A few days ago I attended a friend’s wedding in central Pennsylvania, where I also served as the officiant (i.e., the person who conducts the ceremony). It was a fun time for sure, and I got to meet a lot of new, interesting people while I was there.
The majority of wedding guests seemed to be in their early 30s, though there were a few Gen X-ers there as well. I also really only knew the bride and groom, so after the ceremony I found myself in a position to sit down at a random table and introduce myself to people I didn’t know. (All the weddings I’ve been to in the last two decades have been for close friends and family, so this was a relatively new experience.)
As such, when it came time to introduce myself and people asked me the “What do you do?” question, without thinking, I naturally responded with, “I’m a writer.”
And people thought that was really cool.
Introducing Yourself as a Creative Person Can Be Stressful
I used to spend a LOT of time worrying about how to introduce myself in these situations. Should I start by talking about my Day Job as a guise for professional respectability, then try to shift the conversation to how I really want to be a writer? Or, should I lead with my writing goals and only mention my Day Job if people ask?
Both methods felt awkward when I tried them, and I constantly found myself fumbling with how to present myself, especially when I sensed the person I was talking to made more money than me, or was of an older generation that would be inclined to judge. Worse yet were those situations when I didn’t have a Day Job at all, and routinely had to make up stories about what I wanted to do or where my career was headed, usually while sweating up a storm and resisting the urge to flee in terror.
At this wedding, though, none of that happened. I led with three clear, concise words (“I’m a writer”) and left it at that, which immediately made people want to know more. What did I write? What kind of novels? Were my novels published? How did I get them published? And did I spend all my time writing, or did I do other things too?
All of these questions (with one exception, which I’ll get to later) came from a place of interest, rather than judgement or criticism. They gave me chances to talk about my work in a natural way, as well as spark genuine conversation with people who wanted to know more. Some of the people there were interested in writing themselves or had written in the past, so I asked about their projects and started some natural back-and-forth. I also got to talk about my editing work in a way that felt equally natural, since the people there seemed not to know what a writing coach did but wanted to know more about it.
At one point, someone asked about my novel, then asked me to repeat my name in a way that suggested they were interested in remembering it so they could check me out later. I took this as a natural point to reach for my wallet and pull out a business card—which seemed to strike the other person as a pleasant surprise. Another person at the table saw me take out the card and also asked for one, which I gave her in a motion that seemed equally natural.
This moment struck me as the perfect reason for having professionally printed business cards that I could carry at the ready: having them in my wallet made it easier to give my name out to people (rather than fumbling with smartphones and social media handles) and also created a really good impression.
What Happens When People Try to Judge Your Career Path?
I mentioned earlier that all of these conversations except one stemmed from a place of genuine interest. The one conversation that didn’t quite feel that way happened after I’d told the person I was a writer and they asked me, “But that’s not all you do for a living, is it?” in a way that suggested of course I had to do something other than writing novels to earn a stable income.
The presumption suggested by the way the person phrased the question didn’t so much bother me as it did make me a little nervous. I’m very open about how I make my money (as evidenced by the last post I did about my teaching gigs), but something about the way the person asked the question suggested that they wanted to know how much money I made, and presumed that maybe I didn’t make as much money as other people my age in different career fields.
These kind of conversations always come as a blow to my self-esteem, and I’ve spent a large portion of my adult life stumbling through them. Fortunately, though, this time I felt boosted by the earlier conversations that had gone so well, so I recovered myself enough to talk about my editing and teaching work in a way the person found interesting (since, it turned out, they didn’t really know how editing jobs worked, and had never heard of one-on-one online teaching).
I thought about this conversation a lot afterward, and I realized that even though I felt nervous and a little embarrassed because of the tone this person had taken, I stood tall, held my own, and ultimately came across as confident.
Final Thoughts: Practice and Confidence Help a LOT in These Situations (Also, Business Cards!)
In writing this post, I’ve been trying to put my finger on what made introducing myself in these particular social interactions so much easier than it was fifteen, ten, or even five years ago. Part of it, of course, is having a novel actually published, but another, bigger part, I think, is that I feel more confident about where my career is now, and where it’s headed. This in turn allowed me to display that confidence to others, and talk about both my creative work and bill-paying work in a way that made people take me seriously.
If you’re reading this, please don’t take this post as some sort of arrogant backdoor brag—instead, please take it as a guide for ways that you too can come across as more confident and professional when talking about your creative career, and ultimately make these kinds of conversations go better.
(Also, business cards! Get some business cards printed up online for not very much at all so you’ll have them ready for just this kind of occasion!)