Who is a Writer?
“It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.” ~ Robert Benchley
It only takes having one child to make parent. Following that logic, one might assume that one paid-for-published piece of writing would make one a writer. But it’s not that simple, and if that was the case, I would have been a writer 25 years ago.
To call oneself a writer can be considered presumptuous, if you are not financially successful at it or well known. But there are all degrees of being a writer, and just like actors can act in local theatres and still consider themselves actors, writers write locally too.
My definition of a writer is a person who is compelled to write, and if there is no payment involved, it only further confirms that they are one. A person who will work for days to find the just right word and the right order of every written line without the incentive of compensation is either a writer or not completely sane. When I say “I’m a writer,” I’m not necessarily claiming to be a “good writer.” I am saying that writing is what I’m interested in and what I do, more than anything else.
I started to refer to myself as a “poet” before I would say I was a “writer,” more to explain that I’m “a little different” than to describe a profession and, ironically, because I was asked to provide a bio-note for something I had written. By different, I mean that I am highly sensitive to my environment, slightly socially awkward and distracted (thinking about other things, like writing), and I can not thrive in a corporate work setting, or even hold a 9 to 5 job. You know, a poet.
People do cut some slack for writers, but they also want to know what novel you’ve had published. And being published, while it does happen from time to time, is like going to Hollywood and trying to get “discovered,’ and you don’t, so you come back to act in local theatres. Why is it if I say ‘I’m a mother…a foster care provider…a jeweler…or a shopkeeper’ no one asks to see my credentials?
I suspect that most people’s hobbies are their real jobs and that their job should be the hobby, and if that was the case, think how many more writers and artists there would be. Confucius believed that all wisdom came from learning to call things by the right name. I’m all for naming who you are and what it is you do. That’s part of making it come true.
April 9th, 2005 8:38 am
good morning from michele’s meet and greet. The posts are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to long for an early saturday morning 😉 so i’ll be back later for a real read.
April 9th, 2005 8:48 am
Thanks for coming to visit! Oh, my story…well of course it’s based on real life, because I’ve tried to write about other lives and it’s uncomfortable for me. A woman likes to write, and has a few blogs. A real blog, a cooking blog, a knitting blog, a photo blog, a writing blog (well, maybe not all of them…) and her husband finds her writing blog one day when he goes on the computer. But it’s all made up – writing exercises. He thinks it’s her real one and starts to try to woo her back to him…but in her real blog she is happy with all the attention and very much in love, not knowing why he’s acting like this…
There’s more of course, there always is. But I feel comfortable in this story because I can start from myself and play around with the relationships and characters!
April 9th, 2005 10:09 am
What does it mean if you have a ton of cool papers, notebooks and pens…all empty? ;0) All the writers or “good” writers I’ve met seem to have had some sort of trauma in their lives…please tell me this is NOT true? I think you’re a gifted writer…and you’re published ta boot! Happy Saturday!
April 9th, 2005 11:55 am
Well there are all degrees of trauma and I don’t think anyone of us escape some of it. Trauma is a motivating force but I don’t think it’s the only one.
April 9th, 2005 1:11 pm
To this I say I guess I’m a writer! And adding too that with anything after practice, writing gets better and better.
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April 10th, 2005 1:21 pm
This Post was wonderful. : )
April 10th, 2005 1:35 pm
This is so true. For a long time, after graduating, I told people I was a “writer”. True, I was writing a novel, but I was also working part-time in a bookstore to pay the rent and I was doing voluntary shifts at a local conservation society AND I was trying to find a full-time job in my field of study (environmental planning). 15 years later I am now a fully fledged, fully qualified “writer” of sorts – I became a journalist. I can’t begin to tell you how exciting and fulfilling it was when I got my first pay check as a journo: the fact that someone was paying me to do something I loved seemed incredulous to me. One day, however, I’m going to pen a novel (I dabble every now and then, but never seem to find the time to take it seriously) but for the time being I’m living my life as a “writer” by posting in my blog whenever I can.
April 10th, 2005 2:15 pm
I’ll be a journalist in my next life. I’m planning to have more energy then (and curly hair too). Some one just said on a blog yesterday “the fastest way to lose interest in something is to make it your job” (who wants to claim that?) That makes sense to me, but maybe if I had more energy it wouldn’t. (read spring fever/ march archives).
November 15th, 2005 2:57 pm
hmmm.. maybe I am a wee bit of a writer after all. 🙂
September 14th, 2006 9:19 am
Yes: this part really hits home: “Confucius believed that all wisdom came from learning to call things by the right name. I’m all for naming who you are and what it is you do. That’s part of making it come true.” Somehow by calling myself something else the last eight or nine months I’d started to move away from the writing… It’s all about how you think of youself… One of my sister’s friends’ unlces (I know…) is a psychotherapist & buddhist teacher who says that the stories we tell ourselves–about ourselves, our lives, our capabilities–have just as muc of a role in shaping our destinies as the hard realities of our lives. We create ourselves in the telling, I suppose.
September 18th, 2007 3:48 pm
Better late than never. I missed this post’s first publishing. I’m glad you included a link to it in your post today (09.18.07). Very well said…here, here.
May 11th, 2008 10:57 am
“I can not thrive in a corporate work setting, or even hold a 9 to 5 job. You know, a poet.”
Exactly. I tried to fit into that niche for a spell and nearly went insane. Now as an unpaid poet, getting up in the morning is not a chore (even if I’ve had little sleep) and the thrill of seeing something in print is unparalleled.
It’s taken a long time to reach the point where I believe myself to be so, but I am a writer.
Kat
By the way – though not lapsed, I too find much spiritual sustenance from nature. Many of my pieces reflect this.
Thanks for responding. I will be visiting often.
March 23rd, 2009 7:39 am
to be a writter is big tallent from GOD and not atherwise
October 10th, 2010 3:36 pm
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