A writer writes.
It’s an affirmation that I’ve been using to spur myself on for quite a long time now. Sometimes it works, and gets me into a frenzy of fiction. Sometimes it’s as dead in my mind as I feel my characters are on the page. Regardless, it’s the one truth that’s given me quite a bit of motive to move on in my writing.
I want to be a writer.
I am a writer.
To continue being a writer, I need to write. Some days are harder than others. This is a difficult post for me to write (due to some serious insecurities about my writing, both quantity and quality) and so it’s a bit difficult for me to articulate, but let me stand back and take a breath… and try again.
Writing isn’t about getting paid to put your work into print. It helps boost morale, of course. It’s fun to think about. Fantasies abound about what it might be like to live as a paid writer, sustained off of writing alone. Terrifyingly unlikely for most of us.
Someone handing you a check because you wrote something doesn’t make you a writer. Putting your soul on a page, giving others a part of yourself through the pieces you work hard on, writing to make yourself happy makes you as much a writer as anyone with a contract. It isn’t about integrity or income. It’s about what you have it inside you to do.
A writer writes. I hope that affirmation will give other amateur writers the confidence it’s given me (periodically. I’m only human. =]).
