When Are We a Legitimate Writer?

We have this crazy expectation in our minds about what it looks like to be a writer. It means standing (or sitting—though I hope not!) at our computers all day and producing great pieces of literature several times a year. It means the only thing we do is focus on that literary masterpiece that’s been waiting for years to climb out our fingers. It means giving up unnecessary components of our lives so that we can focus on this one thing.

Well, yeah, some of it is like that, but if our expectations of being a legitimate writer are tied to whether or not we get to do it full-time, then we’re going to be sorely disappointed (and, also, we’ll never get that book finished).

Even writers who have their books published by large publishing houses are not always able to write full time. You hear about all the ones who do, but what you don’t hear about is all the other ones who work other jobs (or do other make-an-income things) while they’re trying to build a writing business and a back-list of books.

I’m incredibly fortunate to have a husband who supports my family in just a half-day of work, so I get to use the other half-day to create. This means our budget is superbly tight. We have six kids. It’s not an easy task for him to support us all, but he believes in what I’m doing and in what I’m building, and he’s willing to make that sacrifice while I’m working on a business that can help out.

But it wasn’t always like this. For eight years, I worked a full-time job and pursued my writing in small little patches on the side. I wrote three books like that, and it was hard work—harder work than I’m doing now, without the pressure of making money on my back.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t matter whether you do this full-time or whether you’re working on it in the margins of your life, you are still a legitimate writer, because you put in the work.

[Tweet “There’s no one right way to be a writer. It looks different for all of us.”]

Some of us write in the morning, some of us late at night, after the kids are put in bed. Some of us write full-time, some of us for only fifteen minutes a day, but, hey, at least we’re trying. Some of us write novels, some of us write memoirs, some of us write self-help books, some of us prefer all things children’s literature. There’s no formula for being a writer.

Well, actually, there is a formula for being a writer, and it’s this: We do the work.

We are legitimate writers when we decide we’re legitimate. No one can make that call for us. We don’t have to get on the bestseller list before someone takes us seriously. We call ourselves a writer, and we do the work. We publish our own books, or we send them out in hopes that someone else will publish them—either way, we’re writers.

It’s not an easy task to be a writer, of course. It’s a solitary pursuit, for the most part, unless we can find a community of people who are working hard at doing it, too (because the other thing is this: we’re not in competition).

There are always people who tell me they want to write, once they’ve asked me what it is I do, or maybe they’ve seen me sitting on a picnic bench writing and ask about it later, when I run into them in a church cafeteria. They say they would like to write a book, but they don’t have the time. They’ll typically express their sadness that they aren’t pursuing what I’m pursuing, and I always think, Well, then, why not? We can always find time for the things we love, and, for me? Writing is like breathing. I’d die without it.

We decide to do the work of writing, and we make the time, and we’re the ones who will hold a book at the end of all those hours (and it will take many).

If we’re just making the excuse that we don’t have the time to write, because we don’t have hours-long stretches at our disposal, then of course we’re never going to get that book finished.

[Tweet “Sometimes a writing career has to begin at the tiny margins of our time.”]

I don’t have to get a great publishing deal to be a legitimate author. I don’t have to sell a certain number of books to be considered a legitimate writer. I am a legitimate writer because I put in the time and I do the work.

If you want to be a legitimate writer, you will too.

Takeaways at a glance:

1. We control when we consider ourselves a legitimate writer, not anyone else.
2. There’s always time to write. We just have to find it.
3. We are in charge of our lives. When we say we really want to write but we just don’t have the time, what we’re saying to writing is that sacrificing to find the time is not worth it. Writing time happens when we schedule it.
4. It’s not easy to be a writer. It’s actually hard, hard work to do it every day, no matter what. But it’s also worth work.
5. There is no one right way to be a writer, but millions of them. Run your own race. Do your own work.

Week’s prompt