Thoughts about when you get to call yourself a writer.
So when do you know if you are a writer?
When can you truly call yourself a writer without worrying that people will think you're a pretentious upstart?
A wise nun witch woman once told me, when I was first starting out, that I was a writer because she told me I was. That she was passing the baton on to me.
I didn't really buy that, although it was a flattering and comforting concept.
Purists would say you're a writer when you've been published.
But the world is full of fantastic writers who have never been published, who scribble away in notebooks and on computers, piling up manuscripts or fragments of manuscripts written in a voice that is uniquely their's. In my book they're writers. A person who has published a book is an Author.
I think a writer is a person whose primary way of expressing themselves is through words.
Personally, I know I'm a writer because I am addicted to the process of capturing the journeys of my imagination on paper. I feel most alive, and most engaged with myself when I am writing.
I also enjoy other creative processes, like making handmade books, mosaic and cooking. But it is writing that I turn to first when I have something to express. And that's why I call myself a writer.
