There are writers, and then there are writers.
You know, the real kind. The kind that write incredible novels, or screenplays, or tomes on the future of technology.
I write a mommy blog. I write website copy for my clients. I write press releases, and white papers and bylines and sometimes I even write thought pieces on expectations of women in motherhood.
But rarely, very rarely, do I refer to myself as a writer.
Instead, I say I'm a communications consultant. Or that I do PR. Sometimes I say I'm a mommy blogger, but only in the right company, because you know, people are assholes about mommy bloggers.
But if I look at everything I do, and everything I love and care about, it comes back to my love of the written word. I am a WRITER. Why am I so afraid to say it then?
Is it because I don't, like Ernest Hemingway did, sit down every day with a pencil and write one true sentence?
Is it because I don't, like Stephen King does, sit down every day and bust out 10 pages?
Is it because I don't, like Virginia Woolf did, spend two hours every morning writing?
Is it because some days, lots of days, I don't even write?
No. I write every single day. It's just that lots of days, what I write is, well, it's boring. You might say dry. I enjoy what I do as much as the next technology geek, but sometimes you have to admit, the average Joe isn't exactly yearning to read about mobile phone app usage. Or my grocery list. Or the cover letter I helped my sister write.
So is it what you write about then that makes you a writer? Am I comparing myself to lots of dead white men (some alive, ok) who are granted, wonderful writers, but don't occupy the same space in the world that I do? Or fiction greats to whom I couldn't ever possibly compare?
Is it because I don't have the confidence to say I'm a writer?
I am a woman. I am a professional, and a mom, and I watch The Good Wife on TV. I spend my days obsessing over work, whether my kids are happy, and trying to squeeze in time to walk the dog. I sit on conference calls and shop online all while eating lunch and thinking about what I should cook for dinner.
I do all of these things, and all the while I write.
I may not be Virginia Woolf, or even Jennifer Weiner. But here I am writing, today at least.
That's what makes me think I'm a writer.