It's weird, because there probably isn't a field that values "publishing" more than not-for-profit science does, but if you're a loner in a shack who looks at bugs all day long, and you've got crazy ideas that nobody would come close to publishing, you're not only justified calling yourself a scientist, but you're a pretty hardcore one at that.
thanks for the link. I used to read him regularly but he lost appeal after a while. Still he does truck with interesting folks, ideas, activities, arts.
Anyhow, being able to string together a grouping of sentences that aren't retarded and don't bore people to sleep is not a skill that everyone possesses. In fact, I am learning that it is rarer than one would think.
This is so incredibly true.
* Also, I'd say just get on with the writing. I made most of my money last year from writing, but I still feel like a douche saying I'm a writer, so I don't. I just say "I do some writing". Potato, tomato, whatever. I think the most important thing is to just do the thing, other people will label you this that or the other.
Yeah, I think the verdict of this post is what I suspected: Self-Identifying as a writer ( at least publicly) maybe is still just for douches.
And as to that above quote... I had this crazy moment of realization lately when I had to rewrite part of someone's press kit. The original they gave me was amazingly bad. There were all kinds of sentence fragments and run-ons and using more than one tense in the same sentence...really basic, clumsy grammar fuck-ups. The person who wrote it was one of the partners' college-student daughter. I asked what she was studying and they were like "she's getting her degree in PR at GW." and I was like "WHAT???"
So, yeah, an eye-opener about general writing competence.
It happens more and more these days, but when someone reads something I wrote, and says "That was really good, you should be a writer" my mouth says things like.
"Well, I've never published anything."
and
"There's no way I can abandon my current well paying job for a fantasy career in La La Land."
or
"Thanks mom."
My mind though, it always screams at them, "I AM a writer god damnit!
I think you're getting at the heart of something I'm thinking, which is that we think to OURSELVES that we are capable writers, but we feel like fools if we admit it out loud (because it often IS fools who admit it out loud.)
Another thing I've come around to thinking is that I don't necessarily HAVE to do it for a living to prove that I can do it. Doing "art" for a living made me totally burn out on it and, even though I was theoretically still profiting from it, I didn't feel like I could say I was an "artist" because I'd become so creatively uninspired. I guess I'm wary of "ruining" another one of my skills by having to hustle it too much.
In the early 90s I fell back on my years of hobby computing to start earning a living as an IT professional. In just a few years I turned a hobby I enjoyed, into a grueling task that I performed for money. It robbed me of the joy I had received from doing the work
( ... )
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This is so incredibly true.
*
Also, I'd say just get on with the writing. I made most of my money last year from writing, but I still feel like a douche saying I'm a writer, so I don't. I just say "I do some writing". Potato, tomato, whatever. I think the most important thing is to just do the thing, other people will label you this that or the other.
Reply
And as to that above quote... I had this crazy moment of realization lately when I had to rewrite part of someone's press kit. The original they gave me was amazingly bad. There were all kinds of sentence fragments and run-ons and using more than one tense in the same sentence...really basic, clumsy grammar fuck-ups. The person who wrote it was one of the partners' college-student daughter. I asked what she was studying and they were like "she's getting her degree in PR at GW." and I was like "WHAT???"
So, yeah, an eye-opener about general writing competence.
Reply
"On certain occasions I declare myself as an artist. If it's really necessary to establish the difference. But I don't exaggerate."
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It happens more and more these days, but when someone reads something I wrote, and says "That was really good, you should be a writer" my mouth says things like.
"Well, I've never published anything."
and
"There's no way I can abandon my current well paying job for a fantasy career in La La Land."
or
"Thanks mom."
My mind though, it always screams at them, "I AM a writer god damnit!
Reply
Another thing I've come around to thinking is that I don't necessarily HAVE to do it for a living to prove that I can do it. Doing "art" for a living made me totally burn out on it and, even though I was theoretically still profiting from it, I didn't feel like I could say I was an "artist" because I'd become so creatively uninspired. I guess I'm wary of "ruining" another one of my skills by having to hustle it too much.
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