"I am a writer."
This much I know. Words etched deep into my soul will never release me. To write is to ease my spirit, it is to love and to hate the craft. The act of writing is to be a slave to it. It is to be free.
I have been paid to do this for 10 years and counting, though I was born a writer. I have honed words and I have sold them, but it is not easy. Everyone thinks they can do it because everyone has been taught to do it.
Sorry friends, but let me disillusion you. You may be able to write your name, an essay, or a management review but you are not a writer, though 'Excellent command of the English language, both written and verbal' appends your CV. If you are struggling to distinguish 'your' and 'you're', or if you're debating the finer points of colon and semi-colon use; you are not a writer.
Now, if you can scene a dialogue, if you can landscape a frame, if you can add some goddamn context, then you might be a writer. If your ideas are an incoherent stream, sprayed full throttle across the pages of your first, second, thirteenth draft, then you might be getting somewhere. Most importantly; if you can delve in the deepest parts of yourself, expose all the darkness, weakness and horror there, then you are probably being a writer.
If you are following me, then you are probably realizing that writing is just a little bit more than putting words on paper. Just a little bit
