Fifty things that don't make you a writer
I'm so good at making friends...
Back in March of 2016 I sat down and wrote a list of things that don’t make you a writer. The piece was published in a blog (now defunct) and the reactions were…well, you know how ugly things can get on social media. People were ANGRY. Who was I to tell them what did and did not make them writers? Who was I to joke about such serious matters? I got a ton of insults, threats, and hate mail. That week, I was tagged in two angry blog posts in response to the piece. When things explode like that, they can haunt you for weeks. I almost regretted writing that thing. Almost.
A few years went by and the list of things that don’t make you a writer grew a little. I truly believe the only thing that makes you a writer is writing. Writing great stuff is hard, but the writing itself, in essence, is simple: sit down (or stand up!) and write. No, seriously. Writers write. We take the stories, essays, plays, movies, and poems that live in our heads and hearts and we do our best to put them down on paper so that other people can read them. You can write in a laptop or a notebook. I sometimes write on my phone if I’m stuck somewhere. You can write in a fancy office or at the library or at a coffee joint or while sitting on the toilet. If you write, you’re a writer. That’s it. At least that’s what I think. Getting published, winning awards, having an agent, getting that sweet Netflix deal, and everything else writers dream about are things that may or may not come, but the writing is always at the core of who we are and what we do. In fact, none of that will happen if you don’t write.
In any case, after the original piece came out, I kept meeting people who talked a lot about writing but never wrote. They all had reasons. They didn’t have time. They were insecure. They felt publishing was too woke and they would never publish anything because evil women control publishing. They were waiting for retirement. They had to binge some shows first. Oh, but they had fancy writing software and a great desk and had two or three vintage typewriters on their shelves. Yeah, my list kept growing. In the summer of 2020, I revamped the list and sent it to another venue. It was published…and people got ANGRY again. Hah. Luckily for me, I had learned to not give a fuck about angry randos online in the four years since the original piece came out.
Last night I saw an email from author Lindy Ryan asking about that piece because she wanted to reference it in a thing she’s doing. It was all the push I needed to find the 2020 version, revamp it, and send it back out into the world. If it makes you laugh, I’m glad I could bring some joy into your life in such dark times. If it makes you angry, go eat a cookie or something. Get you a sense of humor on Amazon, maybe? I don’t know; I’m just trying to not be rude.
Things that don’t make you a writer:
Owning a laptop.
Going to a coffee shop to stare at your laptop while cycling through the same three or four social media platforms.
Taking photos of your French press to post on social media.
Owning a cat or three.
Having an Instagram account.
Knowing a guy who knows a publisher.
Putting the word author in your Twitter bio.
Drinking/talking about/enjoying coffee.
Living in a town with a great university.
Hanging out with writers.
Telling people you’re working on something but not really working on it.
Putting on a funny literary shirt and hanging out a your local bookstore (but yes, that’s awesome).
Being able to name ten Stephen King books (five of which you haven’t read but have seen the movie adaptation).
Having a drinking problem.
Naming your pets after characters in famous novels.
Reading Rick Moody or Dave Foster Wallace and talking endlessly about it while telling the world what you read is infinitely better than what they read.
Telling people that whatever genre they love isn’t really Literature.
Collecting pens and pretty notebooks you never write in.
Making jokes about Thomas Pynchon.
Having a Goodreads account.
Listening to obscure bands that like to use more than twenty words per song, wear a lot of flannel, and make cool literary references.
Watching a lot of art films.
Complaining about the state of publishing. It sucks. We know. Let’s work together to make it better.
Going to AWP.
Saying authors are your heroes.
Hating James Patterson.
Hating YA or horror or crime.
Talking about writing on social media or sharing writing memes.
Sharing fake word counts.
Being unemployed.
Lounging at home.
Being a beer snob.
Making fun of people who read romance.
Wearing glasses.
Correcting people’s grammar on social media.
Describing yourself as a wordsmith.
Living in an artsy (aka gentrified) part of town.
Applying to low residency MFAs like it’s going out of style.
Having ideas.
Thinking you have what it takes to write a novel.
Reading more than ten books per year.
Skimming through literary blogs.
Claiming no one understands you.
Buying a typewriter.
Using hashtags about writing while on Twitter, which is where you go to waste your time so you can claim you never have time to write.
Getting an MFA and then working on something else and not writing.
Not getting an MFA because you’re “from the school of hard knocks.” You know, or you “went to Miskatonic University” if horror is your thing. Point is, those mean nothing if you never write.
Going to therapy. Therapy is great, so write—you know, because writers write—but also go to therapy if you need it.
Having a blog you haven’t updated in six years.
Retweeting writers.
Yeah, basically the only thing that makes you a writer is writing, so get to it. Write and write and rewrote and edit and write some more. Everything else comes after the writing. Write like your life depended on it, because your life as a writer depends on it. Also, read a lot. Read everything you can get your hands on. That’s it! Have a wonderful day.
Impossible to understand how anyone could argue with any of these points.
How dare you. A cat can make you anything. Anything! 🐈
(Thanks to poe's law I must officially say that I am kidding.)