I've been very reluctant to call myself a writer. I was an editor for five years in a non-fiction field. After a layoff, I started a novel and went into a completely different line of work for my day job. Not being published in fiction, I felt like a fraud claiming to be a writer. I felt as though some "real" writer was going to out me in public and start pointing and screaming, like Donald Sutherland did to Karen Allen at the end of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. Plus, any mention of writing meant a discussion of the book (which is not finished) and the inevitable, "What's it about?" "Are you published?" nonsense.
Recently, I earned a gig as a part-time editorial contractor. Non-fiction. So, I feel a little more comfortable saying that I'm a writer again, since I don't have to follow that up with blushed explanations about working on my first novel; I can just keep the book private and describe my paid work. No one cares about that anyway. It's amazing how much more prodding and poking strangers do when they think you're a novelist. I'm relieved to have something to talk about besides the book. It's been really stressful. I just don't want to discuss it until it's done.
ETA: I mean discuss it with strangers. At parties. And answer a lot of inane questions. Obviously AW is different.
