I am a....writer....oy.

So I've been a writer in the sense that I think things up and then commit them to paper for years. Like years (code for I have forgotten the exact time this started.)  But what's funny is that I've sort of kept it in a box. Like a box you bury deep in the back of your closet so no one has to see the stuff you keep in it sort of box.

I wrote things down but I did not tell anyone in my "real" life that I was busy writing things down. It was always that thing I did late at night or in notebooks or in places where people who knew me could never see it.

That is all a changin'.

Because my career goal to be a TV writer or a novelist, or a feature writer. Basically what I am getting at is that I am going to be a writer. It's not just a dream that will someday happen it's got to happen.

Now that the "career" part of my life is out of the way, it's time to make the second step.  Taking that box out of the closet and letting out that thing I've kept closed up.

It's a strange thing to go to parties with my family or talk with my old friends. Strange because I'm now telling them, I'm going to be a writer. I used to keep everything all boxed up because I didn't want people to think I was foolish.  I grew up in a small town and people from small town Kansas, just did not become writers of any kind.  We became teachers, and farmer, and maybe there was the odd doctor or lawyer, but we did not become writers and we certainly did not move to California with the intention of becoming writers.  It was a fine dream but there was always the practicality of living to consider. More often than not, practicality won out.

The strange thing is that fear and anxiety I thought would happen. And more importantly that feeling that people would think I was dreaming the impossible dream, did not happen. I have officially been introducing myself as Gretchen Schreiber--writer for several months now.

I've broached the subject with my parents.  It was sort of like telling them I'm not going to medical school all over again. And surprisingly (to me at least) they were like "Duh. Of course you are."

"...." that was my response. Actually the more accurate response would be this: o_0. My parents were completely chill.

My friends? Did not think I was some sort of freak. They thought it was "cool." That I was having some sort of mad adventure that they wanted to be apart of...

Suddenly, my entire fear network, because that's what it had become in my mind. A network of fear.  Fear that I might have to tell people I want to write things down. That I might have to admit that I was more afraid of admitting this to myself, than of admitting it to my friends. I was just displacing all that fear of my own failing to other people.  So much self-examination....it's good for the soul.

Anyway the point of the story is: Hi, my name is Gretchen Schreiber and I want am going to be a writer.

Oy.