A Frothy Cup of Wisdom

“A writer is someone who has written today.” I read that on a Starbucks cup yesterday in Bellevue, and it has bothered me since. Bothered, not encouraged. I want to write -–and I suppose that I even think that I am, or at least, I will be–- a writer someday. Even though my body of work is scant, I comfort myself with the thought that I am working in my head. Those stories will indeed come out as soon as I get the time. But the truth is, I don’t give time to my writing. I am a writer who does not write. So, according to the wisdom of that Starbucks quotation, I am not a writer.

This wouldn’t be much of a shock to my friends or to the people that I work with at school. It would not be the shock that it would be if Stephen King, or Toni Morrison, or even John Grisham announced it on Oprah. No one thinks of me as a writer. Not even me.

I went to Powell’s last Monday to browse while waiting for the train. I wandered down the “Writing Guides” aisle, but I felt too ashamed to pick anything up. I have those writing books. Those and others. I know the rules. I understand that fiction speaks truth of what is within us. I know a few tips to move plot along and to develop character. I also understand that I am neither developing any characters nor moving any plotlines along. During the writing unit I taught to sophomores this past year, I hypocritically preached the gospel of writing, and how they had the power and authority to create new worlds and people. I wondered where my worlds are and why no one populates it. It’s akin to the preacher hiding a girlie magazine in his office or the father belting out the tired line to do as he says, not as he does. My feigning passion in the classroom is only a small part of the problem. I’m bothered more because I am not doing something that I really want to do. I felt a bit jealous of the students who were struggling through a story and basked in the rewards of pride that comes with a completed story. When’s the last time I did that?

I’m too old to make a James Gatz-like schedule for a personal timetable to better living. That copy of Hopalong Cassidy just ended up in his father’s possession after Gatsby was shot, anyway. I would like to reestablish the idea that I’d like to write. Perhaps I can be so brazen to say that I will try to write something today, and tomorrow, and after that. I remember that Ray Bradbury advice about writing a short story every day. At the end of the year, I’d have 365 stories, and it’s impossible to write 365 bad stories. I guess that at this point, I’d marvel if I had a canon of that many bad stories. I could be like, well, perhaps I should save words for my stories and not criticize others. For now, anyway.

Between Starbucks and Bradbury, I have plenty to get me started. And you thought Starbucks just made coffee.