Life Of A Writer
Are you one of the above?
If we take the first description then almost everyone is a writer. But then we go to the second description then no, not everyone is a writer. Only those who “practices the art of writing” is a writer. So far so good.
Do you write for business? Are you a professional scribe? Amanuensis working for East India Company? Then you are a writer too.
It seems that in Scotland everyone who can hold a pen is a writer.
It is getting confusing a bit, don’t you think? So, who can call him/herself a writer? I think anyone who has something to say or has some ideas that need to be put on paper or a computer screen is a writer.
What writers have is the angst that other professions don’t have. Our angst is different from a contract killer’s angst or a painter’s angst.
Most of the writers have this idea deeply implanted (by themselves) that they are failures even before they’ve written anything. That feeling pulls us down and makes us walk away from one thing we wish to do — creative writing. And if we manage to get over this syndrome then we have another one — if there is no angst then there will be no good stories to tell.
Am I talking out of my ass? Perhaps.
I am a writer. I know that I will never become a known author or coherent storyteller but I will write until I die. I will never learn to write without grammar mistakes and I will never earn enough to buy a secluded place with a little hut on the shores of a lake but I will say whatever I want to say.
Writing is an art form but there are forces that want to kill this art form. Those forces are developing A. I. that will eliminate the human touch away from the art of writing. Medium will allow the publishing of stories and articles created by artificial intelligence programs. Do writers have a chance against powerful machines?
The only way to win this war is to write better than them. Being brave and daring. We shouldn’t be afraid to offend. We shouldn’t become those who write just what others want to hear. We can express our thoughts in whatever way we like. Writing is an anxiety that grabs the writer's soul but at the same time, writing is freedom.
I read a quote by the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. He said (and I am paraphrasing it) that each mindful breath gives us a sense of freedom. It’s the same with writing. Every sentence and every story gives us a sense of freedom, the freedom to be able to express ourselves honestly and freely.
Medium will fall, and it will become a graveyard of stories written by A.I. We will move on to new pastures of a written but human word. A living word from a living soul.
Suffer well fellow writers!
