You Are What You Do — Then I’ll Be A Writer
Two years ago I stepped across the threshold that separates safety and danger. I became a writer. When you read those words, it might not seem brave or courageous. Afterall, don’t plenty of people write? Absolutely. Writing is not scary, but changing your identity? Now that can keep people up at night.
We all have identities. They follow us around like strange shadows. Some of them we build and title for ourselves, while others are given to us. It’s why there are cliques in high school and why we giggle at the nicknamed kid strolling across the campus quad. It’s the clothes you wear and the music you listen to. Identity can make you smile and it can make you cry.
Your identity is the first thing you tell a stranger. “Hi, my name is Tom Skaggs and I’m a…” At university our identities are usually based around our field of study. Those were simpler times, when stating your college classes brought possibility. No one had failed at being an investment banker. Political science major? Yeah, plenty of time to become an advisor for the president. There’s still hope, kid, just keep studying.
Then the great sieve of life sorts us out and we fall upon our occupations with excitement or indifference. And just like that, our identity is now whatever it is that keeps the roof over our head.
The great sieve did a number on me. I found myself working my 9 to 5 and coming home in the evenings ready to relax by playing a few rounds of video games. In fact, I turned it into a bonafide habit bordering on addiction. If I had free time, I’d pick up the controller. Every. Time. For me it was video games. For you it might be TV or maybe something else entirely. We all need to relax, but be mindful of how you’re spending your time, it’s one of the few things we can’t get back in this world.
Where you write is your temple. It’s the place creativity finds you.
Photo credit: Rachel Waters Photography
Even when I began writing, video games eclipsed my free time. And here’s the kicker, when I introduced myself to people I never said I was a writer. Sometimes I might mention I was writing a novel, but a writer? I couldn’t claim that. I felt a dissonance that made me ashamed to give myself that title. At the time, I assumed it was because I hadn’t published anything, but do you have to publish to be a writer? No. There was something more sinister swirling in my head.
“You are what you do, not what you say.”
20th century philosopher Carl Jung noted “you are what you do, not what you say.” What you do is only measured by the time you put into something. According to Jung’s ideas and my habits, I had two identities.
1) my day job.
2) a gamer.
Now, I never greeted someone, shook hands with them and said, “Hi, I’m Tom Skaggs and I’m a gamer.” But you are what you do, and I worked my 9 to 5 and I played games. Frankly, there wasn’t a lot of time for much else. Sure, I wrote too. But I wrote when I had spare time. Even typing those words makes my fingers twitch. Does any successful writer do their creative act in their spare time?
I decided that if I wanted to chase my dreams, I needed to do whatever it was that writers did, gaming time be damned.
So what do writers do?
T.M.S. Skaggs’s Writing Must-Dos:
1) Carry a pen and journal with you wherever you are
2) Write every day (I wake up at 5:30 am every day and usually write until about 7:30 am)
3) Read, read, read
4) Go to writing groups for critique (I currently have two great communities)
5) Whenever there is free time, ask yourself if your work needs your attention (more often than not, it does)
I cracked the code. With these changes, I found myself writing 10 or more hours every week. My productivity skyrocketed. Meeting someone new? I no longer felt ashamed for saying I was a writer, because I knew I was giving it my full effort.
The time you spend on given activity defines who you are. The true currency of our world is time. What will you pay for?
The T.M.S. Skaggs Writing Must-Dos caused many changes. I stopped playing video games. I don’t want this blog to be anti-video game or anti-television. But whenever I sit down at the TV I remind myself that my writing is suffering. It is a balancing act. If you give time to something, it takes time from something else. If your dream is becoming a writer, the creative act of writing must be the priority and you must give it the time it deserves. Otherwise, is it really your identity?
Two years ago I became a writer, and that change to my identity scared me. At the point of writing this blog post, I don’t have anything published under my name. But I’m still a writer. I wake up every morning and write. I am what I do, and so are you. Change is not easy, but if something truly gives you value, as writing does to me, you should take the plunge.
