Writer, reconstructed.

The process of being a struggling writer can be…well…a struggle, and in time one of two things happens: Either we crash and burn, overwhelmed and defeated by rejection and the daunting odds, or we stubbornly continue to wage the good fight and throw our bruised and bloodied egos back into the fray, over and over.

I've noticed that for myself this process takes the shape of a series of slow climbs, during which I learn a lot and believe I'm making progress, followed by a precipitous downward spiral of doubt that ends in an ego implosion/explosion of atomic bomb proportions.

But then, as the mushroom cloud slowly dissipates, a curious thing happens. While I languish in the ashes of my writing dreams, deep within me I feel the mysterious urge to create—the irresistible drive to make something from nothing—quicken to life again. The writer within me is reborn and rises from the old husk, stronger and hopefully wiser from knowledge gained in failure. Each incarnation brings me closer to where I want to be, so there's profit from the pain, but it can be an excruciating process.

I'm in the throes of just such a rebirth now and as I've considered this odd metamorphosis I have been thinking of the way in which we choose names for ourselves on these internet sites, blogs and forums, etc. I call myself Bookworm, a name hastily chosen but which fits nevertheless. I love books. But as I contemplate this crazy thing called writing and how I personally deal with it, I wonder if another name might have been more appropriate. Phoenix, perhaps. A bit too brazen? Maybe, but then I have seen cheesier.

So my question is, if you picked a name for yourself that summed up your writing experience, what would it be?