How can I call myself a writer…

[Heliotrope]

Why do I find this so hot?

.

Ha! Because philosophy is sexy. Obviously.

 

[Black Dragon]

Hey Everyone,

We had to delete a post from this thread that took a shot at a current figure in US politics. Please, refrain from making political comments. Past experience shows that it leads to endless grief and hurt feelings. We prefer to focus on our purpose as a community, which is fantasy writing.

Thanks.

 

[Christopher Michael]

This has probably been said in more words than I'm going to say it, because I'm blunt. Do you write? Do you actively put words on paper? I don't care if you write 20 words a year or 20 words a minute, are words coming out of your head and showing up on the page?
You
Are
A
Writer!
That's it. Case closed. Nothing else to say. If you write, any at all, you are a writer.

 

[Penpilot]

I was just thinking, which can be a dangerous thing. But maybe there's a little too much emphasis on a label.

For the sake of argument, lets say there's a person, they write maybe once every two months, but over the course of 10 years they finish a novel. And that novel gets sold and published. Is this person a writer? They have written, but are they a writer?

What's the difference between them and someone who does the same thing but doesn't manage to get published?

What's the difference between these two people and someone who writes everyday but is never published and never tries?

Where's the dividing line?

For me, I don't think the label matters. Call me a writer, a aspiring writer, a hack, a wanna-be, whatever. it doesn't change what I do, how I do it, and how often. IMHO just do what you like to do as much as you like to do it and leave the labels in the label gun.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Stumbled on this, although it may not apply to the context of this thread.

"This is what I mean when I call myself a writer... I construct sentences."

--Don DeLillo

 

[Christopher Michael]

You're a writer as long as you put words, any words, on the page.
That's the only label that matters. The moment you're PUBLISHED, whether it be self pub, indie, or Big 6, you're an author.

 

[Heliotrope]

^^^ Boo yeah!

 

[neodoering]

I manage 1000 words a day, several times a week, and produce about one novel a year, and some short stories. I attend my writers' critique group every month and correspond with several writers from this group on an ongoing basis. I read fantasy novels and anthologies more or less continuously, taking breaks to read literature and nonfiction. I consider myself a writer, and I've had some stories published in the magazines, so I'm an author, too. I am not "successful" in any real sense, earning about $100 a year from my writing, and in fact, to copyright my works costs about $90 a year, and licensing images for covers costs another $30 a year. So I'm actually losing money. There are writers in speculative fiction who write a million words a year, and I can't touch that. I have to pace myself around my ambitions and yearly goals, and be content with that.

Everyone has to work within the limitations of their circumstances, and do the best they can.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

This might be a little late, but I'm posting it anyway. Whose benchmark are you going to use to determine if you are writing "enough" to be considered a writer?...is what I think when I hear questions like this. What is the line between Writer and Not A Writer?

I just finished an 110,000 word first draft in 4 months. Seems to me like a rather fast first draft. That makes me a writer, no? But what about the people who write even more than me? What about the people who write less? Are they all Not Writers? I didn't write ANY books for like 2 years before that. I had writers block for a looooong time. Wait, does that mean I'm not a writer?

The fact that this concerns you, that you made a topic about it, that you care to ask, means you're a writer, because it seems that you WANT to identify yourself as a writer. If you were just like "Eh. I don't think I'm a writer," fine, don't call yourself a writer. But since you're pursuing the identity of writer, it's different. If you want to be a writer and you write words, you're a writer.

 

[skip.knox]

And surely it depends on what you write. A writer of technical documents, for example, is not what most people would picture if you said "I'm a writer." I've written lots of history, but that only means I'm a historian, not a writer.

At the same time, if you write twenty novels and never show them to anyone, I hesitate to call you a writer. You are like the musician who never performs. Writing is about communicating, not merely about putting pen to paper.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

And surely it depends on what you write. A writer of technical documents, for example, is not what most people would picture if you said "I'm a writer." I've written lots of history, but that only means I'm a historian, not a writer.

At the same time, if you write twenty novels and never show them to anyone, I hesitate to call you a writer. You are like the musician who never performs. Writing is about communicating, not merely about putting pen to paper.

^Would disagree about the part of not being a writer if you don't show anyone. Many poets didn't get much out out there until after they were dead (Emily Dickinson comes to mind) and wrote most of their work apparently for themselves, but I don't think it makes them not poets.

Sometimes I write things to explore or gain understanding of an idea for myself, or crystallize a thought I have so that I can view it more clearly. That seems to me like I'm communicating with myself. Often, I write to a hypothetical audience as well. I don't think it's possible to write without communicating, but an actual other person need not be involved. I think it's okay to write for yourself. Its communication between different parts of yourself that you're trying to reconcile. Or communication to an audience you don't know if you will have the chance or the bravery to reveal your thoughts to.

If you're religious, you might could say that you always have an audience--God.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

^Although the designation of writer may not have much meaning/relevance to the outside world if you don't show anyone. So the name, while not inaccurate in my opinion, may not be useful.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

And surely it depends on what you write. A writer of technical documents, for example, is not what most people would picture if you said "I'm a writer." I've written lots of history, but that only means I'm a historian, not a writer.

At the same time, if you write twenty novels and never show them to anyone, I hesitate to call you a writer. You are like the musician who never performs. Writing is about communicating, not merely about putting pen to paper.

I'm disappointed by this outlook. Writing polished material that others will read should be enough to qualify one as a writer, whether the material is fiction or non-fiction, technical or literary or somewhere in between. A lot of work can go into any written-word project done for pay. Some people write technical documents for a living, where the focus of their job is to write. And you want to tell them they aren't writers?

 

[skip.knox]

I have no problem with it at all. I will cite numerous journalists who quit their magazine or newspaper job because they "wanted to be a writer." The word has connotations not captured by the denotation.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

Is it length of the written material that qualifies someone as a writer? Are authors of short stories not considered writers? I've seen technical documents that rival the size of a LOTR novel. Must you be writing fiction to be considered a writer? Are authors of autobiographies not writers? If it's only about communicating, a honey-do list or a suicide note could make someone a writer. Were those people who left magazine and journalism jobs actually writing as part of their jobs, and were they communicating? Maybe they were quitting their jobs to become novelists, but a novelist is not the only type of writer.

writ·er
/ˈrīdər/
noun
noun: writer; plural noun: writers

• a person who has written a particular text.
  "the writer of the letter"
  
• a person who writes books, stories, or articles as a job or regular occupation.
  "the distinguished travel writer Freya Stark"
  synonyms: author, wordsmith, man/woman of letters, penman; novelist, essayist, biographer; journalist, columnist, correspondent; scriptwriter, playwright, dramatist, dramaturge, tragedian; poet; informalscribbler, scribe, hack
  "my favorite American writer"
• a person who writes in a specified way.
  "Dickens was a prolific writer"

 

[skip.knox]

I don't understand the point of the disagreement, so I'll bow out of this one. I'm pretty sure the OP meant "writer" in the sense of one who writes books, stories or articles as a regular occupation (or an eventual occupation).

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

I don't understand the point of the disagreement, so I'll bow out of this one. I'm pretty sure the OP meant "writer" in the sense of one who writes books, stories or articles as a regular occupation (or an eventual occupation).

The point of my disagreement with what you said earlier was that, to paraphrase, technical writers are not writers. I'd not take exception to your saying they aren't novelists, but that's not what you said. The OP did not say "novelist" (or journalist or biographer or short story writer) either, so we can't assume that's what the OP is about. The term used was "writer," and "writer" has a much broader meaning than "novelist" or "journalist" or "biographer" or "short story writer." Maybe that's where the confusion is for the OP, in that "writer" is such a broad term. If the OP had used a more precise term for the type of writer intended, the discussion would have gone much differently than it has.

 

[skip.knox]

I just wanted to say this to Nimue, who kicked off this thread. I just read your post from the 12th. It is lucid and well written. You may be stuck writing your novel, but you do write well. Have faith in you--everyone else does!

 

[Annoyingkid]

I think if Chris Chan can complete a series, what excuse do I have? That keeps me going.

 

[Eyeofdreeg]

You need to stop being so hard on yourself mate, it won't do you any good in the long run. Take a breath, relax and center yourself. You'll be right, just remember why you write and how much you love doing what you do.