"Who Are You as an Artist?"

"Your problem is you don't know who you are as an artist." I have heard Simon Cowell repeat this statement to the contestants on American Idol more times than I can count. He has said this to the younger contestants more than the older ones because, being young, they have no idea as to 'who they are'. Although I am much older than those contestants, I'm still not sure 'who I am'.

This popular American Idol statement haunted me as I was painting my kitchen. Since painting can be pretty mind numbing, I have a tendency to let my mind wander. I kept asking myself, "Who am I as an artist or even a person?"

I am a writer, I am a mom, I am a nurse, I am a wife. I can add many more, but those are the main ones. There is one major problem with all of these: The roles very rarely meet each other.

To my writing friends, I am a writer. I love it and I do it for the love of it, not the money, and definitely not the fame. I guess I am a shy writer. I hear other writers talk about their websites and cringe at thought of doing that. I won't apply to be a featured contributor on AC because they require a 'real' picture for an avatar. Someone recently mentioned a book signing I thought, "Wow, I could never do that."

I want to write and never be known. Is this even possible? I want to have one of my nieces come over and start reading a book that I've written without ever knowing that I wrote it.

I am becoming a writer because of my love for books and the characters and places within them. Books have taken me to faraway places, exploring ideas that I never thought possible, and loving people who don't exist. I want to bring this feeling to readers and engage their minds and ensnare their senses.

Fiction is my passion. Article writing is a fun way to earn a little extra money. My friends and family don't really understand this. They don't understand how writing could be fun and, for those family members who know that I write, they think it's just a hobby and look at me sideways if I mention an article that I wrote.

I guess it is a hobby because I have a perfectly good career and plenty of other things to keep me busy. So why do I spend my time writing? I had a family member once tell me that "it's an outlet for you." That statement is only partially right and I did take a slight offense to it. I don't need an outlet. Writing is not an outlet, it is a desire that speaks from the soul. Maybe if I had chosen writing as my first career then my family would view it differently.

I don't share my work with people outside of my writing community. Many of my articles are written to inform and I won't make my family suffer through those. Those of you who subscribe to me at least choose to suffer.

This is why social networking sites do not work for me. I don't want my writing to cross paths with my friends and family. It's like leading two separate lives, they are not necessarily a secret from each other, but I have a strong need to keep them separate and I don't know why.

My coworkers don't know that I write. My kids don't know that I write. I think I mentioned it to my mom sometime last summer. My husband and sister know, along with a handful of other people, but that's it. Maybe I am shy or just a private person.

So "Who are you as an artist?" is another way of saying: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I guess I can't answer that question as long as I keep my lives separate from each other. On one hand I want to be a great mom, a good nurse, and a loving wife but I also want to be a writer who no one knows but whose work is loved. It's a pretty tall order. Hmmm...maybe I could also throw in "I want to be the next American Idol!"