Don’t Dress Like a Writer, Be a Writer by Patricia Leavy Ph.D.
When my daughter was in high school, she had a couple of friends over and we watched a movie together. One of the girls commented that she wanted to work in an office one day so she could wear stylish outfits to work like the main character in the film. To her, the profession and the “look” went hand in hand. I thought her remark was cute, but she’d grow out of it. After all, our professional identities should be tied to the work we do, not what we wear. I’m a writer. I write. To me, it’s more than a job. It’s my passion, calling, and my identity.
It wasn’t until years after my daughter’s friend made that remark that I realized while being a writer has nothing to do with my outer appearance or people’s perception of me, I didn’t always know that.
Recently, while doing an author interview about my latest novel, a blogger asked me: “What piece of clothing tells the most interesting story about your life?” I’m accustomed to answering random interview questions and often have fun doing so. This one seemed totally disconnected from my life as a writer until I realized my response.
The piece of clothing that tells the most interesting story about my life is the large black leather handbag I carry almost every day, which fits my manuscripts so I can work in cafés, on airplanes, wherever, but isn’t so big that it can’t be worn out to dinner at a nice restaurant or anywhere else. It’s not the bag itself that’s important, but what it symbolizes.
Like most kids, when I was growing up, I fantasized about my life. In my wildest dreams, I’d be a writer, a great writer (hey, this was my fantasy), and I’d have a big, exciting life. I was too afraid to pursue my true passion, so I took another path and went to graduate school for a doctorate degree. Early on, I felt I wasn’t taken seriously. I was younger than most, female, wore makeup, had long hair, and so on. I was also creative, even in so-called scholarly writing. My work was minimized. People wanted to make me smaller, and I started to feel that way.
I was on vacation in Vermont and wandered into a leather shop. I saw a maroon leather work bag, the kind I imagined a serious writer or scholar would carry. I bought the bag. Carrying the right bag surely would make me seem like a serious writer. Fast-forward, and I spent the next couple of decades buying bag after bag. Each bag carried the promise of the life I wanted to live. Each bag was a statement about my identity. Some were serious and practical, others fun and flirty. Over time as I became more “successful” the price point changed, and I went from “affordable” to designer. While I didn’t recognize it at the time, and it wasn’t conscious, each time I selected a new bag and looked in the mirror, it was like I was trying on the life I wanted. Suffice it to say; I ended up with a ridiculous number of bags (many of which have been donated to charity and gifted to friends), and no handbag ever transformed my life.
A couple of years ago, I suddenly realized I was actually living my dream life, even though it looked different than my fantasies. Despite being too scared when I was young and taking an unconventional path, I’ve been a full-time author for more than a decade. I work with two amazing publishers for my fiction and nonfiction. My writing has allowed me to travel the world in ways I never could have imagined. I’ve met incredibly kind, generous, and inspiring people along the way. Best of all, I get to spend most days in my sweatpants, sitting in my office, lost in story worlds I’m creating. It’s like the Colette quote, “What a wonderful life I’ve had. I only wish I’d realized it sooner.”
Once it dawned on me that even though things don’t look like they did in my childhood dreams, I’m lucky beyond measure, I bought myself the “perfect” black handbag, for work, for leisure, for travel, for anything. While I still have a bunch of my old handbags for special occasions, these days, I just have one bag I really use. It carries all my stuff but not my hopes and dreams, and I never have to wonder where my keys are.
For what it’s worth, my advice is: don’t try to dress like a writer as if there’s an image we need to fit. Dress how you like and just write.
By Patricia Leavy, Ph.D., author of Hollyland and The Location Shoot
