Remember the Kinsey Scale? If you ever took a college course in Human Sexuality, you probably learned about this widely-accepted perspective on sexual orientation; On a scale of 0-6, people who are exclusively heterosexual place at 0, and people who are exclusively homosexual place at 6. Everyone else (aka most people) places somewhere in between.
I hadn't thought about the Kinsey Scale for years until last spring, when it helped me with an identity issue of another sort. I was struggling with the kind of writer I am. Some grief occurred as I concluded that my dragonfly-like temperament (flit! flit!) makes it difficult for me to write anything longer than say, fifteen pages. Furthermore, I just don't seem to want to get a book published all that much.
However, I'd fantasized about Being a Writer for years. I've always written, and got somewhat serious about it when I was 41 and sold the first story I sent out. My Being a Writer fantasies involved solitude, avoiding outside employment, and many pots of milky black tea. Along with feeling vaguely British. And making award-acceptance speeches, humbly and with gratitude. I imagined my unconscious billowing with images and prose that, through a mysterious process, would arrange themselves into profoundly insightful fiction.
Hmph. When I began to understand that a WRITING LIFE was not necessarily the life for me, I saw my romanticized notions differently. They reminded me of how I've heard some straight women imagine lesbian relationships; Like a 24/7 slumber party with your BFF, right? With many pots of herbal tea.
I harbored that same fantasy as a baby dyke. I remember a phone call to a more experience lesbian shortly after I came out-you mean just because she's a lesbian, I asked about a new acquaintance, doesn't mean I'm going to have anything in common with her or even like her?
I eventually learned that I could have a happy lesbian life even if it never resembled the Sapphic Nirvana of Pure Empathy and Female Connection of my dreams.
Likewise, just because I am not going to have a WRITING LIFE doesn't mean I can't have a writing life.
Which brings me back to the Kinsey Scale. Writing lives can be viewed on a similar continuum.
Let's place people who never write and never want to write at "0." Writing is not central to their lives and never will be.
At a "6" would be, say, Joyce Carol Oates. No, never mind, she's off the chart.
At a "6" are all those hardworking writers for whom writing is their central vocational identity; the primary work they think about and do, unrelated to publication.
The rest of us fall somewhere in between. (I think I'm a "4.")
And we can still drink as much tea, herbal or black, as we want.
Where do you place yourself on the Writing Scale?
If you want to be less quick to blame other people, tune in to my next post and learn how a famous dance step can help you!
I hadn't thought about the Kinsey Scale for years until last spring, when it helped me with an identity issue of another sort. I was struggling with the kind of writer I am. Some grief occurred as I concluded that my dragonfly-like temperament (flit! flit!) makes it difficult for me to write anything longer than say, fifteen pages. Furthermore, I just don't seem to want to get a book published all that much.
However, I'd fantasized about Being a Writer for years. I've always written, and got somewhat serious about it when I was 41 and sold the first story I sent out. My Being a Writer fantasies involved solitude, avoiding outside employment, and many pots of milky black tea. Along with feeling vaguely British. And making award-acceptance speeches, humbly and with gratitude. I imagined my unconscious billowing with images and prose that, through a mysterious process, would arrange themselves into profoundly insightful fiction.
Hmph. When I began to understand that a WRITING LIFE was not necessarily the life for me, I saw my romanticized notions differently. They reminded me of how I've heard some straight women imagine lesbian relationships; Like a 24/7 slumber party with your BFF, right? With many pots of herbal tea.
I harbored that same fantasy as a baby dyke. I remember a phone call to a more experience lesbian shortly after I came out-you mean just because she's a lesbian, I asked about a new acquaintance, doesn't mean I'm going to have anything in common with her or even like her?
I eventually learned that I could have a happy lesbian life even if it never resembled the Sapphic Nirvana of Pure Empathy and Female Connection of my dreams.
Likewise, just because I am not going to have a WRITING LIFE doesn't mean I can't have a writing life.
Which brings me back to the Kinsey Scale. Writing lives can be viewed on a similar continuum.
Let's place people who never write and never want to write at "0." Writing is not central to their lives and never will be.
At a "6" would be, say, Joyce Carol Oates. No, never mind, she's off the chart.
At a "6" are all those hardworking writers for whom writing is their central vocational identity; the primary work they think about and do, unrelated to publication.
The rest of us fall somewhere in between. (I think I'm a "4.")
And we can still drink as much tea, herbal or black, as we want.
Where do you place yourself on the Writing Scale?
If you want to be less quick to blame other people, tune in to my next post and learn how a famous dance step can help you!
Annie, hilarious and insightful!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Martha, who makes being a 6 look easy.
ReplyDeleteLove it, Annie! I'm still laughing with an image in mind of you as baby dyke (your adult face, with a baby bonnet and bottle). Hee hee. I also love the teasers you put at the end for your next posts.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Annie. I think I may be a 5 and a half? And I have to tell you that your WRITING LIFE fantasies are exactly like mine, down to the pot of milky black tea.
ReplyDeleteHmm. The bonnet...
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading and commenting, pals! Viva la tea.
You always make me think in a new way, Annie--I love that about you! I think in general I must be somewhere around 4 or 5. Although right now I'm at about a 2, in the thinking-not-yet-writing stage. Two means lots of bread-baking and coffee dates with friends. Come to think of it, I kind of like 2. Shall we make a date...?
ReplyDelete