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I've been pondering something many would say is ridiculous.
It might seem strange for a blogger to contemplate whether or not she's a writer, but bear with me here. I'm talking about fiction writing for today's purposes, and anyway, I'm reminded of a quote from the movie Contagion: "Blogging is graffiti with punctuation." I believe that was the best part of the movie.
Ha. Moving on...
I have a rule about people who interview themselves, which is people shouldn't interview themselves because it's annoying. I'm breaking my rule so you can follow a line of logic with me.
A driver.
A teacher.
Are we talking published or unpublished?
Where's the line between hobby and career?
If a writer writes and no one reads it, does that mean they're not writers?
I've written two novels in the past five months. They're short-ish YA novels with about 80,000 words between the two of them. I've spent hundreds of hours creating plot, dialogue, and revising my pretty little brains out. I've recruited friends, family, and author friends of family to read my first book. I've barely started the submission process. My heart quickened when a publisher asked to see my manuscript, and now I wait again. The reality of the publishing climate says I face scores of rejections and my books will never see the light of day, no matter how good they might be. And yet, I write on. It's become an obsession. A passion, even.
If someone approached me on the street and asked me what I do, what would I say?
Why? Partly because that's my day job, but also because of the potential embarrassment of never getting published. It seems like everyone and their uncle at one point tries to write a book. It's probably on millions of bucket lists. I feel a subtle "That's nice, Dear" from the collective unconscious when I have to explain that yes, I write, but no, there's nothing out with my name on it.
And to my fellow writers, I suggest we come out of the writing closet and claim our craft. Writing is neither practically nor emotionally easy. Claim it, and be proud of it, even if it isn't published.
Note: Since I originally published this post back in August, I'm happy to say that my first book is under contract to be published!
Posted by Allison Maruska 17 May 2014 at 00:17
Responses to this blog
I was just signing off when I decided to check your So You Call Yourself A Writer blog. I like how you capture the anxiety and fear of identifying oneself as a writer. I was a technical writer for over thirty years and never hesitated to identify myself as a technical writer. Now I'm retired and trying the fiction side of writing but I can't come up with the confidence to tell my friends I'm writing fiction. Instead, it's easier to say I'm just retired.
Congratulations on your publication. I'm also published but that hasn't made it any easier for me. My internal dialogue says that if my associates don't bring up my writing successes then I'm just boring them doing it myself.
Regards,
Jim (Homewood)
removed duplicate comment
I am a writer. If anyone asks me what I do...well, at my age, no one asks anymore.
I'm very grateful for that, because I know I'm a hobbyist until I sell. I was a hobbyist with stained glass too, but I get to look at what I've done, (and laugh knowing that if I did do that professionally it would have paid me $.10 an hour—a tad bit better pay than selling most novels.) I still sold some stained glass projects. I've sold some of my writing too. I haven't sold a novel. It's not much different than "stained-glass hobbyist" other than the distinct possibility I could, some day, get paid more than $.10 an hour. Famous stained-glass makers get paid a bit more than that too, but now I'm a writer.
My answer is simple. Given the same amount of money, which would you choose to do, write or (wharever)? If you said write, provided you have produced a body of work, published or unpublished, you ARE a writer.
I AM a writer.
our whole need is to entertain it doesn't feel right to be able to call myself an author or a writer it should be others who say it to you and that is how it kinda sticks. otherwise arnt we all just kinda recording our trips to our own personal worlds if not to entertain? what is a story without an audience? just a person talking to themselves.
You might have the confidence to say "I am a writer", but if you write only for yourself, what's the point?
When other people read you because you're giving something to them emotionally, they will call you a writer. Or an author. Or an artist. Then you'll become it. It's a two way connection, so both parts have to feel the same way.
Would a teacher still be a teacher if, after studing to become one, he/she will never teach anything to anyone?
However, that is rather a function of if you are a good writer, or a good salesman. I don't have an audience, because I don't think I've written anything worth publishing yet. Or in other words that I am not ready. And that is a judgment I make on my own words and works. I know I am a writer: just not good enough yet.
And I know this without anyone reading what I have written.
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Why Not be Both." Birth Of A Anti-Hero (A)
To say that we must be pulished or that we must have a large audience to be a writer is like saying van Gogh could not be an artist. After all, he only sold one painting in his lifetime.
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Ask me if I'm published.... well, that's another story. I did have a poem published in a state wide professional magazine.
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Why Not be Both." Birth Of A Anti-Hero (A)
a writer is "one who writes, especially as a profession." So a reporter, a novelist, a playwright and the person who writes shopping lists can all claim to be a writer. (Although I don't know many professional shopping list writers.) You can be a writer if all you are doing is putting someone else's words down.
Thus, I would say a writer becomes an author when they are also the originator of the idea about which they are writing.
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I am a writer. I still get minute royalties trickling in from when I was a professor and wrote academic nonfiction. Now I write novels. No income yet, but I believe this will change. I am not going to call myself a nonprofessional hobbyist based on a belief I'll never make money writing novels. That attitude wouldn't help, to say the least.
I admit it's much easier to believe myself a painter and a writer, to call myself a painter and a writer, because I no longer have a day-job identity to confuse myself and others. I paint and write full time. My "day job" is now social security.
There's a saying in business, "Dress for the job you want to have, not for the job you have now." By analogy, identify yourself with the occupation you want to continue, writer, not with whatever day job you happen to have now.
He said a professional writer must fulfil three criteria:
1. They start and FINISH writing projects.
2. They are willing to show those projects to other people (your mum doesn't count.) In other words, you're writing for an audience and not just to satisfy yourself.
3. They are willing to accept constructive criticism.
He said you would be amazed how many people have half finished, abandoned projects, the existence of which they would never admit. And he said, you'd be amazed how many people bring forth their work and then cannot take any advice or constructive criticism of it at all. To him, those people might be writers (because they are writing), but they are not professional.
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Congrats on your book being published by the way.
Congratulations! There's nothing in this world like the feeling of having your first book published, and I know you are excited beyond words or common sense right now. Kudos!
With Spaulding and Ohwhoo2, I believe anyone who puts pen to paper is a writer, but an author is someone recognised by others as having created something worth reading. While there is a an enormous difference between the two states, the difference is not necessarily one of quality or value, since a writer can produce something worth reading on the very first try (though this is improbable or impossible for most of us mere mortals). The difference is simply recognition.
I'm confident of my status as author since it has been conferred by readers and organisations. Fans and scholars in the Lost (ABC television series, 2004-2010), especially, recognise me as an author. But this fact brings the importance of recognition to the fore. Must a writer receive recognition before being granted author status? How much recognition is required?
I find myself attracted to Spaulding's statement that an author has sold. There are no qualifications, and probably there should be none. If a writer has sold even one copy of her writings, she ought to consider herself an author. A favorable review is just icing on the cake and not needed to prove the greater truth that at least one person in this world placed such value on the writer's written thoughts that she was willing to pay for the privilege of reading them.
This might seem a low threshold, but I would imagine it seems that way only to those of us who have not tried to write a complete story. To have finished the writing of a novel is in itself a major accomplishment, though anyone who wishes to sell novels knows the first draft is only the beginning of a very long process, and anyone aiming to make a living as a professional writer can tell you that first drafts consume the smallest portion of overall writing energy. It's all in the editing and rewrites. Nevertheless, if you've sold a story it means someone out there thinks of you as the creator of an artistic work. In that person's eyes, you are an author, and I think that fact is sufficient for a claim of authorship.
When people ask what I do, I say simply, "I write." If they show any interest at all ("Oh yeah? What do you write about?"), I might inquire about their interests, then use that information to guide me in my response. I might tell them of my television companion books. Depending on their interests, I can tell them about my science fiction, historical fiction, steampunk, or fantasy novels. I suppose I really ought to say, "I tell stories," since my interest is not so much in the writing, but in the engagement of minds and the exchange of ideas. We write. We tell stories. That's what we do. So you call yourself a writer? You bet I do!
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LOST: pearsonmoore-gets-lost.com
Game of Thrones: WinterfellKeep.com
BLOG: pearsonmoore.blogspot.com
It's okay though, because I love it. This is pretty much all I would do if I could get away with it. I really like your idea that we should say we tell stories. We're story tellers. There's an inherent wisdom in that, I think.
It's all in the process.
While I understand your argument, I beg to differ with you on whether am a writer because I got published or not. If you sing, you are a singer, regardless of whether the best you do is in the showers or before hundre4ds of thousands at the Superbowl.
We are writers because we practice the art of writing. When we get published, we become authors.
And every writer knows that to get published means to write and write and write, then submit. You could be the next Charles Dickens but we will never know unless you submit your work.
I also learnt through the hard way that social media, especially Facebook is a great place to start getting your work noticed.
One of the projects I am involved in is a collection of short stories and I got into it through a facebook page.
Lets keep writing
You become expert in your tools, which comes only with hard work and mind-numbing practice so that your hands and fingers and mental computer that works the gears of your writer’s voice require no guidance from you, leaving you free to roam the landscape of the tale that you are spinning. That's your cold qualification as a professional.
And then there’s the simple, sincere and personal decision of the artist: I am a writer. Done. It is a necessary decision. And BTW, just because you are a writer does not mean you can’t also be a teacher. You can have a dozen different identities all with equal validity and sincerity. You can be a driver of cars and a rider of bikes and a pilot of planes.
You have to abandon all concerns of vanity and self-delusion and perceived milestones by which to measure your sanity (we contrive complex minefields for ourselves because artists are shot at too often and too easily). The bottom line is you have to knock it off, to be blunt. Tough love yourself here. Just approach it like a professional and demand that of yourself. It is a real business and you are the production and you are the manager. Don’t speak about it to anyone if it leaves you vulnerable, don’t brag, but never minimize yourself, especially to yourself. That’s treason.
I would add "satisfaction" or "pleasure" or, perhaps, "ecstasy" to the mix.
G
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