A story about stories

i used to have a story about me.

and that story was that i wasn't a writer. that writing was just something i "did", like in my spare time, or when i felt like it, or to make money when i needed money. and that writing wasn't really important to me, or it wasn't really me. now that might sound kind of funny considering i've been writing all my life, people know me as a writer, and i make my living now off of writing.

but there. i never thought i was a writer because i wanted to be other things. and wanting to be other things than a writer, my story went, meant that i couldn't possibly be a real writer. for a very long time, my story went, i was a frustrated singer. (boy, you don't know how frustrated.) i was potentially a phenomenal solo singer... if i could just have more money, or more courage, or more talent, or more time.

being a potential something feels really great, let me tell you. it gives one an excuse to be not-quite-good at, or not really put yourself into, what you're doing at the moment. you can always claim, "oh but i'm not really a writer. i'm actually really trying to be something else." how convenient!

so i chose to be a struggling singer. there was a whole sh*tload of drama and an odd sense of nobility in all that struggling. and don't we like our drama.

so that was one story: "i'm not really a writer."

within that story was another one: "i'm not really a writer. i can't write fiction."

which was true. i really couldn't. i was only good for magazine articles, newspaper articles, research, speeches, analyses, business writing, essays, papers, press releases, copy, blurbs, plugs, blogs, and the occasional poem. ang engot diba? ang dami-dami ko na ngang sinusulat, hindi pa ako writer. but real writers, my story went, could write fiction. and i couldn't. i didn't want to worry about plot and characterization and all that rot. and since i couldn't, or didn't, then i wasn't a real writer.

in freshman english class, doreen fernandez once assigned us to write a three-page short story. i didn't. i wrote a fictionalized account of childhood memories with my dad. then in class, my classmates' stories got read out loud -- and they were honest-to-goodness fictional stories, about fictional people who had wings and cut themselves and went crazy and looked at life from inside tupperware containers (ang galing ng mga kaklase ko, actually). and i looked at my story and realized, this is my life -- this isn't fiction.

doreen (bless her soul) had me read my story in class, and effusively, generously praised it. so i thought -- okay, this ain't fiction, but it works. people love this stuff. i get praised for it. so makes perfect sense if i stick to this. just this.

and then -- can you guess? i never wrote, or tried to write fiction. ever. it was just too much fun being good at everything else to risk it.

so that was the story. recently i've recognized it for what it was. just a story. i gave it up.

and what lay behind it was a real story. my very own, first-ever piece of short fiction. 813 words of it, written in an hour and a half yesterday afternoon.

what lay behind it was a real writer. capable of writing anything, including fiction.

what lay behind that story was me.