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Can I Call Myself An Author Now?

For the second time in the past couple years now, I can say I have had a poem of mine published once again! My first poem published was in an anthology called We Will Not Be Silenced which shares countless stories through poetry, prose and art of survivors of sexual harassment and assault.

Me holding my copy of We Will Not Be Silenced, which contains what will be the first of many poems I’ll have published in the future.

What made me decide to contribute to this anthology about sexual harassment and assault is my own personal experiences. The long story short end of the matter was as I was growing up having to deal with being bullied in school by boys in my elementary and middle school years. The bullying I experienced in elementary school from boys my own age was physical, such as tugging at my hair during class to one of the boys sitting behind me on the school bus and punching the back of my seat.

Once I entered middle school, the bullying became more harassment in nature. In my 6th grade English class, I found myself hiding my face during class because one of the boys was always puckering his lips and making kissing noises at me. I tried getting him to stop to no avail. I also had to deal with another boy that same year telling me that he wanted to kiss me and telling me that he knew I wanted to kiss him too even though I never expressed any interest in him. At that point of my life, I’d never kissed anyone so I was worried that he might try to force a kiss on me one day.

These experiences and many others I experienced growing up inspired me to write my poem because the phrase I use to title my poem is a phrase many of us heard growing up when dealing with harassment from boys. But in my opinion, I see the phrase as a crutch to excuse boys from their wrongful behavior, which just continues to perpetuate and allow them to act that way as they grow up.

My most recent poetry publication is in an anthology called Through the Looking Glass: Reflection on Madness and Chaos Within. This anthology’s main focus is on mental illness and the experiences each of us have with dealing with our battle against our mental illness. Since mental illness is such a taboo subject, this anthology is an important step in the right direction to beginning the process of people actually talking about their mental health problems instead of feeling like their having to cope with them alone.

My big struggle that I talk about in Through the Looking Glass is with depression. I make a comparison between depression being an everyday fight against a demon that I have to slay and conquer every day because that’s how my experience with depression has been since I discovered I was depressed. I discovered I had depression when I was in college when I started having dreams and waking up with tears streaming down my face during the night and not understanding why. But it was not until years later in 2019 when my best friend lost her fight against cystic fibrosis that I discovered my depression getting worse. The depression I experienced during my college years was nothing like the demon I found myself fighting against once I lost my dear friend, one of the few people who I felt like knew me and understood me as a person. But I’ve been conjuring it one day at a time and I feel like I’m doing so much better now than I’ve been for a while.

 I also have another poem of mine that’s going to be published in another anthology that’ll be coming out in the near future that I’m excited about.

But one of the many reasons I wrote this post is now that I have some of my writing being published, should I consider myself an author? I mean most of the writing of mine that is getting published is poetry and each anthology is only going to have one of my poems, each one different from the other. But I do not know if I should consider myself an author because of these poems being put out there because I do not know if I feel like I deserve that title.

At the same time though, I love the written word so much and being published in any capacity has always been a dream of mine. I know technically I have been published since college along with since I started this blog back in 2015 after I graduated from college. But there is something different about seeing your name in a physical book you can hold in your hands. And to me (along with this blog of course), that feels like a huge accomplishment. Nonetheless, I still struggle with assigning myself the title of author because I still cannot believe I have accomplished this much in what feels like such a short amount of time. And I really cannot wait to see where my writing will go from here, what other publications I will find myself contributing to in the near future.

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Confessions of A Writer #5: Reading Inspires Writing

Stephen King If You Want to be A Writer Quote

I know sometimes you feel like you don’t have time to read because you want to use that time to write. However, I personally believe reading and writing go hand in hand. When you’re feeling lost, reading can be the greatest inspiration to get yourself back into writing again. If anything, I honestly believe what inspires most writer’s writing is the books the writer reads.

For me, most of the writing I do here on my blog is mostly book reviews and video games, with these confessions posts being published whenever I feel inspired to write about writing. However, what you’ll notice if you go through the books I’ve written reviews on is that I mostly talk about young adult literature, fantasy and occasionally science fiction, romance and mystery. This makes sense for me as a writer because these are the type of books I read. But, I also feel like with my own writing, these types of books inspire me to write outside of what I do here on my blog. Most of the writing I do outside of here that I decide to publish on my blog is usually one of these genres. This is because I gain my inspiration from these stories and use them to help me come up with unique stories of my own.

I write within the genres I read because I find that reading inspires writing. And I think most writers can agree with me on this. I honestly think one of the basic tools a writer needs to be successful is to read a lot. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean someone can’t be a writer because they don’t read. I just think a writer who doesn’t read will have a much more difficult time at being successful as a writer due to having one less source of inspiration in their lives.

I feel like reading can help you a lot with your writing. By reading other books, you expose yourself to a variety of different writing styles and can see what works and what doesn’t. You can also make note of writing devices such as plot, setting, character, etc. in a story to get an idea of how to improve your own writing.

I believe that reading helps you gain knowledge. So as a writer, I believe the more books you read, the more you are able to understand writing as a whole. So for me personally, I believe in order to be a successful writer, you have to read just as much as you write.

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Confessions of A Writer #2: I Don’t Write Every Day

I Need to Stop Talking About Writing and Actually Write Something

One of the many misconceptions about being a writer is that you have to write every day. Otherwise if you don’t, you apparently don’t enjoy it as much as you say you do or you don’t want to be a writer as much as you think. While some people might think this is true, I believe not all writers need to write every day as long as writing itself is still a part of your life in some way.

That’s why I’m willing to confess that I, myself don’t write every day. I try the best I can to make writing a weekly habit, even if it means jotting down an idea or two occasionally. But if I’m not in the right head space to write or don’t have any ideas, I don’t do it.

For one, writing is much more difficult to do when you don’t know what you want to talk about. Like I said in my last confessions post, writing is hard and it’s much easier to do when you already have a clear idea of what you want to talk about.

I also find writing to be fun and enjoy it more when there’s no added stress to doing it. That’s why I normally write whenever I feel like it because it becomes something I enjoy instead of being like a job to me.

So while other writers might write every day, I don’t because it doesn’t always work for me. It benefits me to write whenever inspiration strikes because that’s normally when my best ideas will truly emerge. That’s when I’ll truly make progress on whatever it is I’m currently working on.

 

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Confessions of A Writer #1: Writing is Hard

Writing Is Hard Work Dorothy Day Quote

Hello everyone! I hope you all are doing well today. So, after some thinking, I’ve decided I want to try something new on my blog. It’s an idea I’ve had in my head for some time, something that I haven’t really seen before on other writer’s blogs.

I want to write confessions about my writing experience. I want to talk about my own struggles as a writer and admit some of the things I might possibly do that writers shouldn’t be doing. I also want to write confessions about writing in general because there are a lot of misconceptions in the world about writing and writers and it would be nice to clear them up.

So for my first confessions post, I want to tell you that writing is hard. Even for writers like me who’ve been writing for a number of years. There are some days when I know exactly what I want to write about and get to work on it immediately. Then, there are the days where I’m at a complete loss for words so it takes me longer to get any writing done.

But it never gets easier. No matter how many years of writing experience you gain, no matter how many words you’ve written down. But what helps me get through it all is perseverance. I might have some days where I’m really struggling, can’t figure out what I want to write about. So I take my time with it. If in the moment I don’t feel like writing, I tell myself its okay, and come back to it whenever I feel ready. I don’t rush it or pressure myself to write because then I know it’ll never work out the way I want it to.

Another way I get through these moments of writer’s block is by doing something else. I find with myself that if I’m able to keep my mind distracted, my thoughts will flow a whole lot faster. Then, I’ll be able to write whenever I do feel ready.

Writing is hard work. Even for writers who’ve been in it for many years. We all have our moments where we’re struggling with it. But we don’t let that stop us from doing it because we love it so much. Each of us has different ways we deal with these moments where we feel like we can’t get any writing done. And once we get through the tunnel known as writer’s block, writing doesn’t seem quite as hard. That’s when the real writing gets done.

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Truer Than Fiction Guest Writer Blog Post 

So on Sunday, I announced on my coffee post that I’d be a guest writer on a friend of mines blog. Well, that post has officially been published as of yesterday. You can check it out following this link: 

https://geniusandinsanityiamthatline.wordpress.com/2017/03/07/raney-simmons-truer-than-fiction-guest-writer/

My friend Lesley was a psychology major at Columbia College, the college I attended. We had Creative Nonfiction together, where we shared some of our most personal stories through the written word. On her blog Genius and Insanity: I Am That Line, she writes about many different mental health issues. 

With this guest writing post, she asked me to write about how reading or writing affected my mental health. So I focused on escapism, the idea where someone does something they love as a way to escape their real world problems. For me, this was something I knew I did when my passion of reading and writing grew, due to the difficult circumstances that came into my life. During this course of my life, there were a total of three books that helped me cope through the problems I was dealing with. These books each taught me something different about life and myself. 

I’m excited that my writing was published on Lesley’s blog. I’ve never been a guest writer before so it was nice to try something new. Please check out this post and Lesley’s blog. She’s a great writer and has a lot of interesting information about mental health that I think people will enjoy.

Thank you Lesley for posting my writing on your blog!

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