But is it writing?

[seiberwing]

It does my heart good to see pretentious twaddle ripped to shreds by an entire comm.I'm a writer because I write. It has nothing to do with whether I've created an arbitrary amount of pages, put out an arbitrary amount of blood-sweat-and-tears, or convinced someone to publish my work. And it certainly has nothing to do with whether my output is

Comments

[kittenmommy]

OMG, my eyes started to glaze over halfway through the first paragraph! :p

[dunmurderin]

I'm still kind of reeling from the fact that apparently you don't become a writer by writing. I'm hoping you become a writer by eating prime rib and baklava 'cause I am AWESOME at that.

[kittenmommy]

OMG, so am I! Where can I sign up??

[dunmurderin]

I think we may have a thing here....

[faithinfire]

Okay, possibly you might want to defriend me, then, because I actually see this person's point and more than that, I broadly agree with it. The internet and fandom have effectively reduced us to some form of weird creative communism whereby even the most inept of scrawlings is now considered "writing", and consequently the noise to signal ratio is at an all time high. And if we're all just "authors", with no gradations or qualifiers - from the most dedicated and talented, to the dumb shites who spam every fandom on the planet with barely-comprehensible gibberish - then frankly, that's the artistic equivalent of paying binmen and brain surgeons the same salary

[seiberwing]

I think you're agreeing with something the OP never actually said.

There's a difference between some authors being better than others and saying that not all writers are writers. The OP there is saying that I (and for that matter, you) are not even worthy of being called by the term 'writer'. We should be called something else, perhaps scribblers or keyboard pokers, because we just don't put enough blood and tears into our work to rate. Notice that nowhere in the rant is quality mentioned, simply quantity, badly defined 'time' or 'effort', and whether they've been published.

I object to the fact that the world is now full of "writers" who seem to have no respect for their craft

It's been that way for about as long as churned-out writing's been a profitable market. Look at penny dreadfuls.

[faithinfire]

The OP there is saying that I (and for that matter, you) are not even worthy of being called by the term 'writer'.

Maybe I'm being too generous in my reading, but to me, it looked more like they were putting it forward as a philosophical/linguistic question of "are we worthy to be called writers?" which in my mind is (a) an interesting abstract debate, though that may be my philosophy background showing; and (b) a question that a lot of people bloody should stop and ask themselves! (And if everyone who's commenting can honestly say they've never accused someone else's writing of being unworthy of the name, even in private thought, I'll be a bit surprised to say the least.)

It's been that way for about as long as churned-out writing's been a profitable market. Look at penny dreadfuls.

Even penny dreadfuls had to be good enough that someone was willing to hazard money on printing them, though. This whole free-distribution thing's given us entire new lows in quality control...

[seiberwing]

Read the thread. You're being far, far too generous, the OP's a pretentious wanker who is potentially trolling if that edit is any indication. And if we're not writers, what are we? Even if what's being written is drivel (or, god forbid, fanfiction), it's still written.

Even penny dreadfuls had to be good enough that someone was willing to hazard money on printing them, though.

Yes, but that doesn't indicate any attention or care for the craft. Just means they have to target it towards their audience and write just well enough to earn that month's rent.

[joules_burn]

I dunno. I skimmed a lot of it, and the original source was, of course, damn pretentious, but I think almost everyone is being way too defensive to actually consider the simple question of what makes a writer. I guarantee you if you talk to someone who isn't involved with fandom then they are going to infer a great deal from anyone who calls themselves a 'writer'. Including passion, great amounts of work and the desire to get published. I think someone wanting to say they think there's a bar for what they think a 'writer' or an 'author' is is entirely fine

[seiberwing]

I think the defensiveness was the assertion that fanfic writers are not actually writers, regardless of their level of effort or skill. It's one that's been leveled in the past

Plus, I think the pretentiousness is more what set people on edge than the argument concept itself. That was certainly how it went for me.

Besides, one can have a hobby and be a writer. Writing is my hobby, certainly.

[joules_burn]

That's partially my point. Granted, I loved all the questioning about what their 'standard' for becoming a writer was.... considering they pretty much had none other than BLOOD AND TEARS. It's about as measurable as needing to have GUTS. But it's all just a label. I was an art major, so the 'are we artists' question was something that was an under current to just about everything. People wanting to earn the rights to call themselves an artist. And they meant it in the professional sense. So while the definition to terms like that are very concrete, the social adoptions of them as something 'more' is pretty common.

I just shrug it off, really. If I write some fic and some guy tells me I'm not a writer, then who cares. It's sort of in the same school of knowing that someone somewhere is going to hate your work in an irrationally passionate sort of way.

But mainly for the thread, explicitiveuhoh brought up some interesting points and seemed quite interested in discussing the topic in a more serious way. Do I agree with everything they

[rosa_ghjklx]

I've read that post twice and I think there might actually be some interesting questions in there about what is "real" literature or what's important in writing, but they are burried so deep under all the pretentiousness it's hard to agree with anything the OP is saying.