Posts Tagged ‘writer’
i am an author
When the green semi rolled in with twelve heavy boxes of my labor of love, I became something I have longed to be since I was eleven…maybe younger. A soft winter breeze cooled my face in the light of February sun rays as Jason pulled out his pocketknife and sliced through a thin layer of tape to reveal the shrink-wrapped stacks of my book.
I think it was Anne Lamott or maybe Stephen King who differentiated between writer and author. She or he said that a writer writes. (And this is a good thing, to write. Because we must always, always, write.) But an author is published.
As the exhaust fumes of the semi diffused around me, I became an author holding her published book in hand. In so many ways, I can hardly remember the woman I was when I penned my first post, “I am a Writer.” Funny how things come full circle.
As I enter this strange and exciting season of author-ness, it seems the most appropriate occasion to point you to another site. My official author site. KristaFinch.com. (That’s my pen name…don’t wear it out!)
If you’ve enjoyed Pendrops at any level, I think you’ll love KristaFinch.com. It has some of the same hints of quirky observation, current reads, and links to “Finch Friends.” In fact, for a short time, my posts on Pendrops will be duplicated there.
But it will also have a fresh delicious flavor, seasoned with video blogs, info about upcoming readings and signings, and other funky, Finchy stuff.
So please visit often or sign up for an RSS feed.
And if you’re in the Nashville area, please stop by the As Is Release Party on March 24, anytime from 7-10 pm at The Franklin Mercantile. I would love to see you there!
Finally, thanks for being a Pendropper and supporting my writing habit. Whatever I’m called – writer or author – you have encouraged me more than you will ever know.
4 Commentsthank you, raymond carver (or what one doubting writer would say to another)
“At the risk of appearing foolish, a writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this or that thing – a sunset or an old shoe – in absolute and simple amazement.”
Raymond Carver
I have loved you since my first introduction, freshman year of college, some eleven years ago. I loved Cathedrals and your many commas, your abrupt periods, your dense words, your lengthy characters sprawled on short pages, your subtle way of proving that brilliant writing isn’t all Hemingway, James and Faulkner (all of which I never liked anyway).
And I loved you when I met you again briefly – always briefly – when I happened upon What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, many years later, my second go-around in higher education. Your consistency, your immediacy, your sparseness and weight, the simple way you hinted at necessary beauty dancing with reality.
And I loved you again, today, loved you very much in fact, because you – you, genius, you (of all people) – understand why I can’t, don’t, won’t write so many days, showing up to the desk as I might only to leave drained and empty-handed. Understand why this may be the wrong time for the right thing. And, nevertheless, understand why I must write.
And that is because, as you say, we will be “moved off the peg just a little from where we were before. Our body temperature will have gone up, or down, by a degree. Then, breathing evenly and steadily once more, we’ll collect ourselves, writers and readers alike, get up, ‘created of warm blood and nerves’ as a Chekhov character puts it, and go on to the next thing: Life. Always life.”
So, thank you, Raymond Carver, for one- and two-word sentences, for fragments, for doing what you had to do – writing included. And for understanding. You have influenced me – then & today – more than I can say. Indeed.
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