I have only recently come to appreciate and understand the merit of poetry. But, in coming to understand it, I realize that most self-proclaimed poets maybe DON'T understand it. Since poetry is such a marginalized art, I feel like the only people who adhere to it these days are either great poets or the douchiest douches in douchtown. Unfortunately, I've met more of the latter.
I find that the term 'writer' can be open ended enough to accommodate you happily. I think if you identify, you can become. Even if there's preconceived notions and expectations of the title, if in your soul you feel you are a writer, I say wear it. If you're not yet ready, I think the writing/journal-keeping/design you've made could afford you the title of "humorist" if you're not ready to make the full-on plunge towards writer.
I think, in lieu of magazines, blogs, review pages and their like, you're solid. It might have an added level of incentive.
A long time ago, nihilistic-kid defined a writer as someone who has been paid to write. That doesn't mean a book deal and a living; that pay can be as low as $5 for a story you sold to Inclinations for Horror Writers four years ago, but payment must come from somewhere.
Else you are just doing it as a hobby and you really can't call yourself a writer anymore than you can call yourself an aeronautic engineer if you are just doodling with formulae and wind tunnels without any training.
Of course, I'm kidding. No one who isn't an aeronautics engineer identifies as an aeronautics engineer.
I say this having earned most of my money from writing in the last year. It's from term papers and personal statements and I'm a total whore but I like to say that all writers are whores.
Except for the ones that give their stories away to free markets. Those writers are just sluts.
I actually don't think all of this statement holds. People identify as "artists" because they make art or design things, not because they profit from it. That's why there are all kinds of clarifiers like "commercial artist" or "professional artist
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Honestly, I tend to mentally roll my eyes at pretty much anyone who identifies as a writer who is not either published or the holder of an MFA in creative writing or journalism or similar. I have met *so* many people who call themselves writers and really just mean they are in love with the romance of "being a writer" more than actually sitting down to write in a concerted fashion
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Yeah, I actually share your feelings about "writers." For awhile, when I was writing things, I actually felt like I was doing something super-humiliating that I had to keep secret so people wouldn't lose respect for me. I guess I'm trying to come out of the closet and deal.
I don't think I would say, at this point, that I was a writer if someone asked what I was. I keep coming up with increasingly generic terms like "creative."
A lot of this thought process came around because one of my favorite new writers is a chef who has started writing blogs and columns and I'm like "wow! He's so good at this! Better than some of the people who do it "for real." It prompted this examination of talent vs. credentials and whether the internet has now become a legitimate medium.
One of your other friends above mentions poetry. One of my friends is a poet, and she said she kind of had to "come out" as a poet - and that it was more difficult than coming out as bisexual.
It's hard to say whether the internet has become a "legitimate medium" or not. Lots of folks think it isn't, and others say it is while holding up the "triumph of the amateur" - which I think is kinda missing the point.
I think the internet is a lot like the world of shortform publishing - some magazines have rigorous standards for fact checking or opinion referencing with careful editing, and other magazines will run whatever gets sent in, talented or not. I think it's not really that useful to judge the legitimacy of a given medium as a whole. If anything, the internet is teaching us that respect ought to be on a case-by-case basis, and that sweeping generalizations are going away with monolithic content control.
I think the internet is no less legitimate than any other medium, in many ways it's more awesome because it encompasses such a wide, all-encompassing swath between good and bad. I think there's a tendency, though, to dismiss certain mediums wholesale as "not counting," which is kind of unfair. Like, for example, writing a book "counts" and writing a blog doesn't, or writing a blog "counts," but writing on Livejournal doesn't. And even though it's hip to dog on twitter, some people are REALLY AMUSING twitterers
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I think, in lieu of magazines, blogs, review pages and their like, you're solid. It might have an added level of incentive.
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Else you are just doing it as a hobby and you really can't call yourself a writer anymore than you can call yourself an aeronautic engineer if you are just doodling with formulae and wind tunnels without any training.
Of course, I'm kidding. No one who isn't an aeronautics engineer identifies as an aeronautics engineer.
I say this having earned most of my money from writing in the last year. It's from term papers and personal statements and I'm a total whore but I like to say that all writers are whores.
Except for the ones that give their stories away to free markets. Those writers are just sluts.
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I don't think I would say, at this point, that I was a writer if someone asked what I was. I keep coming up with increasingly generic terms like "creative."
A lot of this thought process came around because one of my favorite new writers is a chef who has started writing blogs and columns and I'm like "wow! He's so good at this! Better than some of the people who do it "for real." It prompted this examination of talent vs. credentials and whether the internet has now become a legitimate medium.
Reply
It's hard to say whether the internet has become a "legitimate medium" or not. Lots of folks think it isn't, and others say it is while holding up the "triumph of the amateur" - which I think is kinda missing the point.
I think the internet is a lot like the world of shortform publishing - some magazines have rigorous standards for fact checking or opinion referencing with careful editing, and other magazines will run whatever gets sent in, talented or not. I think it's not really that useful to judge the legitimacy of a given medium as a whole. If anything, the internet is teaching us that respect ought to be on a case-by-case basis, and that sweeping generalizations are going away with monolithic content control.
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