Writing Lesson 3.27_Am I a Writer?

Ever wonder when you’ve really become a writer? If you’re a young person still in school, you might be saying to people, “I want to become a writer when I grow up.” If you’re a little bit older and you’re working your way toward publication, you might tell them, “I like to write, and I hope to be published someday.” If you are much older, and still hoping for that email or phone call telling you that you’re about to be published you might shrug and say to friends, “I write. Still waiting for the big moment though.”

Fact is, it’s sometimes hard to tell someone I am a writer when we haven’t yet arrived — arriving being that magical moment we’ve gotten attached to in our minds about what a “real” writer is. Our ideas about that are often skewed.

It used to be when people asked me what I did, I wasn’t comfortable telling them I’m a writer even after I’d sold my first article. I remember my pastor’s wife cheering for me, telling me how exciting it was to tell folks she knew a writer. I would shake my head and say, “Not really.” For some reason I had this notion that I wouldn’t be a real writer until I was either making my main income by writing or I was published by a renowned publishing house.

I know differently now.

When I was ten years old, God helped me discover my passion to write. I wrote stories, poems, journal entries, and eventually journalism feature stories for my school paper. I won two scholarships based on writing (journalism) and 2^nd place for feature writing in my state.

Even though I was too naïve to believe I was a writer, I WAS A WRITER! But not based on those spare awards.

I was a writer because it was the ambition, the yearning, the thing God planted inside me to be.

Do you love to write? Do you want to be better at it? So do I. I will never stop learning more about writing craft. I am published now. But I’m a little writer in the sea of writers out there. I work a day job. Writing provides me very little in the way of income, but it fills up the bank account of my desire and talent for being what God designed me to be.

Are you a writer? Do you sit down and write and don’t just talk about it? Put yourself in a chair and get words down. Release your heart. And the next time someone asks you about what you do or who you are, among the list of things let them know, “Oh, and I’m a writer.”

Exercise:

• Pray about your desire to write. Ask God to open up a vein of ink that will help you be the writer He wants you to be.
• Write often. Write whatever is on your heart. Journal. Try different types of writing, from journaling to poetry, short story to novel.
• Study writing craft using books, magazines, blogs, critique, and by reading good writing.
• Practice telling your friends and family, “I am a writer.”