How to Know If You’re Truly a Writer
The sure-fire way to test your literarity
When you’ve been a full-time writer and author for as long as I have, it’s easy to spot when someone else is genuinely a writer and when someone just wants to be a writer.
Everyone on earth wants to be a rich and famous writer, of course. It’s probably the best job in the world — millions of dollars, adoring fans, fancy book parties, loads of travel, having influence in culture, and getting the chance to leave a literary legacy that long outlasts your lifetime.
Unfortunately, less than a few dozen writers alive today will still be widely read in 100 years.
The desire to write is deep in our species — I think it’s part of our primal (perhaps even biological) need to tell stories. We write to know and be known, to love and be loved.
But writing isn’t for everyone.
They say that “everyone has at least one book in them,” but that’s probably where most books should stay. I can’t tell you how many people have asked me to read self-published (and self-serving) memoirs about the most uninteresting of lives.
Before you can determine if you’re a writer, or will ever get paid full-time money to type words on paper, you need to discover what being a writer is not. So…
