Member-only story
It’s Okay to Call Yourself a Writer
No one will believe it until you do first
It wasn’t until earlier this year I started to get really comfortable with calling myself a writer.
I always found some way to edge around it.
I am an editor. I am a proofreader. I am a communications manager. I am a marketing specialist.
All of this is true. I really am all of those things and much more.
But I am also a writer.
And it’s okay for me to say so, though I’ll freely admit that this took some convincing.
So often, people who pursue creative fields are cautioned against doing so full time. To leave one’s day job in the interest of becoming a painter or a dancer or a songwriter seems outlandish. Inadvisable. Stupid, even. And yet those people are still painters and dancers and songwriters whether or not they eschew other careers to become so. An accountant can still be a sculptor. A lawyer can still be an actor.
So I can be a writer, too, no matter what other jobs I have (and I’ve had a great many).
Getting to the point where I felt confident enough to say that, however, was a treacherous climb up a slope slicked with judgement and fear.
