mental-health – Sunday Dutro

Whatcha Up To?:

This summer has not followed the rules:

My trailer-office is nowhere near ready, the unexpected findings taking much longer to correct than expected.
My afternoons of writing time have been nonexistent due to so many projects around the property requiring my husbands knowledgable hand and my watching of the children so he can do them.
We’ve had an unbelievable number of medical issues arise that have made everything unexpectedly complicated.

And none of this is meant as complaint or excuse. It simply is.

Life is naturally full of furious activity and lulls. I am attempting, daily and often times multiple times a day, to remind myself that this is simply a lull in my creative time. There is furious activity everywhere else, and so, a lull in creativity is required. I am still writing essays in my mind and occasionally stealing a moment to write bits of them down. One such moment of stolen time led to a mostly finished essay, and that essay has been picked up for publication with the completion of a few edits, the last one of which has been submitted and will hopefully now be accepted.

Things are happening against all odds, and this one acceptance could prove to be a major step. I’d be joining a publication that has published Roxane Gay, one of my literary heroines. So it’s no small feat.

Still, I try not to count my chickens before they’re hatched. I try to remember it’s just one publication, I try to remind myself this work, this job of creating and delivering to the world, is fraught with gatekeepers and demands ones best. Always.

I try to remind myself there have been no official acceptances since May, and this is due entirely to my schedule: my refusal to rise before 7am, my inability to garner enough restorative sleep to function on four hours of sleep as I’ve always done, my acceptance that afternoon writing time is on hiatus until the office is complete.

I content myself with getting the boys ready for another year of homeschool, with assisting them in finishing out the 4-H year which culminates in the County Fair at the end of this month, with organizing and reorganizing our home spaces to make them comfortable, accessible, constructive.

It is the fallow times, the lull times, that allow for a bursting and hyperactively productive time when the time allows. And I will content myself with this knowledge, with trusting in the ebb and flow, with putting faith in my tenacity and determination and the timing of all things being outside my control at the moment. I breathe. I will breathe. I force myself to breathe.

As always, thank you for being here. I hope you enjoy the monthly writing prompts, the monthly rejections, the publications in the Sanders County Ledger, and the videos (when I have the silence required to record them).

I hope you enjoy your summer as it comes to a close. I hope you have grand plans for the cooler months of fall and the excitement of Halloween and the tumble into family holidays that follow it.

Thank you for being here.

August Timed Writing Prompt Available Now!

Want a chance to have your work featured on my website, social media, Patreon and Substack accounts? Send me your unedited, timed writing response for your chance to be featured! Find the latest prompt on Patreon or Substack.

Monthly Book Talks!

Love to read but never know what to pick up? Check out my monthly videos for my local Thompson Falls Public Library here. Remember to Subscribe for free so you never miss one. Book talks: like book club, but shorter.

Readings

Did you know I occasionally remember to record readings of my published pieces. You can check out the latest one here. Be sure to Subscribe so you don’t miss the next one!

Please forward this to those you think may enjoy it. As always, thanks for joining me. I appreciate you’re here.

NOTE: You can email me directly at sunday (at) sundaydutro (dot) com

Dang! I accidentally sent in the one I was still playing with instead of the one I’d finalized 🤦‍♀️ Oof! Still, enjoy the one that got published, and when you get a second, here’s what it should have been:

Imposter Syndrome

“I don’t call myself a painter,” she confided, “I paint, but I’m not able to say, ‘I’m a painter.’”

This, dear reader, is imposter syndrome: a person who has created dozens of pieces, sold them, maintains a shop both online and in a retail location, and still is unable to call themselves a painter.

Many creatives experience this feeling, so much so that’s it been given a name: Imposter Syndrome; and yet, even when we know we’re being silly, even when we know we write and are therefore a writer, we refuse to call ourselves such. Why?

At first, I thought it was an issue with labels. Many people don’t like how limiting labels are, the idea of tying themselves up in another one exhausting. This was certainly one of my excuses. But I happily took on “mother” with my first pregnancy, and waltzed right in to being “wife,” with happy tears. So as much as I may dislike the confines of labels, there are some I’m not afraid of.

Ah, “afraid of.” Maybe that’s the key. Maybe I’m afraid to claim a label for myself? Caring for a child 24/7 makes me a mother whether I call myself that or not. Marrying a person and deciding to love them not despite their faults but for them, makes me a wife whether I call myself that or not. But if I call myself writer, is it not enough that I write?

Apparently not.

The moment someone hears you write, they want to know the names of the books you’ve published. The moment someone hears you paint, they want to know where your paintings are hung. Unlike other professions, a chef can point to his restaurant, an instructor to their classroom; artists don’t usually own their own galleries or publishing houses. For creatives, it can be difficult to back up our claims with proof, and that’s daunting.

But does proof matter? Maybe. If my husband dies, I’m no longer a wife, I’m a widow. If my children die, I’m no longer a mother…and there is no word for me (people would say “bereaved mother,” but I call shenanigans). It would seem the proof matters, the titles changeable. And perhaps that’s what’s so frightening?

If I call myself a writer, I must have proof, and apparently forty personal journals don’t count, and maybe they shouldn’t. I cook for myself and my family sometimes, and I absolutely would not call myself a chef. Because the proof of my abilities in the kitchen is that I don’t have any. If I’m only writing for myself, perhaps I am not a writer. Maybe the reason we have imposter syndrome is because we don’t think what we do is good enough for others?

Who’s to judge? People who don’t know us from Eve, like what we do, and reach out to let us know. For a painter, which my friend absolutely is, it’s the moment your painting sells to a stranger. For a writer, it’s the moment you get feedback from a stranger. I believe, the moment you put your creation out in the world is the moment you are that person. It is no longer a private hobby, but a public persona, and therefore a title you must claim.

Because the thing is, you write one book, and then you write another, and another. There is never a write-a-book-and-now-you’re-a-writer moment. The being of a label only applies as long as we continue being. Wrote one book, published it, and now you don’t write? You’re an author, but not a writer.

Or are you going to leave it up to others to decide? There are those who think Jackson Pollock’s work could be done by a child, that Campbell’s soup isn’t art, that expressionism is too personal and abstract. Good grief! Are you really going to let other people label you, or will you claim your titles yourself?

A creatives title must be claimed by the creator. It doesn’t matter how many pieces you write or who publishes them, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve had a column in your local paper or how many anthologies you’ve been published in. None of those things bestow the title upon you, you still have to introduce yourself to the new neighbors, or your kids’ new friends’ family, or Montana Poet Laureate, Chris La Tray, and be assured in who you are.

You must know who you are so other people can know you too. So, who are you? Cause I’m a writer, and I’d like you to meet my friend – she’s a painter.

Sunday Dutro is an internationally published writer living in Thompson Falls with her phenomenal family. Reach her at sunday@sundaydutro.com

Sunday Dutro – Official Site

Welcome. Stay Awhile. I'm Grateful You're Here.

Tag: mental-health

Sunday’s Snapshots: Imposter Syndrome