How am I still a writer?
This is the story of a wannabe writer, parte dos.
Hello. This essay is part two of a piece I published a few years ago about my issues with writing. Basically, it is an update about my mess-ups as a writer wannabe. Make sure to hit like and leave a comment. Tell me about your creative mess-ups. If you haven’t done so…
I am a good cook. If you invite me to your house and let me loose in your kitchen you'll probably have a mouthgasm. If you let me loose in your office and ask me to write something that'll blow your mind, that's another story. In this case, you'll probably experience brain damage.
For cooking, besides reading about it, learning at restaurants, and having two small businesses, I never took a class (yet I used to give them). Writing is involved in my job, and I've taken instructions. I consider myself a good cook, yet I am not a good writer. ¡No señor! This is the story of a wannabe writer, parte dos.
Is it a wannabe writer or writer wannabe?
I had convinced myself for so long that I was not a good writer that I created lagoons in my head about things I have actually gotten published. Some time ago, I started researching the steps to publish my book and I found an article mentioning that it was important to create an author’s website or a page. A place to showcase my published writings regardless of how badly they were written. “If someone else accepted your content and published it, that is proof that you are a published writer”, read the article. I enjoyed that line so much that I wrote it down without writing the source, as a good writer does. Right?
The article also said I had to put everything I have gotten published so far in outlets that were not mine on the author page. But it did not explain what to do when you are not a professional writer who hasn't been keeping track of where those publications are.
Going down memory lane, I found an article I wrote for a wellness magazine back in Puerto Rico, my first one. I could not believe the emotions I felt when I found it. As my chest felt deprived of air due to my feelings, I sensed a vein pop in my spirit. You see, back then, I was smart enough to cut the article into pieces to get rid of an ad printed on the same page, and I didn't like it. Why? To this day, I don't really know. But what I'm sure of is that I didn't give a damn about the crime I was about to commit.
I proceeded to use my fine motor skills to cut out the ad without noticing that right over IT was the freaking date of publication, and I threw that part away. So, I have a picture of a published article from somewhere between 2004 and 2005, missing its date of birth.
But that is not all. This was a crime that couldn't be left halfway done. I went on and craftily cut around the magazine logo and the title of the magazine section and glued them back to the page. I felt so smart at that moment, but not so much now. I hesitated deeply to publish it on my author page, but I swallowed my pride and posted it anyway.
I searched the magazine contacts online to find it closed business years ago. See the article below at your own risk. Even if you can't read in Spanish, you will see a horrendous aberration.
Sometime around those years (2004-05), a client who wrote articles about his services in different outlets offered me a spot to write about exercising (or was it personal training?) for one of Puerto Rico’s local papers. But go ahead, ask me where that article is. This one is, I think, in Cat State, a la Schrodinger’s, somewhere in my old CDs. It might be there, and it might not be there.
One of my oldest friends from school is a producer for local TV in Puerto Rico. Years ago, she launched a news website focused on pop culture. She had asked me to collaborate with her, creating exercise videos and articles about fitness and wellness, which I did. But (yes, there is a but), as life went on and we parted ways, I didn’t get to save a copy of all the articles I had published in there, nor the freaking videos. I retrieved two pieces from my old files, but I am sure there were more. Do you see the pattern here?
When I saw her during one of my recent trips to PR, she told me that almost everything she had created for that website was in computers and storage drives that were stolen or lost during a hurricane.
Fast forwarding to Florida 2015-16, a lady who exercised at the fitness place I used to work, after having a few conversations about food and my culinary experience, had offered me a spot as a food writer for a small local online paper that she and her husband were venturing into. I know I wrote more than five recipes for them; I know it because I have the emails I sent with the articles, and I saw the articles published online (but I didn’t get to save them all). I tried to contact her to see if I could salvage them, and I did find her. But they sold the business, and the people who own it now have no idea what I was talking about.
Around the time I started writing my book, Navigating Fitness, I decided to pitch a few articles to a wellness website, and they were published. After that, I have written on my blogs or newsletters but nothing for nobody else. How much have I gotten paid for all that writing? Not a penny. In fact, for one of them (the one I viciously dismembered and glued back to misery), I had to pay $75 bucks to get it in the magazine. I paid to get published, and then I killed the article.
Wait, I did try to get published again. Do you see? A good writer would have remembered that. Recently, I dared to pitch an article to one of my favorite food newsletters, Gastro Obscura, and it was denied. But I will persist with this one. It is a dream of mine to have something published on this site. I have their book, and I downloaded their pitching guidelines. I only have to remember to save and secure the damn thing if it gets published.
The piece de resistance
Although I haven't submitted articles to other publishers, I did commit another literary crime not so long ago, just to keep up the habit. They always say that writing is therapy, so I put it to the test to see if it was true.
Dealing with a thought time, I used my book as therapy, or better said, as an escape. I typed, changed, and chopped the shit out of that book like a maniac. Did I review and fix things? I did not. Under the pressure of the moment my mind did not calculate that this was part of the escape process.
Well, one of those articles about what to do to publish a book said to brave up and send a draft to people you admire and would greatly appreciate their opinion. I was hesitant at first, but then I read another article recommending to “send that fucking email.” So, I sent it.
In my head, I killed two birds with one stone. On one hand, I “dealt” with the issue I was trying to escape from. On the other, I was blowing the minds of some of my most admired writers and podcasters with my incredible book.
A few months after hitting send, I sat for another round of reviewing and editing my book, as one does. But when I started reading, something was off. Things were out of place; chapters were mixed, and there were horrendous grammatical errors. Using writing to deal with a miserable situation wasn’t a good idea after all. If I posted something like that in my newsletter, I could have just taken it down and fixed it. But you can’t do that to a PDF you sent to your literary giants. What the fuck was I thinking? I was indeed blowing their minds, killing their brains.
As soon as I realized what I sent, I felt a heatwave coming up my throat, my ears got itchy, and my breathing shortened for a few seconds. Another vein popped inside my soul. As I go through another round of reviewing and editing my book, I often revisit that memory. I call it The Big Fuck Up. It helps me recenter my mind.
I know I'll keep messing up. In fact, I'll probably send a few more letters to finish the job.
As a writer, I am like the cook who allows his senses to take over the task, feeling my way through words. As a cook I am like a writer who relies on readiness, basics rules, and who makes sure things come out tasting good. So, how is it that I am still a writer? My most logical answer is that I am a writer because I like to write, not because I really know how to.
You ARE a writer.