Who Do I Think I Am?
I met a thoughtful young man at our poetry group. He is a college student, and he is a writer. Or an aspiring writer. He writes poetry, among other things. From the first time I heard him recite his poetry, I knew he had it in him--that certain something that great writers are made of. I was impressed.
He complained about "writer's block," a condition I don't believe in, frankly. I believe writer's do get blocked, but it isn't because they have nothing to write. I think, no matter how disciplined you are, or how much you have to say, part of every writer's process is organic. Anything organic has cycles of life and death, or at the very least, wakefulness and sleep. So when a person feels he is blocked, what I believe is that his writing cycle is resting, smoldering, if you will. Like a fire, it dwindles, then when kindling is added, it flares and grows.
Through a series of conversations, conversations where he told me his concerns and what he felt he was up against, I knew I could help him. I agreed to mentor him. At first I felt strange: who am I, that I would have the chutzpah to "mentor" anyone? But I realized that just because I'm not known all over the world, just because I, myself, am just starting to garner attention in the writing world, doesn't mean I don't have things to offer. I have worked long and hard, over 15 years, at my craft. And I have 46 years of Life experience. Those 46 years will come in handy with my mentoring more than those 15 years, that I can say for sure. Because writing, or being a writer, is a way of life, not just a profession. You never take off your writer's hat, even if you want to.
We met for the first time in a coffee shop last week and we just talked. I listened. He has an interesting life story and history and as I listened, I started catching on as to why he's getting stuck.
He wants to compete in slam poetry, a style of poetry I'm not especially fond of. I asked him what he wanted to talk about. He told me he wanted to talk about being gay, being a minority. He told me he'd been watching YouTube, trying to get motivated, but everything he writes seems unoriginal. I asked for whom he was writing. I expected him to say "for myself and for an audience." Instead, he simply said, "my audience."
I countered: "So you'll need to find an audience of gay minority men, then. Correct?"
He didn't know how to respond to that. I told him that if he's writing for his audience, then he has to consider the fact that many in the audience will not identify with being gay, nor will they identify with being a minority. Then I spoke about the concept of "universality."
"I can't relate to being a gay man," I said, "but I can relate to feeling like I am an anomaly--that I don't fit in. I can't relate to being a minority; but I can relate to having challenges not of my making in front of me, that impede me every day."
I told him THAT is where his writing needs to come from. That doesn't mean he can't write about being a gay minority. But that can't be the place from where he writes. He has to write about his experiences as though every single person in the room has experienced them. It can be couched in his personal experience, but it can't be a laser-point on his personal experience.
He's very intuitive and intelligent. He is also very young. But I saw some light dancing in his eyes when we were through, and I think he got it--or got something of what I said.
They say in order to be an expert at something, you need to do it at least 10,000 hours of it before you can call yourself an expert. I'm not sure if I've clocked 10K hours at writing. No, I'm pretty sure I have, but I definitely don't think I'm an expert. But Life? Oh yeah, I've clocked in my time. And in a lot of respects concerning Life? I know my shit.
Let the mentoring begin.
