When did you fellow writers start to call yourselves writers?

That puncture line is a classic.

 

I think I've always loosely referred to myself as a "writer" - even before I did fiction I did a lot of blogging and op-eds and such going back to college, so in the sense of manipulating the English language for fun and profit I've thought of myself as a "writer" for a long time.

I still don't use "Author" at all because frankly I feel like it sounds pompous and because people then want to see a published book. When I publish something I'll use "Author of..."

I did start referring to myself as a "writer" a lot more after I started working on the novel and injecting a lot of curriculum (like, writing is my primary hobby, so I'm a writer in the same sense that my co-workers are softball-players or gardeners).

That, and I have started using the term "novelist" to describe myself - sometimes with "aspiring" on the front end, but at this point I've written a full unsold novel, so I'm a novelist even if I'm not a published one. I started using that term I think as a function of going to writing group because it's more specific than "writer" (and like I said, I've always been a "writer"). But I'm not doing op-eds anymore, so I'm not an essayist, and in the writing group setting I'm one of the novelists as opposed to the poets, short fiction writers, and memoirists. So for me, that was was the crossover, from "writer" to "novelist" - generalist to specialist.

 

I think I started to consider myself a writer when I got serious about it. I'd dabble here and there, but then a friend introduced me to Nano and that's when I really decided this was something I wanted to do. Glancing at my old documents, that was apparently back in '11. Wow, how time flies.

 

I belong to a Writers' Forum (actually two of them) and a face to face writers' group ...but I don't call myself a 'writer.' I have finished a novel (not yet published, but close) and am working on a second one. But ...I don't know. I always think of writers as 'other people.'

 

I don't call myself a writer—I don't actually call myself anything. I usually say I like to write or more often just that I like telling stories.

I also won't say I'm an artist or artistic—I've drawn and painted and crafted and sculpted most of my life. My first (nonfamily) job in high school was for an animation studio off-branch of Nickelodeon and was known as the person who could "actually draw" within the studio and the person who gifted me the job based on seeing some childish doodles & sketches got upset with me when I said I was going to be a literature major. The problem with me is I'm jack of all artistry trades but master of none. On the scale of the entire world, I'm pretty badass and insanely talented—because people struggle with stick figures or simple grammar or whathaveyou. But once you start with people who at least know and can do the bare minimum basics, I'm suddenly quite abysmal and pathetic.

It's why I always call myself artsy instead of artistic. I dabble and I love almost all creative modes, but I am better equipped for appreciating, assessing, and critically analyzing others works than contributing anything meaningful of my own.

However, I have a feeling that a lot of artistic people are self-deprecating & self-conscious of their works & right to be named as an artist or author. A lot of my creative friends who just could blow everyone away thought they weren't good enough or in any way talented.

That's the feeling I'm getting from a lot of people commenting here and their inability or apprehension to call themselves writers or something of the sort

 

I agree.

 

If writing ever gets to where it becomes the primary focus of my life, I'll be a writer. I say that having had a number of jobs that completely dominated both my working and social lives. Military tend to associate almost solely with other military, as do public safety/law enforcement, and right now, if I want to talk to a native speaker of English, it's going to be another teacher. Dunno if it's supposed to be a good thing or not, but my work has always defined me, and writing isn't there yet.

 

That's a very true statement. If what you do defines you as a whole (lifestyle, way of thinking, actions, motives) it is who you are.

 

I'm a writer when I'm writing. I'm an eater when I'm eating.

I have used the word as a title, when it seemed to be appropriate. I guess I first felt that I'd earned it after I sold my first piece. My logic (if you want to call it that) was that editors don't buy stuff from non-writers. Since then, I've written a lot that hasn't been offered for sale, so I can't use that justification, and concede that there are plenty of writers out there who write for pleasure.

When you tell people you're a writer, they usually infer that you do it for money. Since my books still give me royalties from time to time, I suppose that makes me a professional writer. But titles like that are always tricky. If you're in the habit of going to the pool four times a week to swim, that makes you a regular swimmer, even though you aren't swimming at the moment and you don't do it for pay.

 

Pretty much this.
I didn't really feel I had earned the title simply by finishing a novel. Putting it out there for everyone to see, that was probably the moment.

Getting that first positive review sure didn't hurt either.

I don't tell people I'm a writer unless writing comes up in conversation. It isn't my 'job' but it is something that makes me who I am.

 

I agree.

 

I think of a professional writer as somebody who writes as a profession.

I suppose it's no surprise that there's no consensus on anything in the writing community when we can't even agree on what a 'writer' is.

 

To my mind, there is a huge difference between "writer" and "author." If I didn't allow myself to consider me a writer until I was published, I think I'd just be demoralised and wonder what the hell all these long hours at the keyboard are, if not the very essence of me being a writer. When I get published, that will be my reward. That and the title Author. But there needs to be some kind of reward for the hard slog behind closed doors, and for me, that reward is allowing myself to call me a writer, and wearing that title as a badge of honour and an incentive to continue producing.

 

What makes this even more indistinct is the use of the word "profession." Does that mean that the writer gets most of his income from writing? Or a share of it? Does he depend on it for his bread and butter?

It's interesting that writing as a "profession" is a fairly recent invention. In America at the time of the Revolution, there was no such thing as a class of professional writers, as Jefferson pointed out. (Benjamin Franklin was primarily a printer and publisher.) And even Shakespeare made most of his money as a theatrical producer (and occasionally as an actor); he earned nothing as a writer.

 

I agree.

 

For me it means it's their full time job, their main or only source of income.

I'm not saying mine is the 'right' definition, by the way. Just musing on my own arbitrary definitions.

Like 'author' - I won't consider myself an author until somebody else has published one of my novels. A published short story wouldn't make me an author, even though that makes no sense.