A Writer

When you examine your life there will be truths…things you are, and things you are not. I am a mom and wife. I am a runner. I am not a smoker. I am a writer.

Calling myself a writer, however, has not always come easy. The definition is tied to a measuring stick of publication…some tangible acknowledgement by the outside world that you do, indeed, write. “What have you published?” is the first question out of nearly every person’s mouth once I admit my passion for creating stories.

But the truth is...I know many good writers that aren’t published. They are working through the same steps taken by nearly every other writer before them. They write a first draft. They write a second draft. They provide and receive feedback from writing groups. They rework a sixth…seventh…eighth draft, striving to make their story the best it can be.

They spend hours searching and researching agents to determine who might be a good advocate for their book. Once they find that agent, they contact publishers to find another home. They develop creative platforms to attract attention and increase sales of the book they spent so many hours perfecting, in the hopes that a reader will pick up their story and fall in love with it the way the author did at the beginning.

They were a writer long before they ever reached the shelf at the bookstore.

So, while I have yet to reach that final goal which prompts everyone else in the world to accept my prowess with words, I am, and always will be, a writer.