But I’m a Writer, right?

What does it take to be a writer? Is it a paycheck? More than one paycheck? Writing fragments of things to hide away in folders or starting a book about frogs? Or, is it something more — like an unwavering belief that you just are a writer?

I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest (unpublished and unseen) works include a short story about going to the fairground, when I was 5, and a non-fiction book about frogs, complete with a glossary and contents page, when I was 12. My mum finds my love of words fascinating considering that I was a super reluctant reader at first and one of the last to learn how to read in my year (I was one of the youngest, mum!)

As an adult, though, I’ve never felt able to label myself a ‘writer’. There has always been one reason or another: “I haven’t published a book”, “My writing isn’t good”, “I haven’t written in a few days”.

As an adult, though, I’ve never felt able to label myself a ‘writer’.

That constant internal battle of wanting to be a writer, but not being one niggled away at me like a toothache, but I constantly pushed it back by telling myself: someday. I’ll be a writer someday.

This year, as I sat in my flat for what seemed like the thousandth day, I realised it was my birthday in a few weeks. And a milestone birthday too. The big 3–0. It got me thinking about the past, and a memory came to me that I hadn’t thought about for a long time. I remembered a 15-year-old me holding a paperback of Christopher Paolini’s ‘Eragon’ in my hands, the book he wrote when he was 15: that’s going to be me, I had thought, I’m going to be a writer when I grow up.

That constant internal battle of wanting to be a writer, but not being one niggled away at me like a toothache, but I constantly pushed it back by telling myself: someday. I’ll be a writer someday.

I panicked, knowing that 15-year-old me would definitely consider almost 30-year-old me grown. I had grown up and wasn’t a writer. The crushing realization that I’d let my 15-year-old self down was devastating. My fear of failure and lack of self-confidence had told me no before anyone else could. I had been my own biggest critic, and here I was, nearly 30, and still not a writer. Not even close. I had what can only be described as a small, teeny tiny mid-life-ish life crisis.

Someday just wasn’t good enough anymore.

Someday just wasn’t good enough anymore. I made the drastic decision to quit my full-time, stable and reliable job to finally become the writer I’d dreamed about as a 15-year-old.

That was three months ago. I discovered my lack of confidence ran so deep it took weeks to get out of my own head and actually write enough words to finish an article I speculatively submitted to an online blog (it bombed painfully, but that’s a story for another time).

I am not published, yet. But I will be.

Since then, I have been working on my self-confidence and tentatively telling people I’m going to be a freelance writer to mixed reactions. Some people ask me what I’ve been paid to write, or where I’ve been published, and to that I say: I haven’t had any paid writing gigs so far. I am not published, yet. But I will be.

Because I am now my own biggest cheerleader. My writing isn’t always good, but I am always writing. For the first time in a long time, I believe in myself, and my self-confidence grows with every piece I write, every rejection and every “maybe.”

But I’m a Writer, right?

To my 15-year-old self, looking to me and asking, but I’m a Writer, right?

Yes, I am. You are. We are.