So, lately, I’ve been reading lots of ‘how to write’ books and blog sites. Everything from Steven King’s On Writing to Bird by Bird from Anne Lamont and Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury, and several blogs from authors I follow on Twitter and Facebook. These writers cover a wide spectrum of genre’s. Everything from horror, science fiction, fantasy, paranormal romance, erotica, fiction literature, poets and even a few non-fiction writers.
And one thing struck me about them all today.
They’re all writers.
It may sound like a “dur” statement, but here me out. It didn’t matter what genre they wrote in, or even how long they were writing. They were all writers. And would have been considered writers by everyone else, too. There’s just something about writers that other writers recognize, and it’s nice to see that it’s genreless.
We are all writers.
We’ve all had shitty first drafts. We’ve all gotten rejection letters. Many saw low sales at some point in their careers. We all struggle to get that first sale. We all dream of that day when our names are printed in gold on the spine of a paperback. We spend time in front of our computers, poring out souls out for others to read. We all worry that we’re hacks, and that someday, someone will point that out to everyone. We’ve all dealt with that dreaded blank page, mocking us for not being able to put anything on it. We’ve all struggled with finding inspiration. And we’re all passionate about writing.
No matter what we write, we love doing it. Some of us love doing it so much we do it in multiple genres, which I admire.
So, what I’m really saying here is that, in reading all this stuff, it’s nice to see and feel that I’m not alone. We often say and hear that writing is a lonely craft. And sometimes, it sure feels that way.
But today? Today, I feel like I am part of a much larger community. Today, I feel like a writer.
We are all writers.
Amen. You are so right. When I started writing, I thought I was the only one who thought my first draft was pretty good right after finishing it only to realize that it was absolute drivel on the second read through. But everyone who writes does things like that. I thought I was an idiot to have 10 drafts of my first novel before I started to think, hey, this is ok. Then you read that famous authors commonly write many many drafts. Cool post. We are all in this together.
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