So who, exactly, is a "writer"...?

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The Grift

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If Douglas Adams has taught us anything, it is that it is all about the question.

"What do you do for a living?"

"What do you do for fun?"

"Do you have any creative outlets?"

"What are your passions?"

One writer might say "I'm a writer," to one of those, another to all of them, and still others to only some. And there are many other questions just like that which may or may not be answered "I'm a writer."

I would make a sweeping generalization that most people in America classify a person by their vocation, that is to say whatever it is they do that earns a living. Students are given a little more leeway, because even when they are pursuing liberal arts, they are at least enrolled in school which is seen as a way to GET to a useful money-making occupation. Therefore it is much easier to call someone in college a writer or artist or musician when they aren't making any money off of it. Unfortunately, once someone enters "the real world," calling oneself any sort of artist when it is not your vocation seems to bring up the questions about what your actual job is. The fact of the matter is that people are defined by their jobs in today's America. So as a broad answer to your question, I would say anyone who strings words together for dissemination where the words themselves are the purpose of the product, and gets paid for the product, is someone who the rest of society would agree with if they called themselves writers. As for me, I believe anyone who identifies themself with their own tendency towards putting words on paper and wishes to call themselves a writer, is in fact a writer.
 
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Silver King

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I cooked dinner, but I'm not a chef.

I fixed my car, but I'm not a mechanic.

I took people fishing, but I'm not a charter guide.

I remodeled my house, but I'm not a contractor.

I stopped the leak, but I'm not a plumber.

So, what makes you think if I wrote a story or novel, I would consider myself a writer?
 

The Grift

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I would argue that if one calls themselves a writer IN GOOD FAITH, that does make it so. Good faith meaning that someone devotes a certain amount of energy to writing and is honest with themselves about their goals.

Someone who claims that they always wanted to write a book and will when they retire but has never set a word to paper would probably realize that they are not a writer if they took an honest look at themselves. At least not yet, though they could make good on their promise and become one. However, someone who loves to write but doesn't because at this point in their life they are working 18 hour days, yet they are constantly thinking about how they could put the world around them into words, if they're honest with themselves they could probably say "I'm a writer," even if they hadn't written word one in months.

Because writing is something we are taught and use in our daily lives, the line between writer and non-writer is tough. It might be easier if we had categories "I'm a drafter," "I'm a novelist," "I'm a poet," "I'm a journalist." But you'd still run into problems.

Defining "I am..." is tough for any profession. For instance, let's take your lawyer example. I have a law degree. Hopefully pretty soon I will be licensed to practice law (should be studying for the bar, but AW is my break!) Yet I won't be practicing law next year, I will be assisting a judge. I have the licenses. I have the skills. I will even be using them. But I will not be advocating for anyone. Am I still going to be a lawyer?
 

The Grift

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I cooked dinner, but I'm not a chef.

I fixed my car, but I'm not a mechanic.

I took people fishing, but I'm not a charter guide.

I remodeled my house, but I'm not a contractor.

I stopped the leak, but I'm not a plumber.

So, what makes you think if I wrote a story or novel, I would consider myself a writer?


All of the things you mentioned are basic applications of skillsets anyone can do with a little instruction. Except the contractor and charter fisherman thing, and the titles of both of those things imply money exchanging hands. If you write reports for work are you a writer? Probably not. But if your purpose at work is to produce words and that's it, not as representation of other work you do, but you were hired because of your facility with words, you'd be a writer. Because at that point, chances are you have chosen to devote a certain amount of energy to writing and the craft. And that's where the good-faith claim of "being" something comes from, knowing that you have devoted a certain amount of yourself to "being" that thing.

I can change my oil, but I'm not a mechanic. If I devoted time and energy to learning about cars, souping them up, fixing them up, and generally became a gear-head, I might say I was a mechanic even if I wasn't professionally.

In my opinion, it comes down to the motivation behind it. I would wager that every professional writer at one point or another was writing things they did not have to. Maybe now they only write for their professional lives, but at some point they had to develop the craft and that desire and that drive is what I think makes someone a writer. A reporter probably wrote for the school paper when they didn't have to. An academic writer pursued degrees that they did not have to and wrote thesises which the rest of us won't have to. Novelists spent hundreds of hours polishing work, never knowing if it would see the top of a slush pile.

If you write a novel, are you a writer? Hell yeah. Even if the novel is horrible, it still took you a substantial amount of energy to complete it. Energy and self-drive. You're not a good writer. You're not a paid writer. But you're a writer.

For all of your examples, most of them were the name of professions. We have names for professional writers. Reporters, copywriters, etc etc. But to just be a writer, I think that's like calling oneself a musician or an artist. I never would, in polite company, but I feel you have the right to if you identify yourself with the craft.
 
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veinglory

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Whenever a verb is made a title it can have no precise meaning. You can falsify 'I am writing'. 'I am a writer' is just someone claming an identity. I'm happy for them to do so if it makes them feel better.

I prefer 'I am an author'. I'll be using that one when my first novel is out in print form. That's my personal setting of the bar, for me.
 

maestrowork

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"And what do you do?"
"I'm a writer."
"Oh, and what do you write?"
"x, y and z..."
"And are you published? Where can I read your work?"
"<here> and <there>."

I think these are the questions a "writer" needs to be prepared to answer.
 

janetbellinger

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This is a situation where adjectives such as good, bad, amateur, professional etc. come in really handy. Of course a person who writes is a writer. I mean if we took the approach that a person has to be published in order to be a "real" writer, then we have to apply the same rules to people who work in other creative forms such as visual art. That would have discredited many classical painters of times past, as they weren't able to make any money from their paintings while alive. In my mind, why deny a person the chance to think of him(her)self as a writer, if that increses her (his) self esteem?

But Counselor, is the mere assertion "I'm a writer" sufficient to make it so? That certainly wouldn't work with other professions. I mean, a complete bum could authoritatively state "I'm a lawyer", but would that make it true? (Well, maybe that's not such a good example, but you get my grift... uh, drift.) ;)
 

CheshireCat

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Anyone who can grit her teeth and bear the look of wry amusement that follows her saying, "I'm a writer."

That's my test, anyway.

Or the look of bafflement. In my experience, the average Joe or Jane doesn't have a clue how writers are paid, and you can usually see the wheels turning as they debate whether it's too rude to ask how one makes money writing.

I've always identified myself as a writer (rather than an author) -- but only since the first sale. Before that, what I said was, "I want to be a writer."

So, for me, the clear bar was publication/payment for the work.
 

Silver King

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...If you write a novel, are you a writer? Hell yeah...
No, you just think you are. Perhaps you're confusing the endeavor, the actual act of doing the writing, with the end product, the actual part of being a writer.

Even if the novel is horrible, it still took you a substantial amount of energy to complete it. Energy and self-drive. You're not a good writer. You're not a paid writer. But you're a writer.
Wasted energy does not a writer make. I'm always fascinated by the notion that by turning on a word processor and beating your forehead against a keyboard long enough earns anyone the right to call themselves anything, let alone a writer.

For all of your examples, most of them were the name of professions. We have names for professional writers. Reporters, copywriters, etc etc. But to just be a writer, I think that's like calling oneself a musician or an artist. I never would, in polite company, but I feel you have the right to if you identify yourself with the craft.
The best way to identify yourself with the craft is to have your work published and/or paid for. It's as simple as that. And even then you had better accumulate a sizable body of work before anyone who knows better will call you a writer with a straight face.
 

Billingsgate

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Funny, I've struggled for years with the question of whether or not to identify myself as an "artist" or "writer". I'm embarrassed to call myself either one in public. Perhaps this is a result of knowing too many people back in college who put on airs, dressed eccentrically (usually in black), smoked obscure brand clove cigarettes and talked a lot about their being a Writer or an Artist or a Composer. To this day - probably unfairly - when I meet someone who says "I'm an artist" or "I'm a writer", my initial (unspoken!) response is "fraud".

I've made a living for over 25 years from words and pictures, and I actually put myself through therapy just to be able to accept the fact that I might actually consider myself an artist or writer, and not just some nobody. But when people ask what I do, I still dodge the topic: "I write articles and books" or "I draw cartoons". Definitely not "I'm a writer." This is not false humility. The most active creative people I meet, both professional and those who don't make a living at it but are serious and prolific, more often than not share my discomfort at labelling themselves "I am a writer/artist/composer".

My therapist thought that having the courage to proclaim "I'm a writer!" is necessary self-validation. But I still think of those people in black smoking clove cigarettes and claiming to be "a Writer".

So...my answer to the question "When can one claim to be a writer?" is: Never. (Shut up, therapist!)
 

joetrain

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if being published makes you a writer then some of the greatest writers in history were never writers, or at least not for many years while they silently churned out masterpieces.

but, whatever. does it matter? kafka never wanted to write professionally and fought against the publication of his work till he died. i don't know if he called himself a writer but, whatever, he wrote good stories. i don't care if he called himself a dinosaur donut.
 

veinglory

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If someone wants to use publication as their 'bar' why not? After all, labels are about what we call ourselves, not others. The only possible use they have other than ego-stroking is aspirational.
 

SarahinOhio

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No, you just think you are. Perhaps you're confusing the endeavor, the actual act of doing the writing, with the end product, the actual part of being a writer.


The best way to identify yourself with the craft is to have your work published and/or paid for. It's as simple as that. And even then you had better accumulate a sizable body of work before anyone who knows better will call you a writer with a straight face.

No, because then it becomes about other people's judgment of your writing. Your passion for writing, and the act of writing, is not subservient to someone "who knows better." Art doesn't work that way. The artist makes art, and the writer writes a story. The act is the thing. What becomes of the finished project is incidental to the artist's motivation and inspiration.

I never enjoy telling people, "I'm a writer," for the belittlement mentioned above. But I control how I define my life. No one else.
 

Azraelsbane

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I don't really know what I am, but writing is the only thing I've been passionate about since, well... the first time I was asked to write a story in school. When people ask me what I do, I say "I write. I would love to be a published author one of these days." Sadly, unless I get up the nerve to query my work, I'll likely be saying that till the day I die ;)
 

Silver King

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No, because then it becomes about other people's judgment of your writing. Your passion for writing, and the act of writing, is not subservient to someone "who knows better." Art doesn't work that way. The artist makes art, and the writer writes a story. The act is the thing. What becomes of the finished project is incidental to the artist's motivation and inspiration.

I never enjoy telling people, "I'm a writer," for the belittlement mentioned above. But I control how I define my life. No one else.
Who said anything about judgment? No one is judging anyone here. The question was, "What constitutes a writer?" I gave my opinion. You can think whatever you want.

As for your view of, "The artist makes art, and the writer writes a story," is about as far into a pile of bullshit as you can get. And, "The act is the thing," has me tasting it.

Tell you what: Here's a pile of bullshit, right here where you created it. Now step in it and enjoy the trek.

Good luck.
 

Birol

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That's a good question right now.
No, because then it becomes about other people's judgment of your writing. Your passion for writing, and the act of writing, is not subservient to someone "who knows better." Art doesn't work that way. The artist makes art, and the writer writes a story. The act is the thing. What becomes of the finished project is incidental to the artist's motivation and inspiration.

Are you sure art doesn't art work that way?

If people had not judged Picasso to be great, would he still be remembered as an artist? If people had not enjoyed Shakespeare's work, would he still be remembered as a poet and playwright?

BTW, I don't claim to know. I'm just asking a question that occurred to me as I read this thread.
 

SarahinOhio

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Who said anything about judgment? No one is judging anyone here. The question was, "What constitutes a writer?" I gave my opinion. You can think whatever you want.

As for your view of, "The artist makes art, and the writer writes a story," is about as far into a pile of bullshit as you can get. And, "The act is the thing," has me tasting it.

Tell you what: Here's a pile of bullshit, right here where you created it. Now step in it and enjoy the trek.

Good luck.

Wow. I was also giving an opinion. Isn't that allowed without being accused of shoveling b.s.?

I'm talking about my fundamental definition of a writer. Of course there are qualifiers that one can add. "Published writer" sounds better than "writer" to me. And so I try to get published. But those are qualifiers to make yourself sound more accomplished to others, and to influence possible readers. At some point, I'd like to be able to call myself, "author," which also denotes being published to me.

Writing is a very intimate process. And I wasn't inferring that you were judging anyone. I just stated that other people's judgment shouldn't sway how someone identifies herself. Sure, other people can disagree with that interpretation. To each his own.

But geez, I hope my b.s. doesn't stink as bad as your cynicism.

If people had not judged Picasso to be great, would he still be remembered as an artist? If people had not enjoyed Shakespeare's work, would he still be remembered as a poet and playwright?

Once again, it's not about being remembered. Anyone who consistently creates art or writes novels, poems, plays, or poems is an artist or writer to me. I know it sounds corny, and I quote this at the risk of offending delicate sensibilities, but they're following their bliss. And I applaud them for it.
 

Deleted member 42

As the result of a most interesting exchange elsewhere on the forum, I find myself pondering a rather knotty question, which is: At what point does a person become entitled to credibly claim that she/he is a writer? By which I mean, is there --or should there be-- a definitive line or set of criteria which differentiates those who are, from those who say they are?

Any one who writes is a writer.
 

Deleted member 42

I don't think payment for one's writing is necessary -- have you any idea how many truly great writers made little or no money for their writing? Poets, novelists, essayists, dramatists -- there are more in the canon who didn't earn a living than there are those who did.

Writing makes one a writer.
 

Deleted member 42

Good lord, why is it that I find posts like this on weekends?

Guys, chill, or I'll post something about writing and writers that will make your heads hurt.

I mean it.
 

JenNipps

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I would agree with Medievalist's assertion that writing makes one a writer. I would also add, though, that whether you call yourself a writer or not is due in large part to a change in mindset. You have to give yourself permission to say you're a writer. Until that happens, you might say you write as a hobby but you wouldn't necessarily call yourself a writer.

I wrote for several years before I finally gave myself permission to say, "Yes, I'm a writer." That made a big difference in my own perceptions of myself as a writer as opposed to a college student (which I was at the time) or a medical transcriptionist (which I am now).

This is all, of course, my opinion only.
 
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