7 signs you might be a closet writer

Sure you like reading books, in fact sometimes you enjoy reading them more than living in the real world, but liking a good story, wishing for a written world of imagination is different from creating one, right? Surely a writer is born, calluses on the index and middle fingers, and is not made? Not necessarily. The American master bard Walt Whitman did not produce his masterpiece Leaves of Grass until he was 35 years old, and no one has yet figured out where his genius came from, almost done. Here are seven signs you might be harboring a fugitive author inside, a writer in hiding desperate to escape.

1. You really like books. Oh really. You read under the covers as a kid, not to mention in the car, on the bus, even heaven forbid at lunch while others were playing. More than just a literary obsession, yours was the sad boredom that life in the real world could never reach the same heights as it does on the page. Maybe your true direction in life is found in a perfectly kerning typeface. Perhaps there you will reach your true heights.

2. As an adult, you often avoid reading. Not because you’re over it, but because your reading standards continue to rise and, frankly, one poorly written book has let you down too much; you are too good a reader to write that it is below you. A closet-trapped writer is guaranteed to have higher standards than most; maybe it’s time you put on the shirt that fits you well.

3. It’s a cliché, but fiction is the home of clichés, so keep reading: You can name the books that changed your life, whose well-crafted, compelling truths and hidden insights helped you see the world in different ways, you same. also. Perhaps you have a written truth to offer the world of yours.

4. You often tell others the flaws in what you are reading, how you think a novel could be better written. You intuitively know what makes good writing, you know if an author has something to say before you’ve worked half a page. You would write book reviews if you were a writer, you exclaim sadly. Well maybe you should grab a pen and you are.

5. When you read words, you hear the author’s voice inside you; in fact, you have a deep-rooted belief that you somehow know the authors whose work you have read, even though you have never met them. Maybe you really do. Writing, like other forms of art, is a bridge between author and reader, and poet, artist, and meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy writes that if we are aware of this bridge, we can not only enter into the work of a writer, but also acquire their capacity:

“When you want to create something, you want to invoke beauty to inspire you. So, at that moment, you have to identify with someone who is creating. You want to do something unique, but the kind of thing you want to do has already been done or is being done by someone else.” .Only you want to overcome it.So try to identify yourself with the consciousness of the person who has already done the thing or with the person himself, and try to get inspiration, aspiration and capacity from it.If you want to write something spiritual, read my writings and identify with them. If you want to draw something, take your ideal artist and identify with their creation.”[1]

6. You long to discover the hidden meaning of things, the hidden motivations and depths in the hearts of others, the mystery of the world around you, also within yourself. Most good writers have -that’s why they write- their fascination for life equal, if not greater, than for writing itself. Follow the path of such writers to self-knowledge; pen in hand, start writing yourself.

7. You have always been a storehouse of facts, a walking library of information. He can remember everything that happens to him, often surprising his friends with the accurate recollection of events and their sequence, without understanding why. Your mind itself is a storyteller: reporting, observing and describing the events of your day, albeit usually spontaneously, a recording whose reels are endless. Songwriter Kristin Hersh began writing songs because “if I don’t turn ideas into songs, they can get stuck in me and make me sick.”[2] Even if you don’t go to this extreme, if your mind is overstepping its limits, tap into your excess creativity and energy; start writing it all down. You might also want to try meditation and pick up a much-needed on-off switch.

According to Hersh, “songwriting is about shutting up instead of talking.”[3] Whether it’s songs or entire books, if you want to be a writer, now is the time to take a bite of the apple instead of talking about it.

Footnotes:

1. p.42, A Galaxy Of Beauty’s Stars, Sri Chinmoy, 1974

2. Kristin Hersh, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristin_Hersh

3.Ibid.