I'll be on the 4x4, working four twelve-hour days and then (in theory) getting four days off. Depending on how things are going, I may be forced to work overtime on those days off, or I may be laid off on my next rotation. Heck, I may even get laid off before the end of this rotation.
I fancy myself a writer. This blog represents the bulk of my writing output, so you can judge for yourself what sort of writer I am. But I am reminded of a story I read about someone being stuck in an airport while he was travelling with a science fiction writer friend. As he sat there and cursed the airline and its delays, the writer pulled out his notepad and began jotting down notes. The man asked the writer what he was doing, and he replied "I'm a writer. This is all research."
I'm going to keep telling myself that as my feet ache and my back aches and my head spins while trying to deal with the demands of four DVD presses and their associated systems, all of which serve to remind me how mechanically incompetent I am. It's all research, it's all research, it's all research...
Maybe someday something will come out of it.
*Crap. I meant to delay this post until tomorrow. Oh, well.
I keep trying to have an attitude like that as well, but somedays it's hard not to get discocurage.
ReplyDeleteTo your question, are you a writer? There are really several questions embedded into one: Writers are people who have readers; you have readers; therefore, you are a writer.
ReplyDeleteThe other questions concern renumeration and quality. I don't know if google ads give you any payment; if so, congratulations, you are a professional writer.
Concerning quality, at your best, you're quite good. I think you should give it a shot.
B @ BN
B, I disagree. A writer is someone who is defined by the doing, like a dancer or a murderer. A Writer (with a capital W) is someone who cannot not write, regardless of whether or not anyone is reading what he or she is writing. I believe there are several Writers whose writings were not discovered - and read - until they were dead. Does that mean they were not writers when they lived? Conversely, there are many writers who nobody reads anymore, even though their works are still in existence.
ReplyDeleteAhley wrote this once:
If you told me no one would ever read my work, I'd still write everyday. I have so many thoughts in my head and I'm so afraid one day I'll forget them. I have to put them down.
Ink On Paper: Back In Time
And I told her that that is the definition of a writer.
A professional writer is someone who gets paid for what he writes. I earn a pittance for having people click on ads on my blog. It's not quite the same thing. More like a magazine selling classified ads than a writer for a magazine getting paid by the publisher. But maybe someday.