Hi, I’m Nadia. I’m wondering exactly what I am doing here. Mmm, but see, I’m a very impulsive person, I just thought “hey, I’d like to have a blog and write stuff” and here I am. I should probably warn you that english is not my language actually since I’m italian and I live in Italy, but, risking to sound cheesy, it’s the language of my soul. Even if I love english doesn’t mean that I’m good at it, so you’ll probably read funny mistakes.
I’m a bookworm and proud of it. When people ask me what I want to do in my life I always fall in a interior semantic struggle, maybe you could help me solve it. I love writing, every kind of things, poetry, books, thoughts,…and here it is the problem: you write and love to do it, hopefully someday you’ll publish something so what you want to do is writing, but when they ask me I have to choose between these:
– I am a writer
– I want to be a writer
If you don’t see the problem I’ll clarify it for you. You write so you are a writer (like cogito ergo sum- alas I studied latin but it is useful in times like this). But if you don’t publish people won’t understand why you call yourself a writer. I think writing doesn’t belong to libraries but to yourself, so you see that there’s a great difference between the two sentences. I am still not sure about the one to use, it’s obviously subjective. It’s almost hamletic “I’m a writer or I want to be a writer, that is the question”! What would you say?
Nadia's Blog 
You write well considering it’s not your first language – I can only hope I could write as well in Italian! (which is not ever)
🙂
1. “Lasciat’ogni speranza…”
2. Yeah yeah, that was trite and expectable. But you provoked it with your “what would you say” question. 🙂 Seriously, as a writer _in nuce_ you need but two basic things, entwined and sistered:
a) Trust in your judgement. Trust in your ability. Trust that *you* are right and all the buffoons are wrong. Nourish the scintilla animae. Fan it, but do not blow it extinct.
b) Always mistrust your work. Quite good is not good enough. Good is not excellent. Never fool yourself; that you made it for the deadline and that your editor accepted the piece, does not make it good. And the above is twice or thrice true for poetry.
And I add:
c) Torture yourself. Write a sonnet. Several ones actually. See it as exercise. Like a gym. Just harsher.
Osas (Kenyan regards)
You are a writer! And your English is very good!
My opinion…
I write, therefore I am a writer. I don’t feel like the use of that word implies a person has been published, or is even trying to get published.
When I am published, I suppose I’ll use the term novelist, or author (with, no doubt, a great deal of pleasure), or poet if that happens to be the tack I take. But to be a writer, I don’t need to do more than write, and take the act of writing seriously – success or lack thereof at the goal of getting published is not a requirement as far as I’m concerned.
hi nadia! thank you for your comment on my post regarding Poets & Writers. if at all possible, you should see if you could order it online. it’s a great magazine (along with Poetry Magazine and Writer’s Digest!).
in all my creative writing classes in college, every professor said this: “if you write, you’re a writer.” simple as that. i agree with them. the only thing stopping people who want to “be writers” from being writers is that they have no discipline and don’t produce work. publishing is, of course, usually a writer’s goal, and when that happens, it’s amazing and fulfilling. but i agree with what has already been said above–if you write, you’re already a writer. and hopefully someday, you’ll be a published writer.
keep writing!
Hi Nadia,
Thanks for commenting on my blog!
Your English is very good. Far better than my Italian!
If you write, you’re a writer.
I look forward to reading more of your blog.
Awesome post! I wrote a really similar blog entry on “being a writer” a little while back. If you write, you’re a writer. Period. Stop making excuses. Lol.
Nadia, I write therefore I am a writer, but also, I would love to be a GREAT writer. Not specifically because I want to be published (although that would be nice) but so that I can express what I mean in as few words as possible and have my readers nodding.
Hi Nadia – thanks for your comments, it was interesting to read your dilemna (oh & by the way, your English is good, but perhaps I should be trying to practice my Italian with you!)
Going back to your question, I think it is a interesting one – whether or not you are truly a writer if you have had nothing published. Hmm. I think yes, in the same way that you can be a musician without performing in public, you can be a writer without publishing your work. But, you’ve already started on your journey with your blog anyway.
You need to have more confidence in your writing. I find it a good way to express all those things which might otherwise stay hidden inside. Just start writing & I’m sure the ideas will quickly begin to flow.
Good luck – I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Ciao!
Hi Nadia, Great reading through your blog. keep writing … put more work up! Good luck!
I think if you write for long periods of times, if you think of stories as you’re doing the most mundane everyday tasks (I get most of my inspiration as I wash my dishes at the end of the day) then that makes a writer.
The only thin line that bothers me, and maybe it’s determined by today’s commerce, is the ongoing question of being published or unpublished and this doesn’t have an absolute meaning. For example, I have seen many blogs that contain wonderful fictional short stories. To me, they’re published stories.
To others, or even the blogger/writer of the stories, they don’t see it as being published (or represented by an agent or being printed en-masse by a corporation).
I am a writer. I feel it in my body, in my mind, and in my soul. If I couldn’t write I don’t know what I would do. I write here on wordpress, on many online communities, in journals, and my book. I have been writing for awhile but just recently found a publisher who wants me. So being a writer is a state of mind, an instinct, and a calling. You can write your first words but if it’s something you can’t stop thinking about and you can’t wait until the next time you do it.. well then my dear, you are a writer.
I write, therefore I am a writer.
I think.
But when you are fifteen next week and live in a town so small it’s not on the weather map and the only thing you’ve had published is one chapter in a local publication… Am I a writer?
All I have is a wordpress blog.
I can see why English is the language of your soul. It is a wonderful language, for the lights are out, the room is dark, but when the stars are out, the sky is lit.
It is a language created by humans, not computers.
And that is why.