Are you a “real” writer?

Fosterverse Weekly #16

Aug 20, 2024

Hey Writers!

Some of you who read this newsletter regularly might wince when I address you as a Writer. Not just a writer, but a capital “W” Writer.

It’s common for new Foster community members to say they don’t identify as a writer, let alone a Writer. They’ll say things like, “I’m not a ‘real’ writer.” Whatever that is.

Maybe they wrote a lot when they were younger and they’ve been wanting to feel their creativity flow once again. Maybe nowadays their writing is almost exclusively emails and messages and texts, rather than essays, stories, or poems. Sure, there’s an art to writing emails and the like. But it’s not the same.

What does it mean to be a Writer? Who’s the arbiter of whether or not you’re a writer or a Writer? And why does the moniker evoke so much resistance?

This is simply imposter syndrome doing its thing and holding you back.

In my opinion, it doesn’t take much to be able to call yourself a Writer. In fact, you can call yourself a Writer whenever you want to—even if you’ve never published anything on the internet or anywhere else. Nobody can stop you.

That’s what I did when I published my first Substack post nearly four years ago. It wasn’t the first thing I had ever published online, but writing a post entitled “I’m a Writer” was my way of publicly claiming my new identity. I had become fed up with my atrophying creativity and committed to publish something each week.

If you’re on this email list, I’m guessing you want to be a writer of some sort. I’m not saying you must do what I did and declare it publicly or commit to a regular publishing schedule. But if it’s important to you to become a writer, it can be helpful to step into that identity, try it on, and see if it fits. Otherwise, you’ll keep waiting and wanting and dreaming, and not writing.

If you already identify as a Writer, leave a comment simply saying “I’m a Writer.” And if you don’t, I challenge you to leave a comment too, and boldly claim that you are a Writer from that moment forward. Let’s flood the comments and celebrate each other for being the Writers that we are.