The following was part of a previous newsletter that was sent to subscribers of The Writer’s Whip.
Some people are confused about what they really want, especially those who claim that they want to be writers. I hear it frequently. “I want to be a writer.”
What does that mean to you?
I don’t necessarily want to be a writer. I am a writer. It’s what I do. I don’t have any other way to make sense out of the universe, to explore how I think and feel. I’d much rather be a musician or a painter (surprisingly, my two daughters are, one each, a musician and a painter). It’s hard to be a writer. I’m not saying that it’s not hard to do anything else. It’s just that even for someone who has studied writing, who has done it all of his life, it’s still hard to sit down and write.
When I hear someone make the claim that yes, they are a writer, I ask them, “What are you writing?” Too often I am told, “Oh, I’m not writing anything now.”
So I test their claims. What do they really mean?
Some want to write and become better writers. Good for them. One of us.
But others, too many, want other things:
- They want to have written.
- They want a popular and successful blog.
- They want to have a book published.
- They want to have a movie made from the book that was published from the book that was written inspired by their blog that they, hopefully, got around to writing.
- They want the fame and glory and wealth that comes from all of that.
But very few can do the work.
I do not judge (OK, yes, I do. Maybe a little). I want all of those things, too. But I write. And that’s the difference.
What do you want? Are you ready to claim the title for yourself?
Anyone can honestly claim the title of writer. All they have to do is write. They don’t have to publish, to earn money, to even have readers. All they have to do is write.
If you need more help, motivation, and advice on getting the work done I recommend subscribing to my monthly newsletter, The Writer’s Whip.
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Randy MurrayClaim The Title Of Writer—Advice From The Writer’s Whip by Randy Murray, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.