I’m so happy to have Nikki Dolson, author of the Las Vegas noir thriller All Things Violent, as our guest blogger this week. She’s written us a piece about “becoming” a writer that we all can relate to. -Katie Pryal
Paperback Writer
I was having a semi-flirtatious phone conversation with a man when I told him that I was a writer. There was a pause and into he said, Tell me the name of the book. Like it was nothing. That moment left me speechless for two reasons: (1) Telling him meant that I liked him, which was terrifying for reasons I will probably channel into a story involving a dead body and a heist, and (2) I don’t tell people that I’m a writer. The name on my book is not quite the name on my drivers license. I keep these worlds separated. But I am a writer.
It was in 2006 when I started writing with the desire to be published. Outside of the thirty people in the creative writing workshop class, and my husband, no one knew. Eventually, I had stories published. This year I had a book published. In the intervening eleven years, people close to me didn’t know I wrote more than an occasionally funny email. I couldn’t ever say, when asked what my job was, that I was a writer. I would laugh and say something mildly witty about underground utilities. (Actually there’s nothing witty to be said about underground utilities, but I still try.) I could never say I am a writer, even though my writing has paid a few bills. It is a job. (I also work in the engineering field but that’s way less fun than writing about a contract killer who loves knives.)
I have turned this issue of mine over and over in my head. I think it’s partially because of the dreaded Imposter Syndrome, but mostly I kept this truth about myself private because it was the last little bit of me that was still mine. This me before kids, before the marriage, before the 9-5 office job that makes my little world spin ‘round. I didn’t have to share it with my family or friends, who might judge (they never would but still) and wonder if I was using my time wisely. Should I be spending those hours writing fiction when I could be in the living room with my kids or at work earning a few extra dollars? When I do stop to think about it, the guilt rises up in me, and I have to turn away from those thoughts because ugly crying in the grocery store while standing next to the deli hot case is not a good look. Maybe guilt was my fuel to write. All I know is that keeping the writing to myself kept the spark alive in me and helped me write a book and many stories.
When you release a book into the wild you have to support it. I should be talking about it constantly. Plugging whenever I can. I should be actively trying to find venues to push my book into the light. I have missed out several opportunities because I am having trouble writing. Because now that my book is out, my book is a reality. I am no longer only a mother, a daughter, an employee. I am a writer. Okay, I’ve been a writer for years, but now I’ve met people who only know me as a writer. I am exposed in a way that fills me with terror. And with relief. I wrote a book. Whether I am a good or bad writer is up to individual taste but I am a writer. I can say that now.
- Click to buy All Things Violent
Nikki Dolson is the author of ALL THINGS VIOLENT and her stories have appeared in Shotgun Honey, Thuglit, Bartleby Snopes, and others. She’s been nominated for a Derringer and shortlisted for Best American Mystery Stories 2016. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with her children. She occasionally tweets @nikkidolson and her website is nikkidolson.com.
Gotta ask: was that guy worth taking the “I’m a writer” plunge? Great essay!
Reader (Elaine), he was married. I have moved on. 🙂