I have been asked who I am. No one is bold enough to walk up to me directly and say “Hey, who are you?” but the idea is that in the end people want to feel they understand you. They want to define you. I have been asked this question in regards to who I am as a writer and I have mulled over the question enough times to have a ready answer. I am a fantasy writer who likes a bit of science fiction, looking to shock and awe my audience and be the next big thing in the literary world. It sounds good as if I am sure of where I stand and that I am going places. By doing this I am making it easier for myself to be set up in a pretty little box somewhere with this specific label so that when someone is looking for something in that category they will know to dust off that box open it and just happen to stumble over me.
In truth I am not sure where I stand as far as my writing is concerned and frankly I could care less to know. I guess I am a bit claustrophobic when it comes to my writing but I don’t like being boxed in. Why am I to be told I can write this particular type of writing but not another kind. There is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to expand beyond what I know and write a story of such imaginative genius that someone would swear that I experienced what is happening in my writing. I want to achieve ability to not be judged on what I am writing but how it is written. Fantasies, thrillers, science-fiction, romance etc etc, these are all the genres accessible to me and I would love to write a little in each of them. Have them cross over into each other. Then go a step further. Not only limiting myself to books but what about movie scripts, plays, or song lyrics.
It could be the simple fact that I am just being overzealous and in the end planning to take on more than I can handle. When it comes to developing a certain skill the thought might be that you focus on that one thing. In time that one thing becomes your strong point like a basketball player who takes the same shot every day until he can make that same shot under any condition because he know what it takes him to make that shot. That could be it. Maybe I need to fine tune my skills in one area and on one genre until I have it perfected. What then? What happens when I no longer require any further expansion in that area? The result is that I find myself in that same box unable to go anywhere else with my writing. Even if I did attempt to venture out to something else it may not be embraced because I am known so well for one thing. Some may feel that because of this I am incapable of writing in any other area.
The result of this is that no one will consider me for anything more. I will be forever dubbed the fantasy writer if I focus too much in this area but, that is not my only interest. I have not solidified myself as a writer to a point that I can give a satisfactory response to this question of who am I. For now I am exploring different elements and different styles of writing in order to determine that. That is another reason for why this blog is my exploration of writing, my experiment.
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