To see yourself as a “writer” is to take on a persona and associated lifestyle. I used to play this role to some extent. There is a point where you have to decide whether you are a writer or someone who writes.
There are variations of course. Remarkably, some people who make a living from writing, would not consider themselves “writers” in the inverted comma sense. They are writing professionals.
Freelance and technical writers who do creative, grunt-work for a living, mostly don’t seem to carry a lot of delusions about being a writer in the sense of a creative prodigy or carry ego baggage around the term.
Others don’t make any money (or little) from the craft, but fall into the category of an aspiring writer, struggling writer or, “one day, I will be a published author,” mode. It’s the future writer and his or her work.
It’s in this arena where the image of the writer becomes so important. Being seen as a writer, being recognized, becomes equal or sometimes more important than anything written.
What brought this distinction home to me recently was when I looked at the Twitter writer’s hashtags and their associated community gatherings and all the machinations going on there.
A lot of it appears to be time, energy and resource wasting. If you just want to write, none of that is necessary. If you want to be a “writer” then it may seem to be necessary.
It’s a subculture requiring a great deal of participation to squeeze anything useful out of. I would even argue that in many cases it is counterproductive. It’s like keeping your training wheels on perpetually and hanging out with others who do the same thing.
If you are writing a novel or book, there may be some value in going this route, but only to the degree, it may be actually useful to you. It’s very easy to get distracted and caught up and lose focus on what your primary motive is.
That’s not to say that online courses and similar are not worth doing, but the idea is to do them, to the point of not needing to do them anymore.
Learning goes on, it never need end, we can always be humble in the fact that our writing can be better. However, there should be a point where it is simply good enough, without too much resort to the opinion of others.
Adding an art form may add another dimension to your writing.
One happening that made a difference to me was becoming involved in a variation of digital art. I didn’t plan it at all, it just arose when I began trying to create images for my writing.
What it showed me was that writing is not the only interesting craft around and creativity can flow in varied directions. This knowledge stunned me. My assumption had been till then, that writing was the beginning and end of creativity.
You either wrote or were involved in the “arts” but never the two (at least in my short-sighted view).
Digital art, unexpectedly opened another dimension, it took some heat out of the need to express or create via the absolute word — which was, as far I was concerned the only possible avenue.
I’m sure others have found this to be the case via any number of creative outlets, creating music in any form, is one that must be common.
For ever so long I wanted to be a writer, now I just write. It’s mostly a happy, simple, self-expressive act, no longer hampered by great expectations and absurd self-images.
I think the lead photo just encapsulates the false romanticism of the projected and exploited, writing persona, in both men and women.
