Let's start simple. If you're reading this message, and you wear black a lot, and you're always walking around with a cup of Starbucks in your hand, and you tell everyone you're a writer, and ESPECIALLY if you wear hipster glasses, you are probably not a writer. The exit for posers is over here --->
Shoot, I wear a lot of black, like coffee, tell people I'm a freelance writer when they ask, and my glasses are a little hipstery ... Better hand in my card. It was nice knowing you-all.
If you write poetry, you're a poet. If you write screen plays, you're a screen writer. If you write novels, you're a novelist or author. Article writers: work with non-fiction short pieces on specific themes, topics, or news items. Examples include travel writers, food writers, or medical writers. Business writers: write for commercial business magazines or newspapers. Columnist writers: comment on trends rather than news. Copywriters: Some of the best paid writers, excluding authors, who tend to work as staff writers in marketing bureaus. Other writers include: Erotica, freelance, game, ghost, grant, journalist, non-fiction, online, play, resume, reviews, song, speech, staff, story, technical, and translators. All of those would be classified as a writer. It doesn't matter what you write, you are an author if any of your work has been published; albeit self-published or otherwise. I would even go as far to say that there needs to be a monetary gain, no matter how small, to be part of the equation. If a person published multiple items to a local newspaper or magazine, but did not recieve a monetary embursement for such actions I would call them "aspiring.' That's my personal addition, but publishing anything classifies you as a writer. Most people consider a novel a requirement to consider someone an actual writer, but that is false. Personally, I will not ever consider myself a writer unless a novel of mine has success. I will, in my mind, only be a hobbyist.
From my interactions in the real world it seems to work like this: 1) If you don't actually write anything, have never been published, and you're mooching off friends & family, when you're at a party & someone asks what you do for a living, you say, "I'm a writer." 2) If you are getting published & supporting yourself you say, "I'm an accountant, ecomomist, physicist, etc. (fill in blank according to how you actually pay the bills.) 3) If you're JK Rolling (or other known author) then you don't say anything because everyone already knows who you are. qed.
I don't think I could put it any better myself. I am published and teach writing at the College level, but I still don't feel comfortable calling myself a writer. Teaching is what pays my bills so I'm a Teacher. I've tried Stand-up Comedy three times, but I would never dream of calling myself a Comedian. I believe it is Malcolm Gladwell (or some similar person I have no interest in actually reading but will quote here and now) who said you need to put in 10,000 hrs (or 100,000) to be considered an expert in something so, by that logic, if you've spent 10,000 hrs writing fiction/poetry/non-fiction (not just non-creative writing such as forums or e-mails) then you can say you're a writer. Before that, you write and you are whatever your main source of income is.
There's no doubt I'm a nurse practitioner by profession and a nurse and mother by history and pride in what I've done with my life. I wonder how many hours my 4+ years writing this novel come to? I'll have to ponder that.
You're misquoting Malcom Gladwell's book Outliers: The Story of Success. The quote: "Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.” This is not for qualifying someone as an expert, but rather as a phenom. Top of the class, better than the rest, He's saying it takes at least 10,000 hrs of practice to be the best of best, for any subject. In this he's speaking of how becoming a chess grandmaster takes at least ten years of practice, which is around 10,000 hrs, and relates to how Bobby Fischer did it within nine years. Though, that theory has accordingly been debunked. He's a pop psychologist after all. See domain dependecy. There's other factors besides just hours. My advice -- skip pop psychology. His ten thousand numbers could have been pulled out of a hat for all it matters. It actually takes 11,111 hours of practice to be precisely finished at 11:11 Eastern time. If finished at Central time all of your hours restart. "Wait, did he just take my wallet?" Edit: Pre-emptive counter defense. Practice certainly helps and the longer a person practices the more likely they are to achieve a result closer to perfection and increase their consistancy. There's just no set rule for how many hours it takes. Sorry to break it to you, but Martin Luther King was too general with his "all people are equal' speech. Maybe if he said "all people should be granted equal neutrality in judgement until their personal character has been determined." Some people are born more talented in certain skills or subjects than others. It's called genetics and evolution.
Obviously, there's no set rule for how many hours it takes to be great or an expert. I have never read anything by Malcolm Gladwell and have no interest in his work (as I said in my earlier post), but I think what I'm meaning to say here is this: I don't think it matters what you've accomplished, if you're "great" or not, if you're Bobby Fischer or Michael Jordan or Stephen Hawking or whoever is considered great in their field, but instead what matters is that you put in the time and genuinely love doing it. Besides, it's a silly question to begin with. Anybody can and should call themselves a writer if they spend a lot of time writer, regardless of what they've accomplished. It's all up to you and how you feel about it. I always shyed away from the term, and still do, because I didn't want to be perceived this way: 1) If you don't actually write anything, have never been published, and you're mooching off friends & family, when you're at a party & someone asks what you do for a living, you say, "I'm a writer." And I guess that's what it comes down to. How do you want to be perceived by others? And do you care? Because if you call yourself a writer, but not for anybody else to hear then does it really matter (kind of like that famous tree you hear so much about). It's also about how you identify yourself. If you think of yourself as a writer before all else then call yourself one. What I said earlier was wrong, and I was taking the cynical approach, but now that I think about it... if you're a struggling writer who waits tables to pay the bills you wouldn't go around calling yourself a waiter because that's not what you really want to be. You risk people thinking you're some sort of phony or liar or that you're pretentious, but what do they know. And if you can prove it by your words having been paid for and/or printed by someone else then I think you have all the license in the world to call yourself a writer. Just don't call yourself a "good writer" unless you're a good writer. Actually, never call yourself a good writer... say that others think you're a good writer if it's true. Don't be an arrogant dick.
Hoping that the "arrogant dick" comment wasn't oriented to me in anyway. I can come off abrasive at times, more so in written form, simply due to my outlook on life following a heavy trend toward realism. My mother is very much an optimist and called me a pessimist when I warned her of the potential issues over a subject she was speaking of. After she finished her ranting, I listed to her a variety of potential positive situations associated with her subject. Then I continued speaking of all of the potential negative outcomes. I don't care about pessimism or optimism. I would prefer only good things to happen, but the truth is bad shit happens. If you don't look at the whole picture you can be left unprepared when the worse happens. I'm not belittling anyone who aspires to be a writer. In fact, I find it an admireable trait in a person. Literature and linquistics are impressive fields of study. I wish that the United State's educational system had similar language requirements as other, more educationally developed,. countries. Hell, skimp on mathematics. Let Russian and asian countries cover it. It's the human race, not the human nation. Now, I simply believe that there are requirements in the definition of "writer" required before a person can classify themselves as such. I would not call myself a Chef because I cook my own dinner. There's a difference between an interest, a hobby, and a profession. Let's use myself as an example. One of my largest goals in life is to travel across the world. That makes me a travel enthuist. I have a direct interest in things related to travel. I have traveled to multiple parts of South America and limited areas in Europe. This was all in a three month period. The largest statement I could make is that "I have traveled." To state that "I am a traveler" I would have to be doing so curently or do so at least on a regular period without large interruptions. If I had traveled a majority of the world, I would always be classified as a traveler no matter any time discrepencies. If I traveled heavily for a few years and then didn't travel again for ten years my statement would be, "I have traveled extensively." It's all just about how you phrase what you say. But hey, if you're just teaching some young kids creative writing they can always use motivation. Call them whatever you want. I was simply answering the question posed in a direct and logical way through the use of my limited literature knowledge. I could always be wrong, that's part of my whole realistic view point of life. I always consider that anyone and anything has the potential to be disproved. I may designate certain probabilities to such decisions, but nothing is absolutely definite in my own mind. If you list such an example, I will consider the posibility that none of what you said ever occured. I could be dead, reality could be false, and the giant turtle could come to a crashing halt. Who knows? "Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing." - Euripides
No, not at all. Sorry, I'm the same way. "Arrogant dick" was meant as a joke, directed towards people who call themselves "good writers." You should let others determine if you're good or not - in anything. That was what I meant. And I agree. The traveler analogy makes sense. So then we can say a writer is one who writes "on a regular period without large interruptions." But it still makes people uncomfortable to say it. And it makes people judge others for saying it. I would say in the eyes of others: you "write" until you're published and once you're published you're a writer and in your own eyes: you call yourself whatever you like, but it makes the most sense to call yourself a) what you spend the most time doing or b) what you are most passionate about.
Hmm, I believe I may need to redact part of my earlier statement. To be able to call oneself a writer they must meet certain criteria. They must have a literary work published for a monetary gain, no matter the amount. This can be self-published or otherwise. After a certain length of time, this qualification would fall into the past tense. If multiple years have gone by without any further literary success, the proper terminology would be "I was a writer." To qualify as a writer, as your career, I would consider moderate success over a period of years of continual writing. If forced to switch careers, at a certain point, you would fall back into past tense. To me, the question was asking about the professional title of writer. Anyone can call themselves whatever they want. I also highly believe that no one should ever, in any way, dissuade another from pursuing their passions. I just think that their should be a dose of realism with every decision. If a high school senior decides to forgo employment or further education to pursue a career in writing I would first advise in familiarizing oneself with the potential hardships that may occur. Both writing and acting are tough fields to get into. Sugar coating life only makes you have a heart attack later on. Sprinkle some Stevia on instead.
I'm coming late to this discussion. If somebody tells you they are a writer, or are described in an article or by other people as a writer, what do you assume they do? Do you assume they are published? Do you assume that writing is their main job? I think what you believe other writers to be will probably determine how you describe yourself. If you do describe yourself as a writer, does the person immediately ask you: "Oh, fantastic, where can I buy your books?" And then you have to backtrack, and say: "Er ...well ...nowhere YET, but I AM writing stuff." That should also provide a clue. I usually tell people (if the subject comes up) that I'm working on a novel, or have finished a novel that's not published yet, but I don't describe myself as a writer. That is, unless I'm trying to get wordprocessing problems sorted with the company that produced the programme. ie: I'm a writer, and I need to be able to export my manuscripts in Rich Text Format (you Pages dweebs.... )
I said earlier it was low ranking but I misspoke. It's just so general that by itself it really doesn't describe much. They could be aspiring or professional, or any of the other sub categories mentioned in this thread. In a conversation, describing yourself as a writer really just begs the question for further specifics. Are you aspiring, do you have anything published? Can I read your articles in a certain paper? I can understand why some people view writer as a proper title but it seems like a quick description of something that will need further explanation if there is any interest by the person you are speaking with. That of course will clear up any possible assumptions made by using the word writer in the first place that some might be worried about. If you don't have any writing accomplishments then there really won't be much to discuss unless they are interested in writing or reading themselves. In essence it's not useful to call yourself a writer unless you have some accomplishments I guess. Unless you want to discuss one of your stories or get a beta reader, they might abuse the title by using the assumptions they have of it to make themselves look better. I'm guessing it would be a little hard to do that without some straight out lying though.
It all depends on context. If I asked what do you do for a living? I would assume that by answering that you're a writer that you're able to financially support yourself through those earnings alone. My next question would be: what do you write about? This could also answer what type of writer they are. If I asked the same question to a relative of that person, I would suspend belief until having my follow-up questions answered. 1) How long have they been writing? 2) Has any of their work been published? 3) What do they write about? Depending on the answers I may cringe a little inside, show support for following a passion, or congratulate them on the success. Maybe I should clarify one point. I do not believe that a person should not consider themselves a writer. Lack of completition of an act does not discount the intention. For some people setting their mind to a task guarantees absolution. If you're passionate enough about writing, you should think of yourself as a writer. I personally think of myself as a writer, in my own mind, because of I have passion and skill for the subject. I would not call myself a writer, which is a form of title, until I've reached what I consider pre-requisites for its definition. I am a writer who has not yet earned my title. It's the same as how a student can't consider themselves a specialist of their field until fulfulling all of the pre-requisites.
It's one of those funny categories that means different things to different people. In most cases, I think people assume if you say "I am a writer," that you earn a living at it, or at least have been published. Would you describe yourself as a chef because you cook from scratch at home? Would you describe yourself as a dancer because you attend a line-dancing class on a Thursday night? Are you a botanist because you like learning about plants? I mean, if you say you're a bus driver, people assume you do that for a living. Unless you're an aspiring bus driver, or just do it for free in your spare time. But some other categories are less rigid. I'd say go with what you're comfortable with, but maybe watch the reactions of others. If they constantly assume the wrong thing, you might want to modify the term a bit. It would be embarrassing for me to call myself a writer, then have to explain to everybody that although I write, I haven't actually got anything out there for anybody to read. Yet.
Mentioned the Chef aspect a few posts up. Spoiler: Pertaining Part of Previous Post Now, I simply believe that there are requirements in the definition of "writer" required before a person can classify themselves as such. I would not call myself a Chef because I cook my own dinner. There's a difference between an interest, a hobby, and a profession. Let's use myself as an example. One of my largest goals in life is to travel across the world. That makes me a travel enthuist. I have a direct interest in things related to travel. I have traveled to multiple parts of South America and limited areas in Europe. This was all in a three month period. The largest statement I could make is that "I have traveled." To state that "I am a traveler" I would have to be doing so curently or do so at least on a regular period without large interruptions. If I had traveled a majority of the world, I would always be classified as a traveler no matter any time discrepencies. If I traveled heavily for a few years and then didn't travel again for ten years my statement would be, "I have traveled extensively." It's all just about how you phrase what you say. I thought it was a good point of reference as well. It also depends on who you're talking to. If it's close friends or family, even if they only give unconditional support, it can feel good hearing positive words about your passion. For some reason I want to start an out of context thread now. Too early, will think about it. Edit: Noticed the bad phrasing. Too tired to fix. Really wish I could fix my insomnia.
That's why I always qualify it by saying, "I'm a bit of a writer." I go on to say I write novels and enjoy it. No ambiguity there I think! People seem to get my drift
I've found that people almost invariably make the qualification themselves. For example, if I tell someone I'm working on a story, the most common response I get is "Oh, so you're a writer." Then most common sentence that immediately follows that one is "Have you had anything published?" So, at least among people I encounter, it seems to be understood that the designation "writer" does not imply publication or any level of success. It simply refers to one pursuing the craft of writing.
For some reason all I can think of now is: "I am so I write, I write so I am." Should of changed all my answers that.
