Someone Who Writes
Are we writers if we don’t have readers? It takes both to create a memorable story, so if we haven’t yet gotten our work published—or we don’t even want to publish it, not in the mainstream market anyway—are we still writers?
Yes. A resounding, unequivocal, absolute YES.
Many, many, many writers I know doubt this. Imposter syndrome rears its ugly head. How can I call myself a writer if I’m not published?
Because you write.
Full stop.
You may choose to write for yourself, or for your family or for your friends. You may choose to write for a bigger audience and you may struggle or succeed in getting your book out there, but none of that matters to who you are. A writer. If you write, you’re a writer.
Full stop.
My first published manuscript, Evangeline’s Heaven, was, in fact, the fourth novel I wrote. The third novel I wrote, Amaranth (coming May 2024) will be my second published manuscript, which means, I published “out of order”, if you will. If I went by the theory that I wasn’t a writer until I was published, that meant I wasn’t a writer when I wrote Amaranth. Yet, it’s of a high enough quality even before my first published novel that it was accepted by a publisher, so that argument falls flat.
It’s easy to get sucked into the rhetoric that you’re only a writer if you’re published. It’s more rewarding to resist it.