≡ Menu

What is a writer?

How do you know… or who decides, I suppose… if and when a person is “allowed” to refer to themself as a writer?

  • Must your work have been published in paper form? Must it be an actual book, or are magazines, trade journals, newsletters, etc. acceptable?
  • What if your medium is online – web site articles, blogging, etc.? (Is that cheating, somehow?)
  • Does it matter who publishes your work? What about self-publishing? (Cheating, again?)
  • Must you have been paid for your writing? Must you sell a certain amount of product?
  • Must you have an audience of a specific size or demographic? What if all you ever do is write for your own consumption? (If a tree falls in the forest…)
  • Do you have to be “good” by some particular person’s definition? Or is the love of writing enough?

So many questions… and I suspect the answer completely depends on who you ask.

I think I’ll just keep writing until I figure it out.

What do YOU think?

(originally posted in November, 2009)

Laurel Storey, CZT – Certified Zentangle Teacher. Writer, reader, tangler, iPhoneographer, cat herder, learner of French and Italian, crocheter, needle felter, on-and-off politics junkie, 80s music trivia freak, ongoing work in progress.