In a post on Lit Hub, Leigh Newman ponders the immortal question: What is a real writer?
We all have different answers to that, but most are likely to involve traditional publishing or an appearance in an important venue. It might look something like this: “You’re not a real writer if you’re not published by a literary magazine or an online magazine or Substack run by your old classmate from junior high who won the Pulitzer without going to grad school or even high school,” Newman writes.
All those beliefs pile up. They say bad things about your story ideas, interests, talents, and potential. In short, you’ll never be real. “In real life, you lumber into rooms unable to be witty and urbane like a real writer or to be clunky and charismatically misanthropic like a real writer,” Newman says. “In your darkest hours, you realize: You have talent, of course, but you don’t have direction and you’re afraid of success. Or: You don’t have talent but you’re hard working and that only gets you so far. Add to this: you never had a mentor.”
But none that matters compared to our desire to create. “I’ve long given up on being a real writer,” Newman says. “I’m totally comfortable with my illegitimacy. And that is what I want you to be comfortable with, literary debutantes, and anyone else out there who hasn’t been published or wants to be better or has some of these same fantastical self-delusions of limitations. Let’s go forth and be illegitimate. And happy. And put down our words on paper.”
