What is a writer?
Someone who writes books? Poems? Short stories? Famous?
When I am asked what I plan to do in the future, the word writer immediately awakens in my mind from its dormant state, though, it often doesn’t make its way out as strongly as I hoped it would. When I answer this question, I always feel that my answer lacks a bold and passionate response. The word writer never fully leaves me. It haunts me in the most terrifying and exhilarating ways possible and I am not sure if it will ever feel like the answer that I so desperately long for.
Everyone has written something. Whether it be a technical essay, a love letter, or a dull response to a lengthy math problem, the words have still been transferred from mind to physical. But not all of these people call themselves writers – they could, but they don’t. From what I have observed, the title of a writer is something earned rather than handed out freely. It floats through the air and isn’t attached to its person until it can be accepted by them –owned with such unwavering confidence that it cannot be questioned. Knowing this, I still struggle with my own hold on it.
I write. I write every day, yet still hesitation approaches when I am asked what I want to do or who I want to be. I know exactly what I want to spend my time doing, but when I answer that question, wouldn’t I technically already be my future self with my future job? Do I have to get something published to consider myself a writer or am I one already? Sometimes saying that I am a writer feels like a betrayal, like putting on a mask that takes too much force to remove, leaving a residue that can’t ever really be washed away.
Regardless of this, I know that I am a writer when I decide that I am one. It is not something that will be decided by a number or a person, but the certainty of a queen holding her throne. Every day I write and every day the words hang on the edge of my lips, and I know that they will leave when I truly feel that they embody what I am.
What I take away the most from this is that the title is unmeasurable. It may take years or books or questions for it to take hold, but whichever way that it does go is your own.