by Sarah Rossey
Managing Editor for TWJ

How Do I Know if I’m a Writer?

For about a decade, I took a semi-consensual hiatus from recreational writing. There was no journaling, blogging or freelancing. Blame it on college burnout or stage of life or a millennial lack of imagination … I’m sure all these things came into play. It felt like I had learned to hate my words. Bottom line, I put down the pen.  

Then, a couple years ago, a friend invited me to join a local writer’s group. I was faced with a conundrum: what business had I with a writer’s group? I hadn’t written in ten years. I was very interested, but … was I a writer?

Now I attend every writer’s event I possibly can. I’m writing “frequently,” performing my pieces from time to time, and have started a literary magazine with some of my friends. I seem to be taking myself seriously as a writer. And yet I’m still susceptible to the ‘imposter syndrome’ – afraid to be found out for a fraud, for the non-writer I fear I am.

And I’m not alone. Many of the people I’m interacting with now are burdened with similar sentiments. An engineer who writes poetry but refuses to call himself a poet. A radiology nurse who reluctantly shares her “amateur” stories. A mother who is afraid her rougher edges are too much for most readers.

Yet I’m also surrounded by excellent self-marketers, people who unabashedly and unhesitatingly don the mantle of “Writer.” What is the difference? Is it merely a Type A and Type B dichotomy? Are those who are extroverted, have corporate experience, publish frequently or attained higher education truly better writers, more worthy of being taken seriously?

Who decides what it means to be a writer?

5 Signs You’re Meant to be a Writer

Let’s look at some common symptoms of those we call “writers.” You might be a writer if:

5. You experience the world verbally (at some level).

“For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word.” —Catherine Drinker Bowen

4. You are moved by others’ writing

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R.R. Martin

3. You have something to say.

“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” —George Orwell

2. You think about writing

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” —Maya Angelou

And the #1 way to tell if you’re meant to be a writer:

You write.

Is there anything more to it?

What Does it Take to be a Writer?

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” —Louis L’Amour

The journey to becoming a writer begins before a single word is written. We are self-narrating from the moment we latch onto communication; telling ourselves the story of our lives. Casting ourselves as heroes or villains and drawing lines of consequence across perceived series of events. Sometimes this happens verbally, sometimes the experience is beyond what we can put into words.

When we find out others are experiencing the same in their own lives, perceiving the story of themselves and winkling out the story of life — whether we read about it, hear about it, or see it firsthand — we are changed. From the first empathetic flush and every time after.

Some of us feel the urge to put down what we perceive on paper. Whether we are writing for the world or for ourselves, the imperative is to process raw experience into words. And thus a writer is born.

Why is it difficult for some to self-identify — even partially — as a writer? Perhaps we have an idealized vision of a hermit deep in the forest, who rises at five am to write until his fingers bleed, at which time he takes his old dog for a long walk in the woods. Perhaps we envision the act of writing as easy for some (though always hard for us) and disqualify ourselves as a result. Perhaps we imagine that writers are the repositories of great pain or deep thoughts or profound social sensibilities–and we are not.

Certainly, writing is an inspired process, driven by passion and made possible by discipline. Like anything else, it is a practice. We become better by investing the time and honing our skill. But are we only to be considered writers once the Nobel prize has come in? Do we cease to be writers the moment our pen rests?

Natural Born Writers: Outsmarting Imposter Syndrome

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” —Ernest Hemingway

At some point I believe each of us has the right to define what it means to be a writer, to take that title for ourselves and determine for ourselves what it means. The value of our writer’s voice can’t be bestowed externally, just like our own personal sense of self worth. There will never be another voice like yours, and we need more voices to represent the true diversity of the life happening all around us.

If you are dealing with imposter syndrome or writers block, I encourage you to get involved with your writing craft in a more serious manner. Create a daily writing routine. Join a writer’s group. Submit your work for publication. Own your habit and risk experiencing a little ‘being’ in the middle of your ‘becoming.’ You are a writer.