Do you know what it means to be a writer?
The answer to that question may surprise you—because if you’re reading this right now, you likely either A: currently call yourself a writer, or B: would like to some day call yourself a writer.
So before I go any further with this, I want you to take a moment and try to define what a writer is. Write it down, keep it close by, because your going to need it in a few minutes when I show you why you’re completely wrong about what it actually means to be a writer, and why you really shouldn’t call yourself one.
Got your definition? Great! Here’s why it’s wrong—and it’s really simple, actually—writing has nothing to do with crafting elegant prose that could stand up to the most beloved of classic literature, it has nothing to do with being the genius mind behind the worlds next great collection of poetry, it has nothing to do with being the author of the next New York Times best seller, and it has nothing to do with telling that story that’s been bouncing around in your head for all these years.
To be a writer, is, simply, to write. That’s it.
Writing is the tool that creative “writers” like you and me choose to use because it’s the most effective medium for sharing our creations.
This is such an important realization for anyone who calls themselves a “writer” to come to, because by calling themselves “writers,” they’re actually holding themselves back from using their writing to it’s full potential.
Confused? Don’t follow? Here are a few reasons why I can make this claim.
Being a “writer” comes with a lot of baggage and even more pressure.
When I first started writing stories, I thought that if I wanted them to be good, I would have to be a “writer” like all of the authors I had been reading since I was little. I tried my hardest to always use the perfect word; I would spend hours pouring over a single sentence; and for every good strong verb, I had at least five needless, and frivolously flowery adverbs to go along with it. As a result, it took me months to get five chapters in to a story that would take at least seven novels to write! And for all of that time and effort, my only real gain was discouragement: because when I compared my writing to that of the authors I had been trying to emulate, mine fell pathetically short.
The problem with being a “writer” is that it encourages you to be like all the other “writers” before you; and the simple fact of the matter is that you are not all of those other writers. You have your own story to tell, and you can’t tell it the same way as all of those other writers told their stories! It’s your story, which means that in order for it to be its best, you have to tell it in your own style with your own voice. This is hard to do when your being crushed under the pressure of being a “writer” like everyone else.
The writing part of being a “writer” is not what makes you excited to wake up in the morning and get to work.
For most of us, the act of writing is difficult work—actually, it’s monotonous and a down right drudgery!
Think about it, when you were in grade school, back in the old days of big blackboards and white chalk (before laptops and iPads invaded the educational system) if you got caught hawking a spitwad at the back of Jenny Gardener’s head, what was the punishment? the teacher would call you up and force you to write “I will not blow spitwads in class” one hundred times on the blackboard. Was that a fun experience? No! But why not? I was writing wasn’t… I mean hypothetically I… was… Oh never mind.
The problem with “writers” is that they’ve convinced themselves that the actual act of writing is fun. They’re almost like religious fanatics, or soccer fans when it comes to how much they love the fact that they write. But what they fail to realize is that they don’t actually love writing nearly as much as they love what they can do with their writing!
I used to be one of these “writers”—back in the days when I thought putting down 300 quality words was a good day’s work; but the moment that I abandoned the idea of being a “writer” and realized that writing was the tool I used to do what I really loved—telling stories—I was suddenly able to put down 3,000 words in one sitting and still have enough creative energy to come back later that day and do it again! It was a shift in perspective, a narrowing of focus that made all the difference in my writing.
Which brings me in to my final point…
You calling yourself a writer is just as ridiculous as a lumberjack calling himself an axer.
A lumberjack calls himself a lumberjack because it’s a title that describes what he does: he uses his axe to chop down trees so that they can be turned into lumber. His title clearly shows everyone, himself included, what it is he does. Now, for argument’s sake, lets start calling the lumberjack an “axer.”
If you didn’t know that the axer’s job was to chop down trees, what information about him could you gain just by looking at his title?
Simple! An “axer” uses an axe…
Sound familiar? This is very similar to the popular saying “writers write.”
Both sayings are true, but neither saying gives any real information about what that particular “writer” or “axer” does! A person could call themselves an “axer” and use their axe to split logs into firewood, or break down a door to a burning building, or go on gruesome crime spree; in the same way, a person could call themselves a writer and use their writing to craft a poem, make an argument, or, like me, tell stories.
The axe doesn’t define the lumberjack, it’s what he does with the axe that defines him. Why do we, as “writers” let our tool define us? Why not let what we do with our tool define us?
Personally, the moment I realized that I was actually a storyteller (and not a writer) my entire approach to writing changed: my focus shifted from the words themselves, to what the words were saying; I started to give more attention to who my characters were and how they related to each other instead of how I was going to describe how they looked; suddenly action sequences stopped being an exercise for my extremely descriptive language, and simply became… fun. The way you define yourself has a direct impact on what you do.
Consider this a challenge
I want you to dig deeper and figure out what you really want to do with your writing. Don’t just call yourself a writer—according to the definition of what it means to be a “writer” that you wrote down at the beginning of this post—because that’s what everyone else calls themselves. Figure out what it is you want to do with your writing, and let that define you.