I am a writer.

I am a writer. Those four words instill a lot of fear within me. I have some doubt as I make that declaration since I tend to assume that a writer must be someone of Faulkner or Steinbeck stature. But a blog that I follow that is challenging me to 15 days of blog posts, http://goinswriter.com/, told me to go ahead, be brazen, and call myself a writer.

As soon as I read that I immediately disagreed.  I’m not a writer. I don’t have a novel on The New York Times Best Seller’s List. I haven’t sat in one of Ellen’s comfy, red chairs and proclaimed my book will be turned into a movie starring Zac Efron. I haven’t even gone on a book tour and read excepts of my novel at Barnes and Noble to people looking for the latest Vogue magazine while their children cry in their strollers. And yes, I want to do all of those things. I want to get a phone call saying my publisher must print an additional 50,000 copies of my novel, that Ellen needs me to bring my most embarrassing high school photo to the set, and I want to be ignored while reading an excerpt of chapter seven of my next novel. Then I can call myself a writer.

But is that really what it means to be a writer? For so long I’ve focused on the glamorized version of writing. The interviews, the million dollar book deals, the fame and glory; but what about the craft of writing itself. I’ve lost sight of what it means to write. The act of putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard, and pouring out one’s feelings, heartache, emotion, and a myriad of other sentiments is writing. And writing shouldn’t be for the pomp and circumstance; writing should be for me. Writing has always been for me. But I’m just now beginning to realize that what I write makes me a writer. The glory doesn’t make someone a writer. It is just simply the act of writing that makes one a writer.

But even as I pen (or type) this blog entry I still hesitate in labeling myself as a writer. What if no one reads anything I write? What if my journal is the only place where the sincerest form of writing actually happens? What if what I write isn’t any good? Am I still a writer then? Typically I would say, “No, Mira, you aren’t a real writer.” 

But not today: because today I officially declare myself a writer.