On Calling Yourself a Writer

Am I a writer? Or just a person who writes?

Starting my own business and defining the work I do has made me question whether I’m entitled to use the ‘W’ word . . .

I couldn’t help but wonder…

I write, therefore I am . . . a writer?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the ‘W’ word. Writer. Who, exactly, is allowed to lay claim to that title? What are the qualifying criteria? Must a writer be published? Acclaimed? Does it matter if they’re talented, or is the act of producing written material enough, in and of itself? Should they earn their living by their words? Must they be so consumed by their muse that they can do nothing but write?

The most common answer – at least among those who are sympathetically minded – is that if you write, you may call yourself a writer. But if that’s true, then what else might I be? A chef because I cook? An interior designer because I enjoyed picking paint colours for my living room? The possibilities are endless.

Not Madonna

‘Sometimes I sing and dance around the house in my underwear.

Doesn’t make me Madonna. Never will.’

Cyn (Joan Cusack) in Working Girl

Every once in a while, I unearth my dusty box of watercolours and spend a happy hour or so painting flowers and fruit – the usual amateur fare. But as much as I enjoy splashing my paints around, I would never dream of calling myself an artist. I’ve always held fast to the view that there should be a clear distinction between someone who occasionally attempts a still life and someone who is entitled to use the ‘A’ word. Except that, if pushed, I’m not sure I could have articulated what that difference is. Training? Talent? Fame?

Pretty sure Madonna has never suffered from imposter syndrome.

But is it art?

Picture the scene: you’re in an art gallery, gazing at an installation you don’t entirely understand. The stranger standing next to you, equally perplexed, mutters that most tedious of modern-art clichés under their breath: ‘I could’ve done that.’

‘But you didn’t, did you?’ (This is the in-my-head reply. I am British, after all.)

And neither did I. Someone else did, and they called it art. They had a clear purpose, an intention; something meaningful they wanted to share. What they created is art because they say it is. And they are an artist precisely because that piece of art exists in the world.

So, by that measure, if I say that my perfectly pleasant but entirely unoriginal watercolours are ‘art’, does that make me an artist? Or a painter, perhaps? The truth is that it would never occur to me to do so. And surely that’s the point. My paintings aren’t the product of any great creative urge; there is nothing in them that is meant to inspire others or reveal the deepest secrets of my heart. They’re just flowers and fruit, nothing more. I enjoy painting them, but I feel no more emotional attachment to the finished product than I do to a recipe that turns out particularly well. I am not a painter. I am a person who (occasionally) paints.

Amy March. A true Artiste.

Imposter syndrome

Writing, and what it means to be a writer, is something I have found altogether harder to untangle. I write – professionally and personally – with intention and purpose. I take pride in what I create, whether it's for a client, this blog or my own journal. But I am nervous about calling myself a writer. Real Writers (capital-W Writers) are people I revere; they are artists themselves, able to do things with language that are beyond my wildest dreams – and my most ambitious scribbles. I could never presume to call myself a writer if it meant inserting myself into their midst. Could I?

But by my own definition, I can say I am a writer if the work I produce is meaningful to me. It doesn’t matter to me that I am not ‘an artist’, even though I sometimes paint. Just as I’m sure there are plenty of occasional writers who couldn’t care less what you call them. But I do care. It matters to me, and – however vulnerable I feel admitting it – I would like to claim a space that’s at least somewhere in the vicinity of those I admire.

Jo March has a lot to answer for

I realised recently that I’ve been making life difficult for myself – something I excel at – by holding onto a subconscious belief that to be a Real Writer, you have to be toiling over a novel or some poems. Having spent my entire career working with and championing non-fiction writers, this is illogical, to say the least. (If any of the brilliant authors I published happen to be reading this: of course I always thought you were a Real Writer.) It’s enormously frustrating to realise that, having always claimed to disdain any form of literary pretension, I’ve been secretly beholden to the ‘tortured genius writing in a lonely garret’ stereotype all this time.

I don’t wake up in the morning compelled to write fifty pages of prose before breakfast. I don’t stay up into the wee small hours, scratching out lines of dialogue. My fingers aren’t stained with ink. I’ve no intention of writing a novel. So, I can’t be a Real Writer.

Yes, I’ve now managed to include two Little Women gifs. What of it?

But nevertheless, I do write. Not in a tormented, late-night frenzy of creative inspiration, I grant you, but somehow the words still end up on paper.

If a tree falls . . .

Let’s return to my hypothetical artist and their baffling installation. If that piece of work had never made it to a gallery and existed only in their own studio, or even in a corner of their bedroom, could they have called it art? Does it need to have been seen to earn its label? Does my writing need to have been read by others for me to call myself a writer?

I don’t believe it does. For me, it is the intention that matters. The intention to create something that is important to you, whether you desire – or have the means or opportunity – to share it with anyone else. Think of all the unpublished manuscripts yet to be read by anyone other than the authors who laboured over them. Those authors can, and should, call themselves writers – even if they remain the sole readers of their work. And some work, of course, isn't meant to be shared – beautiful, meaningful art (written or otherwise) is often created in private, as a purely personal means of expression. My journal is undoubtedly where my most honest writing happens, but it’s certainly not for anyone else’s eyes. Heaven forbid.

A heartbreaking work of staggering genius

Here’s something I’d do well to remember: ‘important’ doesn’t have to mean writing that is either heartbreaking or staggering. (Thanks, Dave Eggers.) A piece of writing might be important to you because you are being paid for it – something you’ve been commissioned to write on an unfamiliar (perhaps even uninteresting, to you) topic. It might be important because it helps your business, or because it’s part of your job. It might be a piece of entirely unpoetic technical writing that will help others to understand something genuinely, life-changingly important. Or it might be an Instagram caption for a brand that contributes absolutely nothing to the betterment of humanity. Hey, someone’s gotta write ‘em . . .

If you apply yourself to the craft of writing, take pride in the finished work and then seek to do it again – there’s something essential in the repetition, I think – then I believe you may call yourself a writer.

Everyone’s invited!

I am a person who writes. I write for a living and for pleasure. I am also a writer, because the act of marshalling my thoughts and putting pen to paper matters to me. I am not bold enough to call myself a Writer-with-a-capital-W, but I’m coming round to the view that there needn’t be such a strict hierarchy in our ranks. I realise now that I had constructed an imaginary wall in my mind, with Real Writers on one side and me – and the other ‘people who write’ – on the other. And the only way to scale the wall, to catch a glimpse of Hilary Mantel and Zadie Smith dropping bon mots over a cocktail, was to suddenly become a whole different sort of writer. One with ink stains on their fingers, no doubt.

Me to Zadie Smith: ‘Do you know . . . where the toilets are?’

Now, I think that it’s better to imagine a sort of party, and anyone who uses the ‘W’ word is invited – no gatecrashing required. Hilary and Zadie are huddled in the corner with their cocktails and the other literary giants, and – naturally – I am far too intimidated to talk to any of them. But that’s fine, I’m happy over by the canapés with the other lower-case w’s. Because in the space between me and the writers I so admire, wide as it may be, there is shared experience. However skilled or successful we are, or aren’t, we all use the same tools; the same words. We all draw from the same creative well. And in that generous, welcoming space, writers from Mantel to, well . . . me, can strive to create work that matters – to ourselves and, should we so wish, to others.

And that’s what makes us all real writers.

~

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