Be a Writer

I’ve been published a handful of times, five times in professional, critically acclaimed collections, once through self publication on the Kindle. I have submitted my work to literary magazines and journals and amassed a tidy pile of rejection letters.
I remember, after my first publication, being told that I was now a “real writer”, and being told the same after I took on the task of self publication, and again by my creative writing professor after I received my first rejection.
All in good fun, but I’ve felt like a real writer all along. When I was ten years old, I got an idea in my head for a movie that simply would not leave me alone. I finally realized that no one would make said film because it was an idea unique to me. It was my story. Soon I began obsessing over the characters and their relationships to one another, and whenever I found myself struggling (I moved cross country twice following year, leaving behind my childhood home and friends), I would return to the world of that story. I had written a novella when I was 6, but never seriously considered, until this idea leapt into my brain and would not release me, that I might be a writer. Once I began penning it in notebooks and on the backs of envelopes, I found myself thinking of myself as a writer. My head would scream with images and dialogue and characters and not let up until the pen had let them out. By the time I was in middle school I found myself, more and more, seeing myself as little else. I wrote constantly, on math notes, during lunch. I could not dampen my resolve in any way, and few things could pull me away when I was writing something that excited me in some way.
These days, over a decade later, I have trained myself to write more responsibly. Sometimes the ideas in my head need tweaking, or brewing before they reach the page. Sometimes I put aside the story so it can mature, and sometimes, with little thought except a vague image, I throw myself into the words, full-force, and do not stop until it is written.
There is no sure-fire way to write, I think. I can write on a schedule, but I do my best work when I wait for true inspiration. Some people need to force themselves or they will never do it. I tend to take a more passionate approach to my writing and get it all out in one burst, but not always. This summer, for example, I forced myself to write 3-5 pages on a story every night and the end result was a murder mystery novella that went in directions I was not expecting.
But all of that is discipline. You do not become a writer when you set a schedule, nor even when you become published. All of these are good things, and writers aspire for these things so that they may share their work with the world. But becoming a writer starts with passion. I do not mean you are constantly scrawling your story on everything you get your hands on- part of any good story are the bits that slow you down and cause you to reflect, and sometimes these moments can make the writing long and laborious. But if you love your story, then it will all be worth it.
And that is the size and shape of a writer: someone who has found something in themselves they feel is so worth saying, they need to share it with the world.