You heard me. An AWESOME AWer (thank you, Parametric!) directed me to this post by Karen Healey, which really hit home. How many times have you brushed off a compliment? Made a self-deprecating joke so you don’t come across as cocky? Worried that people would think you were arrogant if you admitted that DAMN! You look HAWT tonight? Or that you wrote an AMAZING book? Or were a FANTASTIC mom/girlfriend/daughter/friend?

Well, it’s time to stop! Our society talks a lot about low self-esteem in our children—girls, especially—and yet, it some ways, it’s way more acceptable to exude low self-esteem than confidence. Again, this seems especially true for girls. Girls get conditioned to worry about being seen as bitchy, stuck-up, even unfeminine if they admit to feeling, well, awesome. We all have times when we worry about flaunting our awesome. It needs to stop.

NOW.

I’m not saying run around telling everyone in the world you’re
better than them, not at all. Flaunting your awesome isn’t a contest, it’s not a competition. Rather, it’s a way to own your awesome abilities or traits and darn it, feel GOOD about them for a change. Send a positive message to the girls around you by saying, Hey! I’m awesome and I know it! We don’t have to hem and haw and blush and put ourselves down, just because we worry what other people will think.

So, to continue Karen’s great tradition, let’s all ‘fess up to our awesome. Right here. Right now.

I’ll even start (and trust me, as the queen of self-deprecation, this was quite a challenge for me at first. So if I can do it, I KNOW you can).

I’m awesome because I finished a book and didn’t give up until I found an agent who appreciated my awesomeness. I’m awesome because I found an awesome husband who supports my writing 150%, and helped me make two awesome kids (er, well—you know what I mean).

Finally, I’m awesome because in writing this post, I’m helping others find and acknowledge THEIR awesome.

I spot her immediately, the girl from yesterday. The one who’d needed my shirt. What was her name again? Hayden? Kayden?

Jayden, that was it.

Something weird happens as I stare at her, though. Her long, straight dark hair morphs into shoulder-length, light brown waves. She grows to a gawky height. And her laugh—it sounds eerily familiar.

I gasp. No. No way. Goosebumps streak across my skin while I cover my sunglasses with my hands. When I drag them away again, a face blocks my view, just an arm’s length away.

“Everything okay?”

A pair of concerned brown eyes inspect me—familiar ones. It takes me a second, but then it clicks. It’s the guy from my walk of shame yesterday, the do-gooder.

I glance over at the quad, but Lainey is gone. It’s Jayden standing there.

Lainey is gone.

I shake my head and shift my attention back to the boy. “You know, that question is totally pointless,” I finally say.

He tilts his head to the side, sending a lock of brown hair skidding across his forehead. Cute trick. I wonder how long he’d practiced that in the mirror to get it just right.

“Pointless? Why do you say that?” he asks, studying me, his lips quirking up into a small half-smile. Almost like he can read my mind, and whatever he sees there is infinitely amusing.

Great. So glad I can entertain him. I tighten my grip on my backpack. “It’s pointless, because nobody ever wants to hear the truth.”

And now for our first topic:

Writers as Artists: How do you define yourself as a writer? Are genre writers artists?

Oh, wait, I know this one! Is it–I write therefore I am? No? Curses! Gee, Cory, way to toss us a softball to start with! This isn’t one of those profound, put on your tweed blazer, drink herbal tea and ponder the universe type questions, is it? Because I’m an epic fail at those. OMG, do you remember the “what is the meaning of beauty” essays in your college philosophy classes? MEEP!

Um, we had a topic, didn’t we? Sorry. Writers as artists, check. The answer for me is kind of two-sided, actually. On the one hand, yes, I consider the majority of writers, whether they are published, attempting-to-be-published, genre or literary, to be artists. I mean, they’re all creating something, right? And isn’t the end result of creating = to art? But then, if you were to ask me if *I* consider myself an artist, I would probably spit tea all over your shirt. There’s just something so pretentious sounding about that term when you apply it to your own writing. Or maybe it’s just me—I’m weird that way.

But yes, I do view genre writers as artists. In fact, in some ways, I think it’s harder to be a genre writer. There are more rules to follow while *creating*, which lends itself to a unique set of challenges that pure “literary” writers don’t always have to address.

Let’s try another way of looking at it. Painters create all types of pictures, from beautiful landscapes to portraits to OMG, what the heck *is* that crazy-looking thing?, and yet we rarely question if painting is art. I think it should be the same with writing. It’s just that one author might create lovely, evocative, thought-provoking imagery, and another creates kick-ass action sequences, quick-witted, realistic dialogue, or heart-tugging love scenes. One author might spend pages telling us how the ocean is a metaphor for death, and another shows us how the Evil Octo-flounder Monster causes death by injecting toxic ink into beachgoers big toes. Whether you value one above the other is pretty personal–the whole “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” thing.

Also, since writers didn’t traditionally fall under the term “artist” at all—it was reserved more for the visual and musical arts—I thought I’d ask two YA writers who *are* traditional artists about their take on writers as artists.

From Cindy Pon, author of Silver Phoenix and creator of lovely Chinese brush art:

“writing is definitely a creative endeavor.
we weave stories, paint images with our words.
and stories can elicit emotion, just as music or
paintings or sculpture–any form of art can.”

From Gretchen McNeil of YARebels awesomeness, a former opera singer represented by Ginger Clark:

You see, writing is all about craft… (sorry Gretchen—couldn’t resist) No, here’s what she really said:

“I think of art in two distinct categories: creative and interpretive. Most people disagree with me here, but opera, classical musicians, actors – I consider them to be interpretive artists, meaning that they are interpreting someone else’s work. Still hard. Still requires a shit ton of dedication and practice, but different than the creative artists – the writer, poet, painter, composer – who is creating something from nothing.”

Okay, and now comes the part where I tie everything neatly into the book I’m reading, Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell…um, yeah, it really doesn’t tie in at all. But even the process he describes of brainstorming the ideas, getting them on paper, and creating an entire, compelling book out of them carries the implication that the writer is an artist. Because, what it all boils down to is this: we create.

Well, I think that’s about all the time we have for this post! (See what I did there? I distracted you with pretty quotes and authors and books, and totally evaded the first question. Maybe Cory won’t notice….)

And please, check out what the other participants had to say on the topic (undoubtedly something way, way more profound than the random brain spew I just subjected you to!)