“To be or not to be?”
How many times have we heard the words about a plethora of roles?
It’s arguably one of the better-known literary lines of all time.
Truly eternal.
Today, I want to talk about what it means to be an author.
This topic came up in a TikTok live recently.
It began with discussions on imposter syndrome—the dreaded feeling of not belonging, of wearing some mask just to fit in.
I have felt like an imposter every step of the way.
Do I belong? Will anyone ever read my work? Is it good enough? Can I even call myself an author?
I thought I was the only one going crazy, questioning my place in the book community.
Have no fear, almost every author feels this.
Ultimately, we want compensation for our work, but more than anything, we want the title of author.
That title, for many, is synonymous with readership.
Readers = feelings of successful authorship.
That’s the best formula I can give you all, math is not my forte, and I’m a biology major, God help me!
Through my time since publishing, I think I have come up with the answer.
To be an author, simply put, is to write.
Plain and simple.
To be a published author is to hit that publish button and allow greater powers leech off your work 😉 😉, and to be a great author is to put bits of your heart and soul into your work.
Tooting my own horn, but I think I’ve done that.
The Ambivalence Quartet has captured me, taken bits of my life, my struggles, my chagrin, lust, anger, happiness, and morphed into something beautiful.
Laurel, Micah, Johnny, Ava, etc, have all come to life, bearing a little piece of who I am, ( the good and the bad), and has offered me deliverance of deep seeded emotions, and has allowed me to grow.
To be an author, is to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboards, daydreams to pages, emotions to life.
I am an author, it’s integral to who I am at a base level, and i’m proud to finally feel like I have a place.
Sure, there’ll still be days where those voices try to drag me down, but my identity will trump that.
So, my dear readers. If you want to be a writer, a dancer, a singer, etc, just do it. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to invoke something within you.
M.Day. Kendall