What is a Writer?

I have struggled to refer to myself as a writer in fear of being an imposter, yet I have written my whole life.

At four years of age, I began enlisting the help of my mom. I desperately wanted to write books of my own. Only knowing how to print the letters of my name, with legs dangling from the leather sofa, I dictated elaborate stories to her. I tore the strip of perforated holes away from the edge of the stack of paper and secured the sheets with enough staples to pin down a rabid squirrel. I passed the little backward booklet with its zig zagged spine to my mom and cleared my throat.

As soon as I learned to write, I began journaling in a little diary with a fake lock and key. For some time, I committed to filling out a whole page for each day. In elementary school, creative writing was my favoruite subject. My teachers took notice of my passion and would occasionally bind or laminate my books for me. Throughout my teen years, writing became a vital part of my recovery from a mental illness. I reflected on my progress and gained a new perspective by processing my thoughts and feelings on paper.

For eight years, I have been writing a memoir that I hope to have published. At present, I spend nearly every free moment during my daughter's naps, writing. Despite my passion and commitment, I have always been hesitant to refer to myself as a writer.

I have believed that a writer is someone paid for their talents, who has had work published. But then is a hockey player accurately defined as professional drafted to the NHL? A reader someone paid to review written works?

So is a writer an author or a participant in the craft? Is a writer someone with an English Major? Or someone engaged in the art of providing meaning beyond surface value? Someone rolling onto their side in the middle of the night scrawling ink onto tattered notebook pages, daydreaming, and clicking on keys? Perhaps so.

I don't know how to type properly. I'm missing several keys from my computer and went to career college above Nando's Chicken. Though I don't possess any impressive credentials, I believe it's about time I called myself a writer because, well, a writer is someone who writes.