#SaharasMusings – What Constitutes a Writer?

This is a question I’ve asked myself since I started publishing Bob’s stories.  My business partner and friend, Julie, assures me I AM a writer.  But, I’m not so sure.

According to Dictionary.com, they define a WRITER as:

1. a person engaged in writing books, articles, stories, etc., especially as an occupation or profession; an author or journalist.

Well, according to this, I am, since I do have some published books and stories.  However, I think the definition needs to be refined a bit.

Anyone can put words on paper or a Word doc, but does that mean they are ‘writers’? Look at all the horribly written indie books on Amazon.  Even some of the smaller presses release badly written stories.  Would you consider them writers?  I sure don’t.  Yikes.

And what about the new trend of AI generated books?  How can an AI program be considered a writer when it doesn’t have a soul, and only regurgitates what it finds on the internet?  It doesn’t have inspiration and only writes from prompts fed into it’s program.  Yet, readers will buy those books not realizing it was written by a soulless computer.

For me, a writer is someone who’s been writing stories since they were a kid.  Who can look at an object or person and, BAM!, they come up with a story.  Or has characters in their head demanding to be let out.  And I’m not talking about crazy people.  Though from what I’ve heard, it can seem that way.

My late husband, Bob, was like that.  He could write a story at a drop of a hat.  And it’s HIS stories that I’ve published after he died.

Sure, what I started with were rough drafts, so I had to develop them, edit them, and in some cases, fill in a lot of blanks.  But I didn’t WRITE them.  They didn’t start with me.

I don’t have story ideas bouncing around inside my brain and I wish I did.  Though, since I started this journey of publishing Bob’s stories, I have written two short stories”  Deak’s Choice and The Birthday Card.

The Birthday Card was written for a contest and a challenge to myself that I could actually write a story  It has no dialogue as I was terrified of writing dialogue at that time. What do the characters say to each other?  Since then, I learned how to write dialogue when I had to totally revamp The Revenge of Excalibur as most of that manuscript was lost.

So, em, maybe I am a writer?

I know as humans, most of us are consumed with self-doubt.  It seems to be part of our nature.  Since I started creating videos, I find I’m doubting myself there, too.  Yes, people love my videos NOW, but what if I lose my inspiration and the next one sucks?  Because creating a video is a lot of inspiration.

The ironic part is, the fact I’m writing this article questioning whether I’m a writer just proves I’m a writer.

Around and around we go, where we stop nobody knows.  🤣😂