New Identity - Writer

I’m doing lots of processing at the moment about how I’m showing up in the world after leaving my job. I went to a work conference with old colleagues yesterday, and while some of my pitches for freelance work may have landed, what it confirmed to me was that my identity is in flux. I introduced myself to ask a question from the floor, and I had to think really hard what to say in order not to stumble.

New identities take time to process. You become obsessed with them, and how they fit among all your old identities. I remember when I became a mum, and how my whole being was processing pregnancy, birth, and the baby-moon for the nine months after. It takes 18 months all told to become a mum, and it’s really only on the baby’s first birthday that you feel you’ve arrived.

I’m looking forward to that feeling of arrival with the new identity that I’m determined to take on - that of writer. All my life I’ve skirted round being brave enough to call myself a writer. Now, at this moment of career break, what I’m figuring is that if I don’t take this moment to do it, I never will.

I’m flirting with it - running towards, turning away. I can’t bear to say that is how I make my living. It wouldn’t, after all, be true. People, when they ask “what are you up to?” really want to know how you’re making your money. I have to get myself out of the habit of answering that question. If I’m going to let my writing identity grow, I have to put the finance part of what I do to make a living as subservient to the main effort - writing. I have to recognise that I’ll do whatever I have to to make a living - as long as that living involves writing.

When I look back over the past few years, I can see how I’ve done it so far. I’ve taken on entrepreneurial roles where I’ve written the story of the company. I’ve taken on a charity CEO role so I can write and present. I’ve written books to self publish as a sideline. I've still never, in my head, had the temerity to call myself a writer. This year I’m experimenting with all sorts of ways of making money so that I can go on a big adventure to write. When people ask me “what are you up to?” I automatically answer with those itty bitty plans. I’m scared to give them the big picture.

This has to stop - I have to give myself space. The title of the book I’m going to write on my adventure to Arizona and in the remainder of this year is “Some Sky of One’s Own”. I have to give myself space to create that identity. It’s not to carve it out. It’s to create a patch of sky over my head which says, among other things, but prominent enough to read first - “Writer”.

“Some Sky of One’s Own” follows in the steps of three Modern Women, Georgia O’Keeffe, Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein, in order to explore what it takes to create in the 21st Century, how they give women models for midlife transformation and exploring our dreams, and how, as a bipolar woman, relating to Woolf in particular, rereading her life gives me hope for the future.

I’m leaving for Arizona in two weeks time, and will be visiting O’Keeffe’s home in New Mexico. In among all the preparations, yes, I’m a writer. I’m also a tutor, an investor, a keen observer of the USD/GBP exchange rate, a packer - and, eek, looking over the road at the pharmacy opposite - a taker of required vaccines.

There are lots of identities to juggle here. I listened to an excellent podcast by Claire Venus ✨ featuring Lemon Soul’s author Emma Simpson and the amazing memoir she has coming out about wild swimming and processing grief. For anyone considering the very real life identity switch to author, here is a woman telling it like it is. I thoroughly recommend listening to their conversation. I was particularly interested in a snippet at the end about writing seasons: autumn, winter; fallow times before spring and summer. That’s where I’m at right now. In the fallow season before transformation. Making space.

One day soon, I will call myself a writer. I promise myself that. I promise myself I will clear some blue sky mental space for that moniker. Gestating. Processing. Allowing myself to dream. Taking one small step, and then another. Making room for the big picture.