When Will You Start Calling Yourself a Writer?
When will you start calling yourself a writer? This is the question that has been haunting me for what seems like an unnamable stretch of time. After all those university essays, journals, digital notes, failed blogs, self-publishing shenanigans, challenges, prompts, Instagram captions, scraps of papers, abandoned first chapters… surely I should have abandoned the idea; yet the thunderstorm of plots, couplets, and images that I have forced into oblivion refuse to let go.
When will you start calling yourself a writer? when you are good enough? popular enough? well-read enough?
When will you start calling yourself a writer? when your words are forwarded by the validating seal of an institution? when your stats show the abstract readers behind the screen?
When will you start calling yourself a writer? you have been waiting to reach perfection yet perfection is unattainable in a blank page.
You will never call yourself a writer unless you write. You will never become successful unless you fail. You will never produce a good piece of writing unless you learn what makes a bad piece of writing.
So embrace fear and start writing. Who cares what the world says? Sit down. Write. Call yourself a writer.
