How To Know if You Are a Writer.
Why do writers write? The answer is in the question. Writers write because they are writers. Readers are just writers who haven't written anything yet.
When I was a child and rewriting my favorite fairytales, I was also a reader. Eventually I began reading books like The Babysitters Club and Nancy Drew, and they made me want to be a detective and a writer. Well, look at me now! It's been all of twelve years and I still want to be a detective or a writer. The detective thing may have to wait since the world is not nearly as safe as it seemed to be in the 90's, but being a writer is just about as 'in style' as you can get nowadays. I don't think there was ever a better time in history for someone to be a writer. You have the internet at your disposal, and there are a million and one ways to self-publish a book. Still, the book I've been writing for about nine years is not really any closer to being finished then it was before I had the internet. But do you have to have something published to be a writer? The short answer is no.
Being a writer isn't necessarily about having something published, although for many people that's a HUGE part of it. Being a writer is a lifestyle. Writers all have the same mindframe (for the most part). A writer's stream of consciousness, if you could hear it, would probably sound like a biography. Writers look at the world around them differently from everyone else. Where others see people, we see characters, and we often want to know what their motivations are for doing things. We're great listeners because of our intense curiosity and facination with what makes people tick.
When we're alone, we think about what words would describe what we are experiencing, whether it is the silence, or the view, or even the simple little color of a t-shirt, a writer has a million and one words up their sleeve to explain to a reader what it is.
So how do you know if you're a writer? You can feel it.
I may have thought I was just playing pretend when I wrote as a child, but when I bought my electric typewriter for a whole month of allowance money from the sister of the Jehovah's Witness lady who showed up on our doorstep like clockwork every two weeks with a new pamphlet, THAT is when I finally started to feel like a real writer. I wrote pamphlets of my own and handed them out to my family. I wrote short stories, newspaper articles, and silly, make-believe things that all somehow felt right and got me to where I am. Even now that I write on a computer instead of a typewriter (it blew up... long story), I am not any less of a writer. I am not any more of a writer either. I still write things -- some of which are probably still considered nonsense -- and give them to anyone who will read them. I still spend most of my money on pens and notebooks and a miriad of other writer-centric things.
I am a writer because I write, but also because I THINK like a writer. Sometimes I get off topic and lost in what I am saying and/or writing, but to me, that is the best kind of writing, because it is only by being lost that we can find ourselves again. So do not ask yourself if you are a writer. If you have to ask that question, it means you are.
Until next time,
Amanda
Photo Credit: Tumblr
