If you look around online, you’re going to find plenty of people telling you what you need to do to be a ‘real writer’. You should be getting up early and write while the world is asleep. You should stick to writing one genre so your audience doesn’t get confused when you come out with a sci-fi as well as a fantasy novel. You shouldn’t go the indie route because there’s no security. Or alternatively you shouldn’t got the traditional route because traditional publishing is dying and people are trying to cheat you out of your rights. They will tell you exactly what you need to do in order to be a ‘real writer’.
But the truth is, there is no one way to be a real writer.
You can write at night or you can write in the morning, whatever suits you better. You can type your novels on a computer, or you can hand write them. You can take years to write your first draft, or you can get it out in a week. It’s your writing process. You can do what you like. You can plan your whole novel out before you begin, or discover it as you go. No one can tell you what works best in your writing process because no one else knows you as well as you do.
You can write part-time and work a day job as well, or you can make it your full-time career. You can submit your novel to traditional publishing houses, or you can strike out on your own as an indie author. You can write in the hopes of being paid for your work, or you can share it all of free. Your goals with your writing are your own. Writing for money or a career is not the only way to be a writer. No one can tell you what you’re aiming for. Only you know that.
You can write in a single genre or write across them all if that’s what you want. You can write for multiple age groups if you have the stories to tell them. You can use a pen name. Or you have the choice not to. that’s up to you. This is your writing. You are in control of your words and your stories. Everyone has an opinion on what it is to be a real writer, but the truth is, only you know what being a writer is to you. Only you know how you want to write, how you write best, and want you want from your writing. No one else can tell you that.
The only requirements to being a real writer is that you love writing and that you write. Write what you want. Write when you want. Write for whatever reason you want. Write poems and novels and fanfictions. Write for money or just for the love of it. But never let anyone tell you that you’re not a ‘real writer’ because you don’t measure up to their standards. That is the way they write. It’s not the way you have to.
What does being a writer mean to you?
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