Today, I was asked how you get to be a writer. My answer was it's complicated. But, as I described my own journey into writing, I realized maybe it's not that complicated.
There's the straightforward way - go to college, major in English or Journalism, get a job at a newspaper, magazine or advertising agency. But, I've never done anything straightforward in my life, so there's the other way. In fact, there's a lot of other ways. If this sounds like the old "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Zen meditation, it should, because being a writer and making money from writing is all about tapping into something deeper than just writing. Or is it? "Stop it!," you're yelling about now. Let me explain.
There are those who are born writing. As soon as they could pick up that big, fat crayon, they were scribbling some word or another in a string they called a story. Encouraged by their parents, or maybe in spite of them, these natural born writers kept writing and writing until they were hired to write.
And then there's the rest of us. We are readers who have a knack for writing, we are regular people, who can tell a good story, we are preachers, who have something important to impart. We pick up the pen or tap at the computer because we have something to say, something to get off our chest, or something to sell.
I started out as the reader, who without knowing it, had a knack for writing. I went to college at the age of 30. I made an A on every paper I ever wrote. I got lucky and had a great English teacher. So great, I enrolled in every one of her classes. She taught me how to re-write, the most valuable tool in a writer's arsenal. Because of her, I had the courage to apply for a freelance position with a newspaper. I got lucky again; this time I got an editor who was a retired New York Times writer. Because of her, I gained knowledge about style and usage and syntax. When the door to copywriting opened, I was ready.
My first copywriting job was writing medical brochures for private practice doctors. The owner of the company taught me one of the most important words in copywriting -- you. For me, you was the patient and the copy was there to overcome whatever issue that patient was facing. It was my job to make the dental patient feel less afraid, the pregnant patient feel more comfortable, the plastic surgery patient to feel more confident. All in 43 lines or less. At last, I had found my writing niche.
Being a writer is about believing you are a writer and doing what writers do. They write, they look for clients, they write, they talk to other writers, they write, they read books about writing, they write some more. How you get there is up to you.
Once you believe you are a writer, the doors will begin to open. That's when you must believe even harder, because it's time to prove it to someone else. If writing comes easily, if you can see yourself writing, then you have become a writer.
