was I fired? Was that what happened?

Once the initial shock faded, I realized something even more astonishing. I was relieved. A smile spread slowly over my entire body. I missed the intense, solitary effort of writing a book. I missed the quiet company of my readers and characters. I know it sounds strange. Let’s face it, it is strange. A writer’s closest relationships are often with pretend people. A memoirist might be closest to real people who are now dead. We become intimate with characters based on us, the people we used to be. 

I wonder now, what was all that craven joy over a paycheck? I struggled to call myself a fiction writer but was proud to say I was writing content. What is content? It’s not narrative. It isn’t news. At best, it resembles marketing. So, using my own warped logic, it was better to be a paid marketer than an unpaid writer of stories. That made no sense.

How embarrassing, to catch myself twenty-five years into this weird life still longing for legitimacy from a culture I disavowed. Because to write is to disavow the system of paychecks and status. Even if writing is a calling, it is also a decision. Deciding to write regularly when many people, including my parents, would call me a hobbyist, well, that is crazy. That takes something a lot of people just don’t have. It means staying in touch with a side of myself some, if not most, have never glimpsed. 

I like my weird life. My audience is dear to me, small as it may be. Many of them would read anything I wrote. I recall a woman in a book group I visited asking how long until I could offer her something else to read. I told her my debut took six years. Stricken, she cried, “That’s too long! Please step it up!”  

I resolve to “step it up.” I’m back on track with my word count goal. The irony isn’t lost to me, nor will it be to any writer reading this: for years I struggled to call myself a writer. Now I struggle to call myself anything else. 

-Christy Stillwell

Christy Stillwell's first novel, THE WOLF TONE, won the 2017 Elixir Press Fiction Prize. Her poetry chapbook, AMNESIA, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008. Stillwell holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College, an MA from University of Wyoming and a BA from University of Georgia. Her work has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Literary Mama, The Tishman Review, Hypertext, Salon and The Rumpus. She has received a residency at Vermont Studio Center and is a Wyoming Arts Council Literary Fellow. She lives in Montana. You can visit her online at www.christystillwell.com.