When can you start saying ‘I’m a writer’?

[jongibbs]

The other week on my regular Friday links list, I included a post by John Grant (aka realthog ) called There Are Far Too Many “Writers”.

It’s an interesting article (the subsequent comments make for good reading too). John, who has around seventy author/editor credits to his name, makes the valid point that the phrase “I’m a writer” doesn’t mean what it

Comments

[kmarkhoover]

This is where I break with tradition in a very big way.

As long as you are writing you are a writer. I challenge anyone to question whether Emily Dickinson was a writer (okay, she was a poet, but you get my meaning) when all she did was put her poems in a trunk in the attic and nobody saw them, except for one or two.

Harper Lee was a writer. She didn't do much of anything else or write much of anything, after To Kill a Mockingbird. She stopped after that.

She was still a writer.

I used to have an old essay that kicked up some dust about this very topic a while back. I'll see if I can find it.

But, like I said, I don't do "tradition" when it comes to this topic.

Now, whether a person is a professional writer....that's a different topic altogether. But, again, my bar is low. You get paid...you are a professional. Easy peasy.

[jongibbs]

For the record, I didn't take John's post as being in any way intended as an insult to less-published folks. I think, as you say, there's just been a huge break with tradition.

I'd say the very fact people will now ask if you're published/self-published, proves there's been a major shift in the perception of what "I'm a writer" means.

Thanks for sharing, Mark :)

[kmarkhoover]

I'm curious, bc I wonder how many people get the "published/self-published" question? It's always been my experience that most laypeople really don't recognize a difference between the two. That question tends to come from writers themselves, or doesn't it?

[lizziebelle]

My opinion is that if one writes, one is a writer. Author, on the other hand, implies that one has been published.

[misha_mcg]

I was about to make this same comment. Writer is a broad term. But I don't think you can just CLAIM to be an author. That is a title that is earned (painstakingly).

[jongibbs]

I can't say "I'm an author". I don't know why, but it seems a bit pretentious :)

[lizziebelle]

Heh, could that have more to do with people who have made the same claim than with the term itself? ;)

[bogwitch64]

Words evolve. Ideas evolve. Maybe "I'm a writer" meant one thing many years ago, but you're right--it doesn't anymore.

A writer is a person who writes with the hope of others reading their work, whether for pay or for the joy of knowing eyes other than your own are seeing it. Writer's write. End of story.

Now, if the answer is, "I'm an author" rather than, "I'm a writer," that might change things a little, but the kettle of fish is still a stinky one.

What constitutes being an "author?"

[jongibbs]

I don't know, but I is one :)

[bogwitch64]

You is!

[jongibbs]

I've been writing since I was 15. I became an author when I was 59. Scary, isn't it?

That's not scary, that's admirable! Most folks, including myself, wouldn't be able to hold on to the dream for that long.

I salute you, madam :)

[phoenixfirewolf]

I kind of feel the same way actually. I've been telling people I'm a writer for about five years now. Now I'm gonna tell them I'm an Author too :) But I think that to call yourself a writer... you must write. I don't think you have to be published.

[jongibbs]

Now I'm gonna tell them I'm an Author too

Indeed you is :)

[phoenixfirewolf]

I are!!!!