Claim Yourself As Writer

Until you name yourself Writer, you will never be a writer who writes (and keeps writing). Most writers I know, especially those who have not published, say, “I want to be a writer.” Or “I’m a [fill in the blank] and I like to write.” Or “I’ve always dreamed of being a writer.” But they don’t actually call themselves a writer.

Think of all the other names you give yourself: man/woman, mother/father, wife/husband, friend, teacher, technician, masseuse, lawyer, gardener, chef. We take each of these names as a way of identifying ourselves, both to others and to ourselves.

We are what we say we are. In some cultures, new names are assumed when character-evolving events take place. These names indicate the person has been transformed. If you announce you are a writer, rather than simply mouthing that you want to be or you’d like to be, you may be transformed.

Try it. Right now. Speak your name out loud followed by, “I’m a writer.” Let yourself experience the sensations you feel when you sound out the words. “But I haven’t been published yet,” you might say, as if this were the thing that would give you the right to call yourself writer.

After all, when you tell people you’re a writer, don’t they always ask, “Oh, and what have you published?” Listen to this: Being published doesn’t have anything to do with being a writer! It has to do with earning money as a writer. Maybe. Getting some kind of validation and recognition, perhaps notoriety and fame.

Though truth be told, the majority of published writers don’t earn all that much money or notoriety or fame. We might say, to be published is to be published is to be published. To be sure, getting published is the aim of many of us.

After all, we write to communicate, and having an audience is the flip side of the communication coin. But it is not the reason we write. We write because it is what we must do.

Anne Sexton said, “When I am writing I am doing the thing I was meant to do. ” Besides, once we are published, this doesn’t mean we will stop writing. We will continue to write. This is what writers do. I have this vision of me at my writing table, a fat roll of butcher’s paper at one end and a take-up reel with a crank at the other end.

The paper just keeps passing beneath my pen and I just keep writing. As the old joke goes, “Old writers never die, they just keep revising the ending.”

Posting by Arda, at 6/25/2008 08:19:00 AM