What Makes a Writer?

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While I was out taking care of the buns this morning, I got to thinking… there are writing conferences coming up this spring and fall (haven’t heard of any in the summer) that it would be fun to go to, but we won’t have the funds (at least at this point we won’t). Anyways, I was thinking back to the Breathe Conference that I went to and a conversation I briefly overheard about a lady saying “going to the conference was inspiring and made her feel like a real writer”.

I was pondering that, and remember when I read about Madeleine L’Engle and all the writing courses she took in her pursuit of writing. Does one need to attend conferences, seminars, or go to classes to be a writer? Can one just BE a writer? What makes a writer?

It’s a bit a tough call I suppose.

Writing can happen in isolation. One doesn’t persay NEED to go to classes, conferences or seminars. One doesn’t NEED to get a degree in writing to simply write.

But the question I have is this: Does going to classes, seminars and conferences further develop or increase the chances of a person’s ability to write better? Does having wealth make it easier to become a writer? Or is writing simply what a person can be and do? What makes a writer? Can a writer be a mom sitting in a comfy chair with her laptop in front of her, or a child scribbling in a notebook on a beach, or a fellow waking up one morning with a germ of an idea in his brain that won’t go away until he jots it down and then finds more germs permeating through his being?

I”m tending to think what makes a writer, good or bad, because not all writers are equal, is those ideas that spill out in my our minds that just need to get out on paper.

Can classes, courses, conferences, seminars and the like make those ideas flow out on the paper more coherently and teach important skills? No doubt in my mind that they can and do. But I don’t believe thay MAKE a writer.

A writer is simply born. We either indulge that skill or we bury it. But writers are creators of imaginary worlds, compelling non-fiction, dry treatise, books of rhythm and rhyme, laughter and fear, biographies and adventurers in far off lands. So if you write… education under your belt or not.. be a writer and claim it for what it is.

A writer is a creator of the written word. A writer is simply a person who writes. A person who takes that germ of an idea and simply flies with it. A writer takes ideas and puts them down on paper, that’s what makes a writer.

Embrace that. If you write, call yourself a writer. If you struggle with your skills then read people you like and try to emulate their skill. If you want to learn better character develop study up on it,or if figuring out the best way to write a description is something you struggle with GO HERE for help. There are so many resources available to help writers with educating themselves on any given topic that we can use as needed.

Just remember, those resources don’t make a writer. What makes a writer is that creative process of writing down the ideas you have.