Turns out I'm not overly freighted with writerly discipline. Writers, they say, need to write every day.
I don't. Does that mean I'm not a writer?
Certainly, writers ought to write sometimes. If you want to call yourself a writer but never sit down to actually do the deed, are you a writer at all?
Well, maybe.
If you spend hours every day composing in your head, but never putting those words on paper (or on the computer screen), you may still be a kind of writer.
If, for some reason, you are denied the opportunity to put your words down, maybe you are some sort of tragic figure—someone who is a writer but can't prove it.
Composing in your mind obviously has a part in the process of writing. It'd be good, though, if you could transfer that stuff to a more tangible form.
For the purposes of copyright, in fact, you need to put your words into "tangible" form. But that does not restrict you to paper. Words count if they're saved on your computer's hard drive.
And so do words "printed" in an ebook.
You just have to careful you're not fooling yourself. You don't want to be the kind of writer who points to his skull and declares, "It's all right up here," when it's not anywhere at all.
How long was that famous poem supposed to be, the one interrupted on its path from brain to paper by the person from Porlock? No doubt Coleridge was convinced there was a lot more packed into his noggin (some two or three hundred lines, he estimates). Unfortunately, it's altogether possible he only had the illusion of more text.
Dream words tend to evaporate, but that's not the worst of it. Dream text can easily be bolstered by the illusion of bulk that's not earned by actual composition.
All it all, it's probably safer to put your words down someplace before you clear a spot for the inevitable Pulitzer. And don't fritter away your time spending that Nobel Prize dough.
If you write at all, you can probably count yourself some variety of writer, though I recall a dissenting opinion voiced once in a movie. In HEARTS OF THE WEST, Jeff Bridges thinks himself a writer and heads for Hollywood to prove it, only to be shot down by the words of an old screenwriter (Andy Griffith): "You're not a writer until a writer says you're a writer."
It seems writers are supposed to be anointed by their fellow practitioners before they can wear the beanie with the quill stuck behind the ear.
Personally, I don't buy it. If you write—with the intention of being a writer—you're a writer.
On the other hand, if you write reports for a company about company business, you're probably not a writer in the sense we're looking for. The intention—to entertain or educate or astonish—is not really there. It's likely your only intention is to keep your job.
It used to be there were two kinds of writers: published or unpublished. And that meant, read or unread.
Nowadays, the concept of "published" is a lot more flexible. There has always been some method of privately printing your work, but substantial expenses were usually involved. Not anymore. If you're reading this blog, I imagine you're aware you can publish for free on Kindle Direct Publishing and elsewhere.
I'm going to skip the controversy over the legitimacy of self publishing. Success in this area can attract "real" publishers with "real" contracts. But even if it doesn't, that doesn't mean you're not a writer.
Technically, you can still be a writer even if you never intend to be published by anyone. Wasn't Emily Dickinson a writer, even if she only published a half dozen poems in her life?
Bottom line: You just have to write, that's all.
So, how many words do you have to write to qualify for the title of writer? Do you have to write every day? Can anyone set "legal" requirements for the industry?
Isn't there such a thing as an undisciplined writer?
I've experimented with that category most of my life. In fact, I'm something of an expert in the field.
I am, nevertheless, some kind of writer. And I plan to keep being some kind of writer for a long time to come.
Join me, why don't you?
