Friday Fun is a group post from the writers of the NHWN blog. Each week, we’ll pose and answer a different, writing-related question. We hope you’ll join in by providing your answer in the comments.
QUESTION: When did you know that you were a writer? Was there one event or a Bermudian series of events that made it clear to you (if no one else) that you were a writer? Or did it creep up on you over several months, even years?
Jamie Wallace: When I was young, I didn’t feel the need to call myself “writer.” It wasn’t something I did. It was just part of who I was. I wrote all the time on all kinds of topics – my personal thoughts, what I did, nature, dreams, poetry. As I grew older and walked out into the world where not only things, but also people must be given labels, I did not dare to call myself “writer.” I did not feel that my scribblings (no matter how prolific) in composition and spiral-bound notebooks qualified me to carry such a lofty title. To me, a “writer” was someone who wrote published novels and gave interviews to NPR, the New York Times, and Oprah. I was not a writer. I cannot define one single event or moment that imbued me with the courage to call myself that. It’s a quiet resolve that has slowly strengthened over the years. Being able to “publish” online via blogs has certainly made a big difference. It gave me the chance to put my work in front of other people. Maybe that was the thing, in my head at least, that defined a “real” writer – being read. If so, blogging and other forms of digital publishing have surely been responsible for the evolution of many a writer. Today, I call myself a writer without hesitation. Though it is not the whole story of who I am and what I do, it is at the core of how I exist in the world. And, after all these years, that’s good enough for me.
Lisa J. Jackson: I believe it was 6th grade when a story I wrote made an impression on some teachers and I was one of a few students who got to visit a local college. I really don’t remember any details, just the bliss and joy I felt at having my writing acknowledged in a way that has (obviously) stuck with me all these years. Visiting a college at such a young age, meeting students pursing writing as a career…it was fantastic. My writing talent was something I had to nurture on my own outside of the home and I am extremely proud of all my accomplishments to date. Each new piece I write, no matter if it’s for work or for myself, always makes me smile.
Diane MacKinnon: I feel like I always knew I was a writer–then I forgot. Between med school and residency and then the busyness of life after all that, I pushed that part of myself very deep. As a child and young adult, I accepted myself as a writer. It was just something I did. Getting to know that part of myself again over the last 10 years has been an amazing and joyful experience. Back at the beginning of my rediscovery of my joy in writing, I took a memoir writing class with Denis Ledoux (he wrote Turning Memories Into Memoir: A Handbook for Writing Lifestories) and I was terrified to read one of my “stories” to the class. After I read it out loud, Denis said it wasn’t a story, it was just a scene (which was true.) Part of me sat up and said “I’ll show you a story!” and I was off, writing story after story. Now I call myself a writer because I write and because it’s one of my favorite things to do, think about, talk about–well, you get the idea!
Deborah Lee Luskin: I’m the third of four children; the other three are boys. It was a noisy family, and sexist in the way families formed in the 1950′s unconsciously were. No matter how loudly I spoke (or yelled), it seemed as if no one listened until I cried, and then I was dismissed for being a cry-baby/girl. So I started writing to be “heard.” It worked.
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Julie Hennrikus: Boy, is this a complicated question. Though I’ve written for years, it was later that I called myself a writer. But even now, with my third short story about to be published, I still don’t own the label. But I don’t even remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer, or to write.
Susan Nye: As a liberal arts major and then a teacher and marketer, writing was just something I did. Writing was a means to an end; not the end itself. Writing was a means to share my research, to communicate a progress report, to promote my company’s products and, when I started my own business, my own services.
I figured writing was something that everyone did. When I started to manage other people, I realized that I was better at it than most. But I never considered myself a writer. Writers were special, incredibly smart and talented people. Anyone who read as much as I do knew that!
And then one day, my life took a turn. The tail decided it was time to wag the dog. A family friend read one of my newsletters – a soft-sell promotion piece for my catering business. Her response … Susan – you should publish. You are a really good cook but you are a wonderful writer. I will never forget those words and the way Jane pronounced the word WONderful, like my little story was something very special.
I wrote a few more newsletters and a couple of months later sent my three favorites to the editor of my local paper. Within days I was the food columnist for four newspapers (my local paper was part of a group). Committing to a weekly column when I’d written maybe five stories was either crazy, naive, foolish or just plain dumb. I had no idea if I could keep it up. Yesterday I sent in number three hundred and six.
Writing for the newspaper gave me confidence and made me think maybe I could be a writer. The editor, her publisher, friends, neighbors and strangers said nice things about my work. A few months later I queried half a dozen magazines … and got three writing gigs. That’s when I knew I was a writer.
It seems like it was sometime in college. I wanted to learn to use writing as a medium for helping others put to use spiritual principles. Still working on it!
Ditto to Jamie and Diane’s responses! I knew from Day One and wrote plenty through the years, but put my writing life on hold to raise a family, went to college to get a degree in science, owned and operated a mom-and-pop business. As the years passed, it kept nagging at me until that inner voice was practically a scream saying “What are you waiting for? Stop putzing around!”
So at 50 I decided to be myself and do what I’m meant to do. It was time, and although there are days when I have regrets I didn’t start earlier in my life, mostly I think being middle aged is a perfect time to commit to something like this. It’s scary, exhilarating, refreshing, challenging, and extremely satisfying.
Someone had to tell me, not once but twice, before I would believe it. Now, the more I write, the more the doubts slip away.
I knew I was a writer when upon retiring to bed I couldn’t turn the stories off in my head. The only way I could make them go away was to get up and write them down. End of story.
For me it was when I was published and complete strangers fedback that they enjoyed the articles and the book. When I realised that I could write in a way that gave other people enjoyment – then I felt entitled to call myself a writer.
I’ve been working as a financial adviser or insurance agent for 27 years. I learned early on to put people in a niche, according to income level and intelligence- doctor, lawyer, car dealer, etc. – and their ability to buy what I sold. Now I see that people are much more complex, and few fit in those niches any more. People not in sales are more likely to think of me as ‘the guy who kayaks all the time’ and not ‘financial adviser’ unless they are my client. I started to think of myself as a writer when I started to eavesdrop on conversations and ‘interview’ people at the park, or started watching people and noticing how they were dressed, looking for story material. People are too complex to put in a niche.
Loved the responses.
My grandmother is a published writer, my dad a closet one, and as a kid, the shoe always fit. I remember finding high school Creative Writing and English inspiring. One time, I wrote a poem for a friend’s class, and she submitted and received first prize for my poem. I didn’t care about the prize or acknowledgement; that was enough encouragement for me. I still don’t call myself a writer out loud, but in my heart and mind I identify as one.
I litteraly spent years begging God, soul searching and consuming self help books in persuit of my “calling.” Through all the dead ends, trials and errors I kept journaling my thoughts. Day after day I wrote of my frustrations and dreams and inspirations. I am 51 now. I still have no degree and no ” real” career. In January, a friend invited me to join an informal year-long book club she was beginning based on Gretchin Rubin’s The Happiness Project. Only a few pages in to theopening, I finally understood my ” happiness” was writing. I always had loved it and found my deepest comfort somewhere between pen and paper. But I never dared to think of myself as a writer.
A REAL writer gets paid for her work, thats her means of support.
This “real writer” thing kept nagging at me until I finally understood…I AM a real writer. I have been a writer for years. And I have not been “paid” for my words, but certainly my writing has supported me through some dark storms and lost roads of my heart. Yes, in January, I finally knew what I was…a writer.
TOUCHE! Yes, you are a writer! Believing is the first step. Always believe it. Someone shouldn’t have to give you money before you own that belief. Very inspirational point!
Reblogged this on Demetrius Hicks.
I think I always knew. As soon as I could write I was putting together little poems, some of which were published in the local PTA newsletter.
I think it clicked for me in high school when my English teacher asked for a 500 word creative story and I wrote 5 pages. I then went to school for engineering and only survived by taking writing classes. Now I’m a technical writer which is a pretty good mesh of the two, but I’m working on writing more for pleasure. Great post!
I knew I was a writer when my first story written with spelling words in second grade received applause when I read it aloud to my class when called upon!
It happened in college. I was in Psychology 101 and we were assigned a three to four page paper on any topic we chose as long as it was related to the class. I hit the ground running and had the first draft written before I went to bed that night. After probably three rewrites and a week of revision trying to find the right words to make the paper flow, I was satisfied. I turned the paper in on that Friday. When I walked into class Monday morning, I was pulled aside by my Professor and paid one of the highest compliments to date. She asked if it would be okay to copy it and hand it out to the rest of her students as an example of a perfectly written paper… P.S. I still have the original copy of that paper.
I first credited myself a writer during my seventh-grade literature class. My teacher read an unfinished short story to the class and asked us all to create our own endings and write them down. While half of the students took the assignment as a joke, I spent the entire week on mine, editing and re-editing, trying my hardest to perfect it. It was due that Friday. I turned it in, and then could not get my mind off it all weekend. On Monday, I walked in and sat down anxiously, hoping that she would return them to us with our grades so I would know whether mine was enjoyable.
She surprised me by standing in front of the class with a single sheet of paper between her fingers.
“I wanted to read this to everyone today because it took me by surprise and grabbed me,” she had said, never once looking in my direction.
I shrugged in my seat; positive that it was not mine. A story that was good enough for my literature teacher to want to stand in front of the class and read it aloud -HERSELF! – could never be mine.
She read the first sentence and I froze. My face instantly reddened, and I think my jaw even dropped for a second. The story she read aloud in front of all of my classmates, was mine. I did not know whether to be embarrassed or be delighted. However, I think it was my fellow classmates’ reactions that took me by surprise.
Once she finished, she slowly dropped her hand, dangling my paper at her side. The entire class (full of boisterous cheerleaders and football players) was completely silent. After a minute of that, before I got the opportunity to curse myself for writing such a horrible, un-creative story, the most popular kid in my graduating class looked around and said, “Wow… who wrote that?”
“I can’t tell you,” my teacher replied, smiling.
“Oh wow, that was good. I would have never thought of an ending like that.” He proceeded to look around the class, asking everyone if they had written it.
He finally stopped on me. “Frostie wrote it.”
That was the day that I decided I was going to be a writer. And no one could stop me.
For me there was no specific moment, rather the feedback I received over time affirming that I actually could do what I loved doing. I guess that means I can’t really answer this question but nothing else I do draws praise that feels as valuable as good feedback for my writing. So even though it’s not a writing career as such that pays my bills, and I’ve done more writing in my head than with my hands, I have still been calling myself a writer for a very long time.
When I was in 10 years old, I was given the opportunity of writing a short story with no length requirement. I remember writing the thing in one night, 13 pages single spaced on college-ruled paper, and still I had to end it a bit suddenly…
when i was seven i had a secret dream that i would like to be a writer but i had no idea how books got published so i didn’t pursue it. when i was thirty i had a nervous breakdown and couldn’t work so to alleviate the boredom i did an introduction to creative writing course, just two hours a week for ten weeks. i discovered that not only did i enjoy writing but i felt that i was quite good at it. by the time i was thirty five i had written a short novel but it was unpublished so i still didn’t feel i could call myself a writer. this year aged fifty one i have found a publisher for my novel. NOW i feel i can call myself a writer!
So interesting to read the different ways in which people arrived at this conclusion
I knew I was a writer when I wrote my first story at the age of 10. It felt natural and my family encouraged me with great enthusiasm. I wrote a blog post on this subject at the Xynobooks author blog: http://xynobooks.com/2010/12/writing-on-the-wall/
Reblogged this on egmich and commented:
What do you think?
I knew I was a writer when I felt my heart sing when I began writing professionally again after a 10-year hiatus.
My grandmother kept “Sandy’s First Story,” written and illustrated when I was four. She gave it to me when I visited her a number of years ago. It cemented the suspicion I’ve had all my life.