How Do You Know?

I’ve heard many people say, “I could never write a book”. I neither encourage nor discourage them. My books must compete for readers with every other book still in print, but that’s not the reason I don’t comment. At its heart, writing is not a competition. I wrote stories long before I ever let anybody read them. Those stories sat around until I moved or did some spring cleaning and consigned them to the trash.

To know you’re a writer, you must show yourself that you are capable of writing. Sounds easy, but I have found that a person never really knows what they are capable of until they have no choice but to perform. You don’t discover your capabilities through platitudes about your “potential”, classroom instruction, positive attitudes, or personal philosophy. Those things may help. However, a person only discovers themselves on the job.

Writers write. We write because we must. The necessity isn’t always financial. Money is nice, but I know of no one who began writing with the sole aim of becoming wealthy. Wealth and recognition are side effects, pleasant ones to be sure, but incidental to the need to write. Asking a writer why they write is like asking them why they breathe. When they stop, they begin to die. Talent is meaningless without action.

You know you’re a writer when you write. It doesn’t matter how insecure you feel. Writing is an action, not a feeling. Granted that knowledge is sweeter when you write “The End” and you’re in love with the story. I’ve written twenty-nine books (not all of them are published yet) they are not all my favorite. In my opinion, they are not equally well written, but every single one tells me that I am a writer.

Jack LaFountain