It's All About Me

It’s all about me

In 1991 Donald M Murray published a paper entitled All Writing is Autobiography. He argued that no matter what kind of writing we consider, whether it is fiction, non-fiction or poetry, the words always come from one person. All writing exists because of the thoughts of a writer and is filtered through their mind.

In genres like autobiography or memoir, the work is obviously about the author. But anything else that is written is at very least a representation of how the writer sees the world.

Writing is lonely work. We sit alone in a room and conjure up worlds and stories. Even when a book is co-written, I don’t imagine writers often sit together talking about how they will put down every word.

Before a book is published there are people besides the author who have some input into the final work. Early readers, editors and proofreaders all leave their stamp on a book but the book is never really about these people.

This combination of working alone and creating something that comes from inside yourself can lead to a sense of self-importance or even self-absorption. Your book is at least in some way about you, and it is your creation.

This line of thinking can also lead to self-doubt and feelings of insecurity. How many times do writers examine their work and think it is worthless? I’m not sure if I’m typical, but I can look at the same piece of my writing twice and one day think it’s brilliant (well, maybe just pretty good) and the next day despair that it is trash.

I think we need to somehow find a balance of believing in our creations and not slipping over the edge into unbridled egotism.

We need to find this balance both for our mental health and to make ourselves palatable to the rest of the world.

No one likes a buffoon who constantly reminds those around them of their own brilliance. I need to be careful with that generalization because apparently one could have these attributes and be elected president of the most powerful country in the world.

It is important to be a balanced humble human being, but it is also important to be seen to be such a person.

Writers need to be careful not to give the impression they think they are brilliant at what they do. While we need to have confidence that our writing is worth reading, we can’t have people think we are hollow headed narcissists.

There are traps that writers can fall into in this area. I try to avoid asking people whether they like my writing. Of course I’m curious what people think of my work, but I don’t want to be or seen to be driven by adoration from readers.

The other place writers can get in trouble is at readings. There is nothing worse than going to a literary event and hearing an author drone on for an hour. While over reading can come from nervousness, it comes across to an audience as an overinflated opinion of the writer’s sense of importance.

I like the idea that people might enjoy what I’ve written. But I always understand that there is a limit to how long an audience wants to listen to me. The ideal is to leave your listeners wishing that you had spoken just a little bit longer. If they go away with that attitude, they are more likely to be interested in reading your book.

Books aren’t all about the people that wrote them, they are about a communication between writer and reader that requires respect and understanding from both sides.