Lauren Groff ...and Writing

So last night, I went to a reading and book-signing for Lauren Groff, author of The Monsters of Templeton. I went because I adored Monsters and because it was at the bookstore that is closest to my house, and because it popped up on Librarything, and I had earned a break. I went because I had never gone to one of those things and I was very very curious. Who is this person, who I know is fairly young, and who with her very first published novel created something that I find so spectacular?

The answer to that question is, of course, far more complicated than anything that I could have gotten from an hour long reading. But the parts of the answer I could see: she's much like a lot of my friends. She is young, and she comes off younger than she is, due in part to a face that seemed almost adolescent. She's enthusiastic and she talks with her hands. She loves what she's doing, and it seemed to me at times that she can't quite believe that she is actually getting to do it. I'm not sure if I was able to recognize that delighted disbelief in her because I so often feel it myself or if I projected that emotion onto her enthusiasm and slight self-effacement because it's how I would feel in her place, how I do feel in my own life sometimes.

She is not great, perhaps not even good, at reading her own work aloud. She rushes, and her tone is flat. I find this very surprising, not because I assume that all author's are actors, but because her prose reads for me with wonderful inflection, in particular the passage from The Monsters of Templeton that she read aloud. I imagine therefore, that the writing has a similar quality in her mind, and should from her mind to action, keep that quality when she presents it. I don't know if the reality of the situation is that she lacks talent for translating the words in her head to the "performance" of a reading (which seems a likely possibility) or if I, as someone who reads aloud often and dramatically during the editing process am again projecting my thinking patterns into the minds of others. Either way, charming as she is, I don't think that she did her own work justice reading it aloud.

An interesting moment for me during the reading: someone asked a question, I forget what it was, but it led Groff to ask if she was a writer, and then who in the audience was a writer. Now I was sitting in front, so I couldn't do a comprehensive survey, but it seemed like just about everybody raised their hand. I did not.

What does that mean? Are these book readings attended more by people who write as opposed to just enthusiastic readers? Certainly plausible. Maybe something about this particular author or signing brought those other people away from their writing desks and out to Joseph-Beth last night? I couldn't tell you.

And I wonder how much of a writer any one of those people are. I'm not trying to be a snob here, and I know it sounds that way, but I wonder if a single one of them makes a living with writing, or even wants to. What makes a person decide to call themselves "a writer"? Would these same people answer the question "What do you do?" with "I'm a writer." Or would they say first, "I'm a banker/teacher/student/real estate agent." Are they simply raising their hand to confirm some small part of their identity, as I would if someone asked, "Who here is a slob/lover of peanut butter/Red Sox fan?" Or do they think first, "I am a writer" the way I think first, "I am a student. I will be a doctor."?

I think I wonder this for entirely self-conscious reasons. Because I didn't raise my hand. Because I want to be a writer. I have always wanted to be a writer, I can't remember a moment in my life, even during those brief periods when I wavered on medicine, that I was not sure that publishing a book would remain a life goal. If I don't get that in before I die, I will have failed somehow.

And I recognize that there is something silly about wanting "to write a book" it's sort of like wanting "to be an inventor." You can't do it without an idea. I have had several ideas in the past, and I'm sure that I will have several ideas in the future. Non-fiction seems likely, I continue to hope that my work will present me with a shiny topic I simply can't resist, but who knows where it will come from in the end. Still, sitting here at 26, I am not ashamed to admit that I hope, one day, to be accurately described as "a physician, scientist and author."

I've been thinking about writing a lot lately, even before this moment last night when I did not raise my hand. Perhaps this is because I have also been reading a lot. Perhaps too much. (Possible? I'm still not sure.) When I got home last night, I started reading Stephen King's On Writing, which unlike the other library books I have out at the moment, I didn't just grab off the shelf. I requested it, from another library, because I was thinking about writing.

And I'm going to be writing more, not just here, maybe not even here. I have a couple of short stories that I want to get out of my head and down on paper (or onto hard drive as the case may be). So maybe I do have some fiction in me. I'm not sure what's going to come of it, but I am going to allow myself the little luxury of spending some time each day, because for me along with the reading sometimes comes the writing itch, and from childhood to today, these are two of the great joys in my life.

Maybe that does make me a writer. But if asked again this evening, I'm still pretty sure I wouldn't raise my hand. At least not yet. I feel I am a writer like I am a physician, like I am Andrew the Wonderful's wife. It's something I have decided to become, something I am on course to become, but something that I am not yet. This is funny to me, because lately the combination of loving medical school and being so very excited about my future with AtW has left me with the feeling that I have grown into my real life, that I am getting what I've always wanted. But really, I'm not there yet. The change in the last year is not that I have a become the adult that I hope to be, but rather that I am not waiting for others to make the decisions that give me the opportunity to become that adult. I'm not waiting for an admissions committee to decide that I am worth training, for Andrew to decide that he wants to keep me. It's happening now, I've been picked.

The writing though, it's something that I decide when it happens. Nobody has to accept me or ask me, at least not at this stage of the game. I suppose there will have to be some accepting once I get rolling, but first I must get rolling all on my own. And I guess, in the face of feeling like the other parts of my life are working out, I have to admit that I sort of adore the striving. My life, at the moment, is clearly charmed, so there's no time like the present.