WHAT’S IN A NAME?

By Sharon May

So who can call themselves “writer?” Anyone who picks up a pen or sits at a computer and begins to put words on paper? Does one have to be published? Or do the desire and effort define us?

In Freshman Composition, I used a rhetoric entitled, Everyone’s an Author, which approaches writing as something all of us do on a daily basis. Its goal is to help students understand the rhetorical aspects of writing in its various forms as well as pushing them to take writing more seriously and to view themselves as having the ability to write.

While the textbook aims for students to produce “good” writing, there is an underlying assumption that the act of writing is greater than the quality of the writing. In a sense, that is like calling myself an athlete because I try to play a sport, though I may never win a game.

Years ago, I was discussing a piece of my writing with a friend who also writes. He informed me, in a way that might be called condescending, that he writes only for himself as if that should be the goal for everyone.   

If there is no intended audience, is it “real” writing? After a mental breakdown during my Ph.D. program (no cause and effect implied), I couldn’t/wouldn’t finish a dissertation in good faith. Writing it felt like an exercise in mental masturbation, written for no audience beyond a handful of scholars. Except for a few presentations, I quit writing academic papers and turned to creative writing.

As of May, 10^th, I began calling myself a writer since that will be my vocation after retiring from teaching. I’ve written for years but only now do I feel comfortable claiming that label, which may surprise people who know me well.

I have won awards for both academic writing and creative writing, but those for academic writing made me feel like a scholar, not a writer. I co-authored and published a college textbook, but that didn’t make me feel like a writer either though I have made more money from that book than I have yet to make from my creative writing. I have always envisioned an isolated author slaving away, so a group effort didn’t qualify me as a writer.

Many of us value fiction and creative non-fiction over college textbooks. Fiction and memoirs are mystical creations, not dry tomes of information or how-to books. Anyone in the field can write those, right?

Being a writer is establishing a mindset about who we are and what we do. Most of my students don’t buy into the theory that they are writers, no matter how many times I or the textbook called them that. They have no intention of writing any more than they have to while I want to do little else now.

So what are your assumptions about writers?  How do they affect your writing?