Should I meet writers, or write (or blog)? The writer's dual identity

This is a trick question, of course. It's never an either-or prospect. Of course we writers should go out and take the opportunity to meet other writers in person. Of course we should seek out agents and editors and introduce ourselves. But we can't ever forget about the writing. It's the writing that makes us writers.



This issue is at the top of my mind because I've been in a place for the last little while where I haven't had time to write. That while will soon be ending, fortunately. Janice Hardy this morning told me that I shouldn't feel bad because I have been very productive, just not productive in the writing part of my life.



I think I'm at peace with it at this point. However, I'm the kind of writer who feels a sense of loss if she can't write. If this were not the case, I don't think I would have chosen to be a writer, but the Muse is usually rather demanding for me. In a few days I'll be sitting down beside her, shaking her shoulder and saying, "I'm back. You can wake up again - sorry about that."



There are two parts to a writer's professional identity. For this post, I'll call them "Face" and "Voice."



My trip to WorldCon last week was all about "face." Of course, it was also about raising my spirits, getting me to feel connected to the community, and all of that. But I was achieving that by enacting my face as a writer. I don't see this as something controlled or disingenuous. I'm calling it "face" from an anthropologist's point of view, which is to say that this is something we do with limited conscious control, just by being ourselves. When I meet writers and get to know them, I want to know what they look like, and what they sound like, and what they are interested in talking about, and what they are working on, and how they think about what they are working on. All of this together - the verbal and social aspects of the writer - are the "face."



When you're working with face, however, you get very little sense of "Voice." Your voice as a writer is your work. It's not what you say about your writing, but the writing itself. When I was at WorldCon I kept saying to myself, "Wow, after this I have to go home and write some awesome stuff, just so I can continue to deserve these fabulous people." The writing is the part of you that endures. It's the part of you that people experience when you're not standing in front of them. Because of what a writer does, it's as much "you" as your face - and in fact, it's more you than your face most of the time.



Both of these sides are worth working on.



You should go to conventions and be on panels and meet people. It's very important. But you should never stop writing completely, because if you stop writing, you're not a writer. I'm not talking about those crazy hiatuses due to life and stress and everything. I mean, don't ever shake your Muse's hand and say "it didn't work out" if you want to be a writer.



Similarly, your voice is indispensable to your writer's identity, but it doesn't have that many chances to speak. It depends on the generosity of an editor who sees you story and can be inspired. Thus, it's critical for you to use your face to help create your public identity as a writer.



Okay, so at this point I ask, "Where does the writer's online presence fit in?"



I see it as somewhere in between the face and the voice. It's not really your "face" unless you're actively on a Google Plus hangout somewhere. But it's not really your voice unless it's actually your fiction. It's a go-between environment, where both face and voice can be maintained, with limitations. Your blog about yourself can establish an identity for you and contribute to face; your blog about writing can hint to readers about your writing style and contribute to voice. It all depends on what you do with it. A hangout can contribute a little to face and allow you to represent yourself as someone who writes (and help your productivity, in the case of writing hangouts). Online fiction contributes to your voice but may not reach as many people as you hoped if you're posting it yourself without pay. An online identity must be constantly and consistently maintained and grows only very slowly - but it's worth doing if you can make it work within the constraints of your life, because it can help bind face and voice together and strengthen both.



It's something to think about.

How we mark our identities

I've been noticing this a lot recently: people spend a great deal of time marking their identities in various visible ways. I've spent time working on marking my identity recently, because I'm thinking of getting a new author picture of myself, and I'm trying to decide what to wear so I'll look like who I am! Writer of fantasy about Japan, and her own created worlds, and alien languages, etc...

The question of identity is complex, because none of us are all one thing. The marks of identity parallel this complexity. While something like a tattoo is difficult to remove, it can still be covered up. People typically will adjust their appearances to respond to the perceived audiences around them, and to show alignment with different social groups. When I take my kids to school I wear very basic clothes; when I go out with friends I like to do "dressy casual"; when I go to a convention I wear an outfit intended to show my imagination. I'm not the type of person to put bumper stickers on my car, but even the type of vehicle we drive can demonstrate our identity to others. The type of pen we write with; how we carry our belongings with us. The list goes on and on.

This is something to consider when you are putting together a story, creating and dressing characters and surrounding them with objects. People are very likely to care deeply about their appearance in one way or another - even to target particular groups they want to offend!

I recently put up a question on my Facebook page about what kind of jewelry otters might wear - and I was surprised and pleased at how many people gave me great ideas. At one point I was trying to decide which of the ideas I liked the most, and then I realized I could probably use more than one. Why restrict myself? Why not have otters choose various jewelry styles to reflect their personalities and preferences?

I want to add language use as one more identity marker. This includes not only choice of words and politeness strategies, but also things like tone of voice. People who have heard me speak Japanese often remark on how I use a higher tone and smaller body language when I use Japanese. I've been asked whether I do this because I have to. The answer is this: I don't have to - but mannerisms that fit with my use of English don't have the same meanings to the Japanese cultural community. In order to appear to be the same person - with the same degree of forthrightness, and the same degree of consideration for others - I need to sound different in Japanese. Simply importing my English mannerisms into Japanese would cause me to appear much more brash and rude than I actually am, and it wouldn't serve me well in making the social alliances I look for. This links back to the question of aiming our identity markers at particular social groups. Often we'll do it very deliberately, and even when we do it subconsciously, we're typically very good at it.

It's worth thinking about for whatever world or universe you happen to be writing in.