Am I a writer?
Writers are everywhere and come in all forms. There are the poets, the novelists, the journalists, the speech-writers, the copywriters, the editors, the tweeters, the Instagram caption-ers just to name a few. Then there are the secret writers. The writers who write secretly throughout private moments of the day. They scratch down notes in their personal journals or the edges of newspapers and napkins, for nobody’s eyes but their own. And finally, there are the writers who don’t even know they’re writers– a secret they seem to keep from themselves.
I’m a teacher. This part of my identity is much clearer and defined. I even have a name tag and a classroom and students to remind me of this position in the world. The students I teach are about half my age. I’m in my late twenties and they’re just starting to experience puberty. At their age, I didn’t question my identity so much, maybe because what you want your identity to be changes every two minutes. Despite not knowing who I was, I knew what I enjoyed. I enjoyed wearing make-up, eating jelly sandwiches, and I really enjoyed writing.
As I teach my students and assign them writing prompts, I see hesitancy, hear protests, and occasionally receive enthusiasm. I watch as students avoid those first couple sentences and instead sneak peeks at their phones and let themselves get distracted by texts and Instagram messages. About four sentences in, they whine that their hands hurt writing so much. Eventually, the comments and distractions subside and they realize they are capable of at least stringing words together. And at that moment, they are all writers.
Do they know that?
Do they need me to tell them?
Do we all need that confirmation in some way?
Is “writer” a label that someone else needs to assign to us?
In third grade, I joined the elementary school’s writing club. We filled journals with short stories and poems inspired by that day’s book. A teacher told me that my poem was good and had me read it out loud to my group. I don’t remember any of my other stories from that club, but I can still remember a line from the poem I read out loud: And thank you to the bees, who give me honey for my tea. Maybe that’s where most of us get started, with the encouragement from someone else.
We eventually grow into adults. Identity comes from the roles we take on: jobs, relationships, parenthood. The passions we once had as children may become our jobs but many times it doesn’t. For some, writing starts to be referred to as a hobby. Something we “used to do” or something we “never have enough time for.” “Writer” becomes something we could have been or would have been if we had continued to receive encouragement from the world, from publishers, and from ourselves.
It’s easy to relate to my twelve-year-old students as I watch them struggle with starting their writing. The excuses they make are ones I’ve made in my head over and over again. There’s a touch of doubt that occurs at the beginning of the writing process. It may be a bit easier to identify as a writer when you see your name on a published work or have someone read your stuff. So how do we keep going during the in-between? When we’re still in the idea stage or that stage before the idea stage when you’ve got nothing or that stage after the idea stage when you don’t like your idea anymore. We are still writers.
Do we know that?
Do we need someone to tell us?
Do we still need that confirmation in some way?
Maybe not, but just in case, I’ll offer this essay as words of encouragement. I’ve decided I am a writer. Are you?
About the Author
Meghan McPherson grew up in Centreville, Virginia before studying English Literature and Creative Writing at Virginia Tech. She is now a teacher who shares her passion for reading, writing, and the English language with her middle schoolers. When she is not at school or walking around the city, Meghan can be found reading and writing on her couch with her two cats, Birdie and Gigi.