When is a writer real?

Last week I came across a discussion over on LinkedIn about “real” writers. It began with a post about how sometimes you can come across a bully type in writing discussions, someone asserting that to be a “real” writer a person had to meet certain requirements. Often these assertions are followed by litanies of the person’s professional credentials, thus proving that they are real.

I find the whole business annoying, so I wrote my own comment, which reads as follows:

My own view, which is admittedly personal, limited and not necessarily a view someone else would take, is that I don’t really care if someone is a “real” writer. I’ve been doing what I do long enough that I don’t need someone else deciding whether I exist as a writer or not. More to the point, I want to spend as little time as possible with disagreeable people so, even if you are a “real” writer, if you’re an unpleasant person please go away. Besides, as my mother pointed out to me a long, long time ago, the best way to deal with bullies is to ignore them.

Too many people have romanticized ideas of what writers are and what writing is. Rather than focusing on the writing, they are focused on writer as social status. Even for poets, it is work and in that sense no different than accounting or plumbing. And if you like plumbing, it will be as rewarding as writing is to a writer.

I’m sounding more cranky here than I like to sound but this is a theme that irks me quite a bit (rather obvious, I suppose).

Finally, I have to admit that every so often I fall into that “real” writer nonsense, I think because I get the impression some people are bamboozled by romantic ideas of writing. When I do fall into this, I tend to say, “Anyone can write. Real writers rewrite.”

I don’t like that “real” business, but I think there is truth in it. I’ve seen too many people think that once it’s down, it’s finished. I think it has just begun.

And that’s my pontificating nonsense for the day!

To me, it seems really simple. If you write, you are a writer. Of course, differences occur when you start adding modifiers. For example, you may be a good writer or you may be a bad writer. Either way, you are a writer if you’re writing. If you are the latter of those two modifiers, however, you may want to work on it with a bit more diligence.

In my experience, everyone who is a writer is also a reader. Compared to the average person, they read a lot. Why they read so much is obvious to me: 1) they love it, 2) they encounter new styles and words, 3) it feeds their own writing with ideas and perspectives. Also, at least in my case, when I started writing it was largely imitative. I was like a bad version of many really good writers. Eventually, however, through constant writing, my own style, voice or whatever you want to call it emerged.

I guess if I had to make some grand claim on the subject I’d say writers write. And good writers rewrite. And everyone is as real as anyone else. (Aren’t there a number of famous writers through history who couldn’t give their work away? What kind of professional writer resume did they have? How real were they?)