White space is the space around and between design elements. The image is important, but so is the space around the image that is left unmarked. What the image is not is just as important as what the image is.
This analogy has helped me to understand my own writerly identity. Who I am not as a writer is just as important as who I am as a writer.
We all have one, don’t we? The publishing fantasy? This was mine in my twenties: I fantasized that all those men I’d loved and lost would see my photo on a book jacket cover. My hair and makeup would naturally look amazing. I would have no dark circles under my eyes. My outfit would be effortlessly trendy and fit just right.
And those men that I had loved and lost would pine for me and regret that they’d ever let me go. Success would be the sweetest revenge.
I was willing to do whatever it took to make this happen. I believed that I was a writing chameleon, willing and able to write whatever pleased a potential audience. Write poetry in form even though I detested writing in form? No problem! Catalog, in excruciating detail, the sound my slouchy boots made against every tile surface as I meandered around Europe? ( Oh yeah, I thought I was a proper flaneur*, my friends). I have volumes of this work. Write about love and loss and lust mixed with hormones beneath palm trees and street lamps in Barcelona? I’d be delighted!
There are certain behaviors and activities that just aren’t me anymore, and there are certain writing topics that aren’t either. I recently had an idea for a piece that I nearly submitted to an online publication. I felt that I understood the publication’s aim well and had a good chance of getting into it and getting paid. Upon more closely examining the site, I discovered some things that just weren’t me and with which I did not want to be associated. Recognizing this was empowering.
I’m not desperate to be published anymore like I was in my twenties. Part of this is because I enjoy having my journalism pieces published so that desire is partially satisfied, but part of it is because God has given me a solid understanding of my own identity over the years. And if a publication venue doesn’t correspond to my values, I’m okay with letting some bylines be bygones.
What is one theme or value that you find emerging in your writing? Please let me know in the comments!
Thank you for sharing!
*A flaneur is someone who strolled about European city streets. The feminine form is technically flaneuse, but I never read a book that referenced that form.
tea and tenderness 
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