If you think you aren’t, would you like to rethink that?
So many people tell me they wish they could write. Some of them have experiences and wisdom that deserves to be written down in book form. Some have learned much about relationships or raising children, and they wonder if they might consider doing a blog.
I do my best to encourage them. Even if they’re writing solely for themselves or their families, it’s worth doing. To put down a series of words that makes sense, educates, and informs gives a feeling of satisfaction unlike any other.
Yet, all too often, they say sadly, “But I can’t write.”
I don’t believe that.
You Can Write
And you do. I am sure you’ve written social media posts, emails, reports, or proposals. These count as writing. You wrote a message to the world or some segment of it which others understood. Writing is communication.
But Isn’t Being a Writer a Big Deal?
Herein lies part of the problem. It’s easy to get the idea that being a writer is only real when it’s a full-time job for which people get paid. To worsen matters, you may know writers who create a mystique that suggests they have a secret club, and you’ll never get to join it. Don’t worry; this is good news.
Within the world of writing exist many layers of snobbery. Some writers who consider themselves literary have contempt for Stephen King. Do you want to know how much he cares? Less than that.
Others think that romance writers write trash. They don’t care, either.
Writers have many ways of looking down on other writers, and I recommend that you pay no attention to such intellectual discrimination.
It’s both wrong and impractical to determine one’s qualifications to call themselves writers based on payment and length of time spent writing.
Writers often don’t get paid well. They frequently have to write within small windows of opportunity. This particularly applies to blogging.
“Blogging Isn’t Writing.”
I get angry when I hear this because I know many people, who after years of wishing they could write, have finally taken the step of starting a blog. I don’t want them to get discouraged because a snob looks down his or her nose at the courage and commitment involved in taking the risk to realize a dream.
If blogging isn’t writing, I would like to know what it is.
If you fulfill your commitment to complete a blog while children are screaming in the background, and you’re trying to remember whether you paid the electric bill, you deserve respect.
If you can get that blog written, I say you’re a writer. If you are even trying, you’re a writer.
Start writing and keep on doing it. Ignore those who try to set up false standards of what a writer is, and follow your dream.
Pat Iyer MSN RN loves to write and help other writers.
