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When Can I Call Myself a Writer?
Writing has a broad definition, but the label makes many of us insecure
For the past two years, I’ve supported myself by writing. Well, to some extent, that is — freelance writing has been a profitable side gig for me as I crawl towards a college degree.
It’s not the kind of job that has yielded thousands of dollars each month, but I’ve also pocketed enough so that I can live on more than ramen noodles and spaghetti-os.
For all intents and purposes, I am a writer. Yet, when people ask me what I do for a living, that label rarely falls out of my mouth.
Instead, I call myself things like freelancer, blogger, sub-contractor, and part-time wordsmith.
When you strip them apart, all of those labels are synonymous with writer, but they imply very different things.
When I think about writers, I’m not thinking about the mildly-profitable career of a college student who only works during the evenings. Instead, my mind is conjuring up images of Mary Shelley, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, and Mark Twain.
Those people are writers.
Calling myself a writer would mean categorizing my career under the same umbrella as the iconic authors who have reshaped literature — and that just…
