When reading Writing magazines and looking at online Writers forums, you come across this question quite often; I have found that the answer seems to always lie with the particular Writer.
So I thought I would add my opinion into the mix.
I have loved reading since I was a child, I used to devour books at an amazing rate and over the years have collected quite an impressive collection of books. I treat these like films, re reading them several times. As an extension of my love of reading Fantasy and Science fiction I have attempted throughout my life to write my own novel. Somewhere hidden inside my attic are many unfinished (barely started) stories.
A while ago I decided that I would take things more seriously, to me this meant buying lots of books on how to write (I have read a couple and leafed through most of the rest) Subscribing to the two writing magazines and getting plenty of pads read for all the work I am going to be doing. I even started a Blog.
Then armed with all of this writing equipment I have done almost nothing, don’t get me wrong I have pads full of scribbled Ideas and quite a few of them noted down on the computer ready to develop into short stories or novels. I have a bi-monthly inane comment on the Blog, and that is it…..
For me despite all of this I cannot consider myself a writer until I have been published, for me this could be anything from an article to a novel but I need that particular goal to call myself a writer. Stephen King said in his book on writing that if you write you are a writer, but I still need the recognition.
I will struggle on until I reach the point where something snaps and I actually get something done.
Thanks for dropping by. Yes, if you write you are a writer; that makes perfect sense. But it is logical, ‘head knowledge’ type sense.
I am coming to the conclusion that the point when you call yourself a writer, at least, when I call myself a writer, is governed by something else. To use your analogy, the goal posts keep moving.
To say you’ve reached the goal when you are published just leads to the question of how do you define published? Every time we post a blog we click the ‘publish’ button. Our stuff is out there for all the world to see. But somehow that does not feel as though it counts.
I’ve had articles in a local magazine for years but somehow that doesn’t count.
When I first held a copy of my self published book last year I was so excited. But it didn’t last. After a week or two something just clicked in my head and I realised that didn’t count either. There is a secret reward I’ve promised myself for when I am published and I was walking down the road when it occurred to me that I hadn’t given it a thought since my book arrived. Why not? Because it didn’t count. Maybe if I ever sold enough copies to cover the cost…
But when I discovered the typos I lost confidence and stopped promoting it.
For anyone else reading this see my reply on Rosealies blog as the same applies.
Graham