On Being a Writer
Junot Diaz writes in O Magazine
You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.
It’s an amazing essay about the 10 year-plus period it took him to write his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
I’ve had the discussion of what makes a writer a writer for years with various friends. I’ve always been in the minority in my belief that a writer writes. Quite simply. Whether it is good or bad, that’s a judgement call for others to make. I think when people talk about “writers” they’re usually talking about published authors. I certainly don’t mean to insult or dilute the importance of what many of my very talented friends do but I dislike the idea that we would discourage anyone from trying to fulfill their need and desire to write simply because they don’t have the great American novel in them.
Agreed. It’s as though we don’t want to call ourselves ‘X’ if it’s not something we earn an income from and do full-time. For example, I don’t think of myself as an artist, but I suppose I am one. Not a working artist, but an artist.
I think it’s hard to break that identity-occupation connection for most of us. What we do is so important to our sense of who we are in the U.S.