Are You A Writer? | How Do You Know?

Hey guys, so glad to be here again and good morning,

Today’s topic is an interesting one and for me the answer is easy, but some people struggle with feeling like a real writer or whether they should call themselves a writer at all. So let’s dive in.

1. The first sign you are a writer, not you might be one, is writing. If you write you’re a writer.

   All writers write and wannabe writers think about it. It’s fine if you’re struggling to find time to write. I’m busy too, my whole life is in chaos, but if I really want to write then I do it. Everything else can wait except my job. Find everything in your life worth giving up to give you the time you want to write. You’ll thank yourself for it later.

2. And writing often means you carve out time from your schedule, time that you could be spending doing something else you enjoy (or something you don’t, but still need to do at some point). You give up doing other things to make more time for your writing because you enjoy it.

   But you also enjoy those little sacrifices because giving them up means you get to spend more time doing something you love to do. Something you’re passionate about and something that feels worth it to you.

3. You enjoy spending your time writing, whether that be journaling, researching for an article, writing poetry or any number of different genres and/or contemplating ideas for them inside your head.

   If you don’t enjoy writing, then you’re probably a forced writer trying to write to make money or force yourself to write because others think it’s cool and you don’t want to disappoint. If you want to write then write for yourself and if you don’t then find the something else you’d rather be doing.

4. You have lots of ideas floating around in your head and sometimes you have difficulty writing them down fast enough before they disappear. All writers seem to have a constantly untapped well just flooding with ideas, but they often come at the worst times (like the shower) when all you can do is think about them.

   I certainly do. They come sporadically, but they are always there floating around just waiting for something to happen to shake them loose. An example of this is my newest idea for a mystery series, it’s sitting at about 20 books worth of ideas and I still have more coming, plus I have my cozy mystery series sitting at maybe like 10 or more books. Then I also have ideas for about 4 more 4 book series also jotted down. But do I have time to write them all? Nope, but it doesn't stop the ideas from still flowing.

5. You love talking about writing, even if you don’t talk about your own writing, and love to discuss ideas and bounce them back and forth. In my experience, if you love babbling on and on about a particular idea or set of ideas or your own idea, you’re likely a writer behind all that and you need to get writing.

   I actually have several different people I rotate in my life that I talk about writing with because it can, most of the time, be a lot to take in. I’ll even connect past ideas or different ideas to my current one and see how well they work together. I have about 4 people I do this with in my life so that I always have someone to talk to and they don’t get overwhelmed.

6. You write for yourself first because you enjoy it and because you care about what you’re writing. Not all writers do this, but it’s how you should write, if you don't love what you’re writing then others won’t love reading it. As a reader, you can feel the passion behind the words and if there isn’t any then the story doesn't feel exciting.

Well, guys, I hope you enjoyed this one! I had so much fun writing it. It makes me feel not just more connected to new writers and the writing community, but to who I used to be as a writer when I was just starting out. At the time I didn’t call myself a writer, I just said I wrote stories. But I slowly grew into calling myself a writer and realized the most important parts of being a writer.

All these above are things writers do and sometimes it’s not the stuff we do, but things that just happen to us. Sure my experiences and what I’ve read in the past help give me new ideas, but I started conjuring ideas before I was widely read. It’s always sort of been there even if it was just in the background. I remember I used to make up stories out loud to myself while playing with my dolls.

So from an early age, I was talking to myself, chanting stories out loud and now I write them down and form them together creating books from nothing but ideas swimming around inside my head.

I’ve always been a writer, a storyteller and I’ve always loved doing it. Now, first and foremost, if some of these don’t affect you or don’t happen to you then by all means disregard them. There is no wrong way to be a writer. The only wrong way is to not write. Above all of these, I have written and if you do that then it doens’t matter if any of the rest is true for you. If you write, then you’re a writer, congratulations here is your permission to call yourself a writer.

Thank you so much for tuning in guys. I had a blast this morning. I’m so glad you’re interested enough to be here. I hope you liked the post, I certainly did. Please talk to me about your writing or whether you’ve decided you’re a writer. Did this post help you? How is your writing going? I want to know. I want to know you. Lots of love! Happy reading and writing! Until next time, bye.

Celine Rose Marie