As a child, I wanted to be a writer. I so loved my Girl Talk books by L.E. Blair and would re-read the same 12 books that my mother had gotten for me. I coveted the other listings, which weren’t available at bookstores in my city (looking at you, Walden). One day, I decided that I would write my own stories.
I sat down at the Apple IIGS and started writing the kinds of books I wanted to read; I made up four unlikely female best friends and put them in school with bitchy pretty girls to argue with and boy crushes to swoon over. Emotions ensued. Somewhere, hopefully in the same landfill with those E.T. Atari games, are floppy discs loaded with these terrible early writings.
My next ventures were in comic books. I loved drawing, so I combined my passion for writing and drawing and created a character and wrote several little comics. By middle school, however, the dance bug (jitterbug?) had overtaken my focus, and I dedicated myself to the performing arts. By high school, I was dancing six days a week. I was on a competition team and part of a local contemporary performing arts company. I even learned clog dancing and won competitions as a freaking clogger. (Tell me without telling me you’re from Alabama, am I right?)
In short, I was devoted. I was going to be a professional dancer. I ate, slept, and breathed dance. Then, my senior year of high school, shortly after our company’s performance on the Samsung stage at the Sydney Olympics, I broke my back.
It was just a stress fracture in the L3 and L4 area of my spine, but it was enough to force me to realign my vision for my life. Starting a professional career with a major injury was a recipe for disaster. So, I went to college where I rediscovered my passion for writing.
During undergrad, I wrote and illustrated a children’s book that I queried agents for but never published; feedback was promising, but I didn’t know how to continue corresponding after getting rejected. Suffice to say, I was feeling thoroughly disheartened by the time I graduated. Unsurprisingly, there were few jobs for English majors, so I started working as a manager with Abercrombie and Fitch. The pay was aggressively bad as was the requirement to spray all of the mannequins with the store’s signature fragrance, Fierce, every hour (I’m not even kidding).
I decided to go back to school. My plan was to study education and teach high school. At the bottom of the ninth, as I was turning in my application papers, I switched and applied for the creative writing master’s program instead. My parents immediately stopped supporting me in any way. None the less, it was a pivotal moment and one that I will never forget because it was the first time I’d honored my knowing, my instinct, my gut; I followed my purpose, and I haven’t regretted my choice for a nanosecond since.
You Need Passion and Dedication to Become a Writer
Thus…to become a writer…you have to want to write. You have to have a passion for it because it’s not all cupcakes and perky tits and rainbows. It’s work. It’s rejection. It’s being told your baby is stupid and ugly and having to suck it the f—k up, Buttercup. It’s saying “yes” to stupid assignments or projects you have zero interest in because you’re trying to build a portfolio or a reputation. It’s publishing something that isn’t great because that’s the only way you become great.
You Have to Be Willing to Write Poorly to Learn to Write Well
So many writers do not make it to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow because they are scared shitless of the shamebow that comes from publishing something that’s…er…not good, that’s bad…that’s wrong…that becomes discredited, whatever. Look, if it makes you feel any better, most people won’t even read your early work.
Okay, I get it…that’s not helping. But really, to become a writer, you have to write through your crap. You have to write the stuff that makes you squirm and burn with shame. Remember that floppy disc story? I still remember with absolute horror that I wrote a scene where one of the nerdy girl characters—in an effort to get the attention and approval of the guy she was interested in—sang to him…in a crowded café. Sang to him lyrics from the Corona song “Try Me Out.” Oh my God, I’ve never told anyone that. I wrote that scene 25 years ago, and I am still mortified. I’m not sure my mortification is more because it was such a bad scene or if it’s because I thought this would somehow be sexy (Needless to say, I was a virgin until I was 23.).
I would like to think that if I kept working on the story and edited it, that scene would’ve been removed (the scene may die, but the shame lives on). Here’s the thing…you are going to write stuff that is horrible, but guess what? Everyone does! You’ll edit it out. Your first draft is meant to die a shameful secret death in your desktop’s recycle bin. When we read finished, published drafts, we are reading the writing with the shameful shite taken out.
None the less, early efforts will lack the refinement and sophistication of your future work, but you’ll only have future work if you…you know, do the work. Write bad, so you can write good.
Become a Writer by Writing Every Damn Day
That said, to be a writer, you have to write. Daily. Cultivate a daily writing habit. Try to write for an hour a day…more if you have the time. It takes practice. Go ahead…after we check out here, go sit down and start writing and see how long you go at it before your butt hurts or you get bored or you want to check Facebook. Time yourself. It takes practice and a daily commitment because writing is, in fact, work.
So, to conclude here’s what it takes to be a writer:
Passion and dedication; you have to take the bad with the amazing
Balls of steel; you will not love all of your word babies equally and some will embarrass you the same way your actual children do
Dedication; writing has to be a daily practice for you to actually become a writer
As for the kind of writer you become…well, that’s a different post for a different day. To start, just figure out what tickles your fancy…figure out what you like to read or learn what you like to do and just go from there. If you truly want to become a writer, you can become a writer.
Yes, you.
Peace, love, and prose,
Amy
Becoming a writer is one thing; becoming an editor is another (trust me). Give all of your word babies the best shot at a life of success as you can by hiring an editor to help you at any stage of the writing process. Work with a developmental editor to organize your idea and to nail down your concept. Ask for a manuscript review of a completed draft. Get line-by-line help with substantive editing, or polish your writing with a seasoned copyeditor. If you’re looking for an editor, contact me, so we can talk and figure out if we’re a good fit for each other. If we aren’t, I’ll direct you to the Editorial Freelancers Association website where you can reach out to some of the country’s top freelancers (for free!) and find an editor who works for you.