Every Wednesday, three self-employed friends and I get together for co-working. We’re all successful, entrepreneurial women, so feminism and women’s roles in various industries is a common thread in our conversations. Okay, I’ll be honest, that’s a common thread in all conversations I have with all people. But anyway, I had ensconced myself in my friend’s living room to do an interview while the rest of them were working away in the kitchen when I saw, mid-interview, an email pop up in my inbox from a co-co-worker in the other room with the subject line, “Non-dude show host.”
An exercise in perspective
It’s not often that I write here about a story I’ve written elsewhere. It’s also not often I write a story that alters one of my fundamental beliefs. And thus, I must share. Mostly because it’s reminded me how important it is, as a person and a writer, to view the world in all its dimensions, rather than categorize things and people as “good” or “bad.”
I was recently assigned a story about a city that has no traditional downtown, but is working to make its commercial area more walkable, urban and appealing to residents. As a development nerd, I’ve long believed downtowns are good and sprawl is bad. I’ve scorned cities that are just miles of big box stores and parking lots, believing they should receive no help from government, big ideas from planners or love from people. They are the bad places, and downtowns are the good. Southgate, by this definition, was one of the bad places.
I’m Probably a Writer If… (I’ll take an old, clicky keyboard over a typewriter any day.)
Nine out of every ten cliches about writers threaten to make the cords connecting my eyeballs to my brain snap for eye rolling that is just. so. hard. Not only because they are cliches, but because I can’t relate to them. Obsessing over typewriters. Being eccentric. Finding train travel romantic. Always needing more time to do everything. Always being in the middle of 14 books. Basically just being a ridiculous person. Every BuzzFeedish list titled, “You’re Probably a Writer If…” leaves me saying, “Whelp, guess I’m ‘probably’ not a writer. According to this listicle.”
I wonder how many of these things that we, as writers, simply emulate because we think they are writerly behaviors, not updating to jive with reality. For example, I do not have a romantic attachment to typewriters because I’ve never written a damn thing on a typewriter. Nor have I observed writers I admire doing so. I can’t imagine how anyone from my generation truly feels differently. What does makes me nostalgic, what I would find romantic to bang out a novel on, is an old, IBM, click-clack keyboard.
Natalie Burg 