Are You a Writer?

Photo credit: Kitone on Flickr

Some of you may remember a post I wrote way back when titled Ten Indisputable Signs That You’re a Writer. It was a list post I wrote for fun, detailing some quirks that many writers share in common, and overall I had a pretty positive response from you lovely readers. 

Sometime after I posted it, however, the intro of the post was stripped out and someone re-posted it on several sites, and it eventually ended up on tumblr where it exploded a little. Long story short, the version of the post that became popular was a version without the intro, and so my fun list started to sound like a list of qualifying characteristics that you must have to be a writer. Which wasn’t my intention at all. 

I cleared it up to the tumblr community and it all got worked out in the end (yay!), but it made me realize that there are a lot of people out there who believe that there are some sort of lofty requirements to being a writer. 

I want to nip this lie in the bud right now. There is one requirement to being a writer.

Do you know what it is? I bet you can guess. 

The only question you ever need to ask yourself when wondering if you qualify for the title of “writer” is this: do you write? 

If the answer is yes—guess what? You’re a writer. No really. That’s it. 

This is why I don’t agree with the term “aspiring writer.” It’s also why it really hurt me to see people responding to my stripped list post with I guess I’m not a writer. I wanted to reach through the interwebs and hug those people and tell them that if they write and they love to write, then they’re writers. 

You see, there isn’t a panel of highbrow writerly judges that look down their noses at so-called would-be writers and tell them that they aren’t writer enough. As long as you write, there is no such thing as not being writer enough. 

You don’t need to be published to call yourself a writer. You don’t need to have written for x-amount of years or completed several novels (or even a single novel, for that matter). You don’t need to have a successful blog, or a witty Twitter, or hoards of fans to be a writer. 

All you need is your words and your love for language. All you need is a keyboard or pen and paper and the determination to keep writing, even when no one knows or cares that you love to write. 

All you need is you and the courage to say, “I’m a writer.” 

Because that, my friends, is the only requirement that matters.

Now tell me: Are you a writer?

Twitter-sized bites:  

There's only one question you need ask when wondering if you're a writer. Do you know what it is? (Click to tweet) 

There's only one requirement for being a writer—do you meet it? (Click to tweet)