What is a writer?

A writer is someone who has to write. This person has to write, to get the story out, the characters out, the words out of their head.  A hundred thousand people say “I could’ve written a book.” or “I have this great idea for a book.” but there are very, very few who get up and do the actual writing. There are fewer still who edit that book with the mind of someone who is not freshly in love with their own words. There are fewer than that who will, when all is said and done, take this shining opus, this life’s work, this beautiful, wonderful thing, and offer it out to someone — to many someones — to any someones, so that said someone can look it over, examine it with all diligence, or perhaps with nonchalance, and either exclaim its audacity, presumption, and inferiority, or mention that it might be “worth something” but probably only with another 3,000 lost words and 80+ hours of stringent editing. And after that, there are fewer still who will refine that creation again and again, who will risk offering it back up for appraisal, who will bear the brunt of critiques and scorn, until finally that creation, that thing, that now-changed child of the mind, walks on its own two feet and becomes a child for so many other minds, taken in by eager eyes or ears, judged on its merits and found beloved, or perhaps mocked.

It’s hard to know.

After all that, those tiny, tiny few who have done all that, and then are not seen sitting there, looking at their achievements, but instead were spotted slipping out to begin the process all over again?

Those elusive creatures are writers, my dear.

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0 Responses to What is a writer?

  1. Trent Lewin says:

    Pretty simple. It’s you.

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