As a writer, I think about words, words, and more words that get carted out, words that go 'viral', words that trap me in their 'ridiculously' powerful orbits. There are some, a few, a couple that not only set off my annoyance meter, but they also make me question my ability, my focus as a writer.
For example, when did the words 'niche' and 'platform' infect the writer's world? You know we obsess over these things. Why, whoever you collectively are, do you insist on heaping anxiety on top of nail-biting angst? It's hard enough just getting to the point of declaring yourself a writer, and then having to figure out how to stuff yourself into some narrowly defined little cubbyhole and stand on a remote flat ledge while you wait for your train to come in.
Can't I simply be a writer?
I looked these two words up in Webster's, the head-bonking weapon of choice, you know, and neither of these words have a damn thing to do with writing. It's a stretch at best. Check it out yourself.
- Niche--"a recess in a wall, especially for a statue."
- Platform--"a flat area next to railroad tracks where people wait for a train or subway."
It's just that along with that mandate to pigeonhole everything comes the awareness that the dire tradeoff is that we create nothing of ourself, first of all, and second of all, the finding of something edifying is squandered in the flinging of stone-dead statues into the larger niche place, the gaping black hole that is the seller's den.
I swear I'm not, strictly speaking, an art for art's sake guy, but by the same token, I'm not Flat Stanley either.
I like to think that if I'm to fling some flotsam out onto the vast sea of information, I want it to be a three-dimensional version of self as that self resides in the larger world. I'm real, I'm not a canned reality show. I don't know exactly what I'm saying other than to add the cautionary note that as writers I believe we need to be careful how we define ourselves, both in the wide, wide wilds and in our individual connections so that we don't wall ourselves off from a fuller spectrum of possibilities.
Just because you wrote a textbook for the medical field doesn't rule out writing that sci-fi novel that's been floating around in your head for a few moons.
I repeat: Can't I simply be a writer? There is absolutely no reason that the poet can't be a novelist, that the novelist can't be a copywriter, that the poet can't be a reporter, etc.
I am a writer, but more that that, I'm a learner, a teacher, a worker, a volunteer, a musician, an artist, a son, a dad, a friend, a lover and so much more. I say put that little burner in a niche and smoke it like precious incense, baby.
Can't I simply be a recorder of life in all its permutations? Oh, Hi, monkey!