She looks like a writer to me. AND she gets to wear fancy clothes while doing it.
As part of my current personal project to get myself out into the world more, I have joined a writing group. We meet, and write, and talk. We talk about what we write, why we write, when we write and how we write. We talk about what inspires our writing, what blocks our writing, what informs our writing.
A question came up at our last meeting; WHAT DEFINES A WRITER?
If you tell someone you are a writer, they will usually respond with, Do I know your work?
Does being published define one as a writer? I have nothing published at present, and yet I would call myself a writer. I have written my entire life. There are reams of stories and ideas for stories, stacks of journals, word documents of screenplay pages and more journaling that define me as a writer. And yet, it seems presumptuous of me to call myself a writer without a hard-bound book to back it up. Maybe this question belongs in the school of IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME, meaning call yourself a writer (or artist or actress or billionaire) and you are one step further along the the road of becoming that which you desire to be.
The number one dictionary definition of WRITER is:
–noun
If your writing is not also your occupation, as mentioned in the definition above, are you not a writer? Does the acknowledgement of a publishing company make one a writer-writer rather than just a writer?
I’m interested to hear others’ ideas and experiences surrounding this question.
Cheers,
Miss MoL
PS: I do not consider my Blog as “writing”. What I consider the real writing is in the reams of paper both physical and digital that is not public. Yet.
A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.—Richard Bach
A writer writes. Period. No matter if someone is buying your work or not.—Len Wein
The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.—Sylvia Plath
Sylvia had that one right. Fer shur.
When I got a short story published in a book, I sent out an email annoucing it to all my friends. The subject heading read “I’m a real writer!” I was surprised by how many people wrote back and pointed out that I didn’t need to be published to be a “real” writer.
You, m’lady, are a writer, a real writer, and, if we’re going by quantity (or quality, for that matter), you are a much realer writer than I. So keep writing. Some of us need something good to read.
Well aren’t you so nice! Thanks for the encouragement, you published writer you.
A writer is someone who puts her butt in the chair and writes, including a blog. If a writer was defined by the publishing industry, we, writers, would be extinct. Take comfort in all those reams of paper, the stories, the ideas, and keep putting your rear in a chair and WRITE.
A good name for a blog would be “Butt In The Chair”.com.
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I am struck by your mention of publication of a hard-bound book as the potential criterion of a “real” writer, as today there are “real” publishers that skip hardcover and go straight to paperback so they can afford to publish new authors. This seems like a positive trend. There are also many books published electronically. Anyway, I loved your choice of New Yorker cartoon. I am similarly ambivalent about the magazine. After a ten-year obsession, I gave up my subscription. That was over ten years ago.