I have been following Amie McNee, creativity coach and book doula, on Instagram for some time. McNee encourages authors and artists to claim their creator title. The messages she writes to herself and to her followers are designed to systematically restructure our sometimes debilitating inner monologues about being a creator. Even in writing that last sentence, I had originally written “Her little messages”–McNee has taught me this is how doubt, negativity, and fear of others’ perceptions can alter and minimize the self we are striving to be.
I’ve always considered myself as someone who processes life through writing. I don’t get angry at someone and then write them into a novel to then put them through horrible trials. It’s a different kind of processing I undergo when creating art. It’s like I become a sieve, where the sand of any heavy emotion falls to the bottom and all of the bigger stuff like truth rises to the top (wait, do I know how a sieve works?). Though I’ve always instinctively resorted to this act of processing/creating, whenever I have thought of myself as ‘Artist’ or ‘Author’, I would always inwardly cringe, and I certainly never proclaimed myself aloud as such.
Years ago, I started this blog as a home for my creative works, a platform for a writer. I’ve always been more comfortable with calling myself a writer, because it so tidily sits beside reader and doodler. But to call oneself an “Author” is big. It comes with a truckload of connotation and entitled-sounding opinion, but I mentioned in an old post that declaring yourself the self you want to be by living as though you already are, is part of the becoming process. Even now, I feel resistance writing this post, worrying whether it is trite or whether it will resonate with anyone. But I couldn’t honestly share this milestone without talking about about everything I’ve had to fight against to get here.
All this to say, as soon as I changed my online presence descriptors to say “Author”, as soon as I anointed myself with that whole truckload of connotation behind it, that in and of itself didn’t make things happen for me, but it gave me the power to start opening those doors that had been there all along.
Last year, I’d received the acceptance from The Grey Rooms Podcast for my most recently published work, a short horror story “Feud” (click here to listen; my story starts at 19:54). Since then, I have decided to self-publish a novel (more information on that soon!), scheduled a photoshoot for my author photo(!), and have been interviewed (listen to the interview here!) for the first time as an AUTHOR (notice I removed the quotations on that one 😏). I’m not saying that acceptance made those things happen. But my decision to proclaim myself certainly gave me the power to reach out and take what I wanted.
Writing this from the place of the final pass through of edits on upcoming debut release, where I am ripping my hair out, wondering if it’s as close to done as I thought, feels a little fraudulent, but it’s time to fly!
Let’s chat in the comments. Have you ever let yourself fall into this trap of self-denial? How did you anoint yourself?
Ashley B. Davis 