The best book I’ve read on writing is Stephen King’s “On Writing.”
I wrote a 45-page history of the college radio station as my graduate project. This entailed not only writing the actual book, but conducting interviews, locating old documents, poring through archived newspapers, and so forth. I also had three months to complete the project, so I was on a very tight deadline.
Anyway, as I was working on the project, I was more or less accosted by a woman at Panera who wondered what I was up to, since I had my laptop and studio headphones on to listen to an interview. When I told her, she gushed that she, too, was a writer. Finally, I gave her the hairy eyeball and told her that I needed to get back to work.
Writers are like migraines. They’re convenient and no one can prove or disprove them.
Robin
elbows everyone aside
I’m not just a writer, I’m an award-winning writer. :rolleyes:
Yeah, so…I’ve never actually been paid for a piece of my writing. But not only was I a regular contributor to my college’s literary rag, I actually won a couple of second places and honorable mentions for my short stories. So, yeah, I’m an award-winning writer.
Of course, propriety demands that I not go flaunting it in the faces of the masses. 
A few years ago I was actually writing every day, sending out stuff, getting rejection slips, occasionally picking up a small cheque or an (unhonoured) promise of payment – and I still didn’t call myself a writer. Funny how differently people approach these things.
I’ve read this thread twice, once yesterday and once today. Both times I’ve come in with low-self esteem and ended up feeling better about myself. No, I’ve never written as much as I think I should, especially since I think I do it really well. But it said “Writer” on my tax return (no, I didn’t put it there) and I do get paid to write. It’s reporting, not fiction, but I think I’ve written something like 2,000 stories and more than half a million words at my job in the last year. And when I started trying to discount those, I thought of my other professional experience and found good writing there. So I can’t be a writer who doesn’t write.
The problem, usually, is that I want everything to come out great on the first try. It rarely does, but I end up stifling my efforts. Thing is, it does come out that wll sometimes. The best stories I’ve written, generally - and this goes for both fiction and journalism - have almost written themselves in one go. There’s something very special about those. I wrote a story like that the day Kurt Vonnegut died and I submitted it to the New Yorker last week. I was scared that it wouldn’t look as good when I re-read it, but it has something.
I guess at this point I have a lot of experience with journalism and not as much with fiction, so I have trouble executing my fiction ideas. And progress on my non-fiction novel has been slower than I would like, even though some parts are well-written and some did come easily. It’s a structure thing I suppose I can only do by learning. And revising (which I used to be allergic to) has made a big difference.
So I may be frustrated, but I’m not a writer who doesn’t write. And even if it’s a long-time bad habit, there’s an easy cure for not writing enough. Thanks for inspiring me to go home and pound the keys!
Honestly, I’ve been contributing articles to a video game website for six years now and I still don’t think of myself as a writer because I don’t write fiction and I’m not being paid.
I’m sure someone will come along shortly and tell me I’m not (because video game writers are about the lowest of the low on the journalism scale), but I do write everyday.
I love this discussion. I really agree with the OP and with Savannah. I have more respect for people who write complete rubbish (i.e., COMPLETE rubbish) than people who much about and don’t really do anything and call themselves writers.
The good news is that talent is hard to come by, but there’s nothing stopping you from writing. If you write a few hundred words a day, you’ll have a novel at the end of the year. If you have time to make a few posts here every day, you have time to write a few hundred words. Just do that instead of this.
Last I heard satirist Fran Lebowitz no longer writes, just gives interviews and appears as a judge on Law & Order.
I just noticed she’s a dead ringer for my contract law professor.
So, are technical writers considered to be writers? Based on the discussion in this thread, it appears that some people would say “No!”
If I weren’t currently on strike, I’d write this up like a screenplay… but follow along, if you will, as I quickly draw up a common scene from my life (pre-WGA strike).
Sitting at the local coffee shop, workin’ along on a script. Enter a random person…
Random Person: So, whatcha workin’ on there?
Me: I’m editing a script.
Random Person: Ooooh. Theatre?
Me: Television.
Random Person: Oh! Any show I’d know?
Me: Probably, but I’m not really at a liberty to share. My bosses wouldn’t appreciate me sharing spoilers.
Random Person: (after waiting a few seconds for me to return to work)… So… You write?
Me: I try.
Random Person: Oh. I write too.
Me: Is that so?
Random Person: Yeah. I’m a novelist.
Me: Neat.
Random Person: Been working on a novel for years…
Me: Got a publisher lined up?
Random Person: Nah… not there yet. Still working out the kinks… I’m not really that far in yet… I haven’t really touched it in months.
Me: I see. Well, you have to keep at it, every day.
Random Person: Yeah, that’s what I tell all my writer friends!
Me: You do that.
Random Person: Got any tips?
Me: Take a class.
Random Person: I did, but I mean… anybody can write. And I’m really good at it. Always have been. It was a waste of time. I just have to sit down and finish it. I know it’s gonna be big, once I shop it around.
Me: Good luck!
Random Person: Thanks!
Seriously, I wouldn’t care about DVD residuals if I had a dollar for every time I’ve had the “What do you do?” “I’m a writer” “I’m a writer too!” or “I have this great idea for a screenplay!” conversation…
Elly, now on day 24 of the WGA strike
(speaking of, I wonder where Diogenes’ screenplay is?)
Based on which posts, specifically?
So telling him you’re writing an episode of “CSI: Omaha” would constitute a spoiler?
I would say “Yes!” though their process is very unique to their trade. Some of them don’t consider themselves to be “writers” because they feel the job is devoid of creativity. Most of them are, however, highly creative writers in their spare time and came to technical writing as a way to make ends meet when other writing jobs were simply not available to them.
Law & Order: STFU has come up, once, I’m somewhat ashamed to admit.
How, exactly, does a “co-author” relationship work? One does the research while the other writes? Alternating chapters/pages/paragraphs/sentences? Each writes the same story, and they consolidate the best parts?
Of course, if you could get someone to be your “co-author” who didn’t really write anything either, it would be a great cover story at parties.
I think the OP is mostly talking about “creative” writers, because that’s the kind of writing people say they do when they really don’t. (I put “creative” in quote marks because it’s the traditional label for fiction, poetry, plays for stage or screen, etc. I do know that all forms of writing also require creativity.)
Nobody says they’re a technical writer unless they are. Same with journalism, etc. Lots of people purport to be poets or novelists or whatever. So if the OP or anyone else says, “my buddy says he a writer, but hasn’t written a story in ages,” they aren’t saying you must write stories to be a writer. They’re just saying that stories are the specific kind of writing their lazy pal isn’t doing. But I don’t see anything in that that says technical writers or journalists aren’t really writers, and I don’t think anyone means it as a swipe at nonfiction writers.
The following statement, for example:
“Personally I would only call someone (or myself) a writer if they have had something published in a professional, for profit, publication.”
I’m sure different writing teams divide the labor in different ways.
I’m sure that’s the story pretty much any time a celebrity “co-authors” a book with an actual writer. What the celebrity has done is talk a bunch into a tape recorder.
Well, again, I think you can just take “writer” as shorthand for “creative writer.” Not that the other kind of writing isn’t writing, just that you don’t generally meet people who claim to be technical writers when they really just aspire to be technical writers (though I imagine as a technical writer you are a paid professional and your work is one-way-or-another published).
That being said, I don’t particularly agree with the statement you quoted either… I was a writer before I was published. However, for many years, I was not a writer. I just pretended to be one. I became a writer when I stopped dicking around and started writing regularly and taking myself seriously. I didn’t magically become a writer because I sold a book. I sold a book because I became a writer.
I write on the side (for money, even), but I’d take all the 'Oh, I’m a writer too!'s over the reaction to my day job, “I was terrible at chemistry in high school. <Dead silence>”.