One of my favorite scenes in the movie, Julie and Julia, is when Julie gets a phone call asking her to write a cookbook. “I’m going to be a writer!”, she tells her husband. “You are a writer”, her husband replies.
Her husband’s point was that Julie was a writer even when no one recognized her work. Before she became famous as a blogger, she wrote a book that no one wanted to publish, and a blog that few people read. Even when she wasn’t famous or published, she was writing, and so she was a writer. There was no “going to be” about it, for a writer was what she was.
By that standard, I am a writer, for I write a blog. I’m not a professional writer or a published author, in the same class as people who write books and articles for publication. But, as obscure as I may be, I am a writer, for the simple reason that I write.
A few years ago, I wrote a post, Stephen King on Biography. (Incidentally, I watched that episode of Biography right after seeing the last couple of minutes of a Biography about Anne Rice. It talked about her conversion to Christianity, and how she had stopped writing vampire novels. And that was the end, since she hadn’t yet repudiated organized religion.) In the documentary, somebody remarked that, when Stephen King was in school, most of the aspiring writers only talked about writing. What set Stephen King apart was that he actually did it.
I can identify both with those who merely talked about writing, and with Stephen King, who did it. When it comes to writing for publication, I’m at the stage where I only talk about it. I hope to write articles or books, but, at this time in my life, there are no articles or books inside of me, waiting to come out. At the same time, I do write, for I write this blog. So I am a writer.