What is a Writer?
For my first thought piece (or whatever you want to call it), I thought I would tackle a question that is central to myself and to the blog. This is a question that many creatives surely ponder, because we all struggle with representation and identity in some way or another. The question: What is a writer?
The question may sound silly when taken at face value. I mean, I am sitting here writing this right now, and because I am writing, I must also be a writer, right? But is a writer just a person who writes? Is a photographer just a person who takes photographs? Is anybody really anything just because they do a thing? You get the point.
I would like to think that I’m a writer. I mean, I enjoy writing. I have always thought of writing as synonymous to solving a puzzle; you have all of these pieces, all of these things you want to express, and once you fit it together in perfect visual form, it’s oh-so satisfying.
Perhaps confidence is the thing that makes me hesitate to call myself a writer. I mean, people call themselves things all the time and nobody bats an eye. So why do I feel like such an imposter here? Even the thought of my writing existing on the web makes my stomach turn a bit.
But if I confidently proclaimed myself to be a writer, would anyone question that? And if they do, does that make me any less of a writer?
Let’s turn to the experts, or better yet, the dictionary. The most basic definition of a writer is “a person who has written something.” Okay, fair enough. So we’re all writers here. Congratulations! But no, that doesn’t feel right. If everybody is a writer, then no one is really a writer; the word has reached semantic satiation and loses all meaning.
Okay, next one: “A person who writes books, stories, or articles as a job or occupation.” I don’t buy this one. Do you really need to be employed as a writer to be a writer? This is late stage capitalism at its core!
And one more: “a person who writes books or articles to be published.” This one made me happy, because as someone who is published about once a month in a little policy publication, I can confidently stand by the fact that I am a writer, in one sense of the word. Arguably the most important sense. Then again, who decides what’s important anyway? Is this actually a conversation about value systems?
Let’s run with this idea of value systems. We see this occurring at the individual and societal level. What does American society value? Profit. So, in the eyes of American society, a person can only be a writer if their writing is profitable. After all, money is what creates value in this capitalistic, soul-sucking society!
If we want to get really Marxist, we can think about this superstructure of ideas that penetrate American ideology – while we may not agree with the profit making definition of a writer, some part of us may feel like it’s a truth, because we are taught to value profit. Even if we resist it as individuals, we are told that our work needs to be ascribed a monetary value for it to be valuable.
As individuals, it’s a lot easier to claim that we are writers. As an individual, I can claim that I am a writer because I write things. Of course I can. But I think the idea of confidence comes into play again here.
I think that I am a writer, but I hesitate to call myself a writer because I know that the profit driven definition is circulating around everybody’s brains, and when I call myself a writer, I am subjecting myself to the “oh, it’s really hard to make it as a writer” or “print journalism is a dying industry” or “are you sure you don’t want a higher paying job?” type of responses. And I can’t blame anyone for this – we are taught to connect passions with money because money is perceived as valuable.
Speaking of values, I did one other form of research for this piece: I turned to my friends. I asked two friends the question ‘how would you define a writer?’. Both of these friends I consider writers, which raises questions in its own because why do I consider them writers but not myself? I digress.
One idea is that a writer is a storyteller, or someone who is compelled to document the world around them.
The other is that a writer is someone who gives people a new perspective, who challenges themselves to give people a window into their thoughts and trusts that it might clarify someone else’s.
These are both beautiful thoughts. These definitions sound like they came from writers, don’t they? And I think the ideas are sound; by simply allowing yourself to write, to document the world, to provide a perspective, or to tell a story, you allow yourself to be a writer. Wasn’t it Hemingway who said that writing is easy, all you have to do is sit at your table and bleed?
The longer I think about this topic, the more confused I become. But one thing is certain: there is not a set definition of a writer. The same goes for many words, concepts, and identities – they are usually not as stable as they may seem.
As I write this, my stance becomes more clear. My passion for this topic heightens. By calling myself a writer, maybe I am defying the values that society has imposed upon me, and claiming my identity as an individual. I think the message here is that we should resist societal constraints whenever possible, and listen to that little voice in our head that guides us towards what we want to be whenever possible.
But who am I to preach this stuff? After all, I’m just a writer.
