Creating a Writer’s Platform
Keeping the lens wide
The channel is narrow and yet my boat is wide.
What is a writer to do when her words don’t quite fit into a narrow pathway but need to spill out into other genres? This is a question I ask myself. I don’t feel as though I should be pigeonholed. I dislike tags and categories. My words, some extension of myself, or from some other plane of existence, seem to find safe passage in various channels. They find their way into many venues, into different genres, and opposing categories.
I am fine with this. It is something I find encouraging about myself. I want to become a writer’s writer. I love this about myself. I love writing for writers and encouraging them to see themselves as individuals rather than as part of some long string of expectation. I wish to help writers think of writing as an art form, a garden, a bountiful ocean teeming with cosmic energies.
I want the freedom to write, to explore, to challenge, to digress. And yet, before one can digress too far, one must accept that the way through a narrow channel is to tighten one’s girth. Focus. Discern.
I am writing my path. It is not clear to me yet how all of the pieces of myself will come together, but for now, this is the best that I can do.
Creating a writer’s platform is exploratory and nuanced. It is not about checking off a series of boxes that will tell me who I should be, and what will be expected of me, rather this is my time to grow and shift and become the writer I am becoming. I am crafting and exact, taking well-trodden paths as much as I am veering away from traditional publisher’s expectations that might have boxed me in before I, myself, have had time to figure this out.
I am becoming a writer’s writer. I know this about myself and I am fine with this. I like this about myself. I am.
I am giving myself the freedom to write for different audiences. Why not? I am saying the same thing much of the time, but the words I use, change. I like playing with language and creating. I find it freeing. Why should writers put themselves into such a narrow view of themselves? So that we can fit into a category, a role, a narrowly defined personality? No. Let’s open ourselves up to possibility.
We’re doubling down on something. What is it? Fear? Uncertainty? Insecurity? Expectation?
Be fearless, writers. Give yourselves permission to play. Your platform can change. Your writing can change. Your audience can change. Dance! It’s so much more fun!
