A Writer is Someone Who Writes: My Manifesto ✏️✨
my thoughts on dreams, goals & manifestations - welcome back to The Slush pile!
Welcome to Issue 10 of The Slush Pile, y’all - that’s right, my brainchild has officially reached double digits! *throws confetti* After I released last month’s issue, a guide to submitting to literary journals, I began thinking even deeper about two very distinctive labels many in the writing community are simultaneously quick and hesitant to claim: the “aspiring” writer and the “established” writer. These terms carry a great deal of weight and, to be perfectly frank, are rooted in systems of privilege, capitalist thought, access to creative resources, and imposter syndrome.
What do these words mean? Where do they come from? Who gets to decide which one you are? Why do we use them in the first place? What does being a “writer” mean really? In this newsletter, I hope to reckon and wrestle with this tug-of-war and unpack what being a writer can look like, “aspiring” and otherwise.
Earlier this week, I attended an Indigenous People’s Day as a vendor to sell copies of my chapbook, STREAMING SERVICE. In an effort to make conversation with customers, I asked people if they were writers too and to my surprise, I got a variety of reactions, from an enthusiastic “YES!” to the complete opposite end of the spectrum, where someone said, “Not really, just in my journal.” This refusal to claim the title of writer was nothing I hadn’t heard before but that response confused me. “But isn’t that writing, too?” I asked, to which they agreed but hesitantly. That kind of thinking is where the trouble truly lies.
When we picture a writer, what do we see? Someone hunched over their laptop? Writing a novel or think piece? Someone who says things like “I have to turn this into my editor today” or offers pretentious, unsolicited takes on Tolstoy? We likely picture a capital-W Writer, someone who makes this form of expression, if not a major hobby, than their full-time occupation. This idea, I believe, is largely formed by the media we consume, where writers wear glasses and type incessantly all day and look tired all the time (as I’m writing this, I realize I’m literally describing myself). But capitalism is also to blame. Where else would we have gotten the idea that writing is a only job, not a way to get through the day, a means of survival and remembrance, a catalyst for joy? That words are meaningless unless someone else reads them?
It’s undoubtedly a hard mindset to free ourselves of but the first truth we must accept is that being a writer can look like anything. While it certainly describes the stressed-out freelancer or the author struggling to make a deadline, it can also be an accountant writing poems on their lunch break. A working mother journaling in her notebook before bed or writing the story of her life for fun, for no one else’s eyes, or to submit somewhere and publish. Someone who’s never taken a class in craft but wants to write something down anyway. The simple truth? A writer is someone who writes. (And no, writing “well” has nothing to do with it—everything is subjective and what does it even mean to write well?)
But if that’s all true, then where did this business of the “aspiring writer” come from? This middle stage where we finally accept ourselves as writers but make it conditional?
When I was younger, in middle and high school, my attitude about this label was completely different. I told everyone I knew that I was an aspiring writer, that I hoped to have a long and fruitful career ahead of me and a stack of books with my name on the spine. The word “aspiring” made me feel like I had potential, that there was something good coming my way just up ahead. It made me special, I thought. “Aspiring writers” meant they weren’t published but they would be, that they would become something and someone someday, that if they wrote and worked hard enough, it would pay off into something beautiful.
I can understand why people use the term as a self-identifier. But the more I think about it, the more I want to know what’s really stopping us from just calling ourselves writers. Why we believe it when capitalism invents this end-all-be-all finish line and says we won’t be writers until we reach a certain accomplishment or goal. Because as much as aspiring to anything gave me pride as a child, it also filled me with pain and confusion. All I wanted was to just start calling myself a writer already, but no one seemed to know when that would be. When would I cross that line? When would I stop aspiring and start being? I thought I had to have the accolades, the publications, the following, the books stamped with my name like the authors I admired, all to rid myself of a name based on artificial standards and capitalistic expectations of access.
No one told me that you don’t have to aspire to write, that in fact it’s arguably the easiest hobby to pursue. All you need is something to write with and something to write on. No one told me that all I had to be was myself.
These days, of course, I have the opposite problem. A few weeks ago, a close friend called me an “established writer” in a passing conversation and I had no idea what to do other than to disagree. I was ready to argue, to prove I was nothing like all the authors I’ve ever read or met or interviewed.
But upon further discussion, I quickly realized that our ideas and standards of what being an “established” writer meant were not at all the same. They looked at me, saw my following, my published books, my newsletter, my accolades, my publications, my magazine, the retreats I’d been on, etc., and saw someone who was deeply established in her writing career. A capital-W writer.
Whereas I looked at myself and saw nothing but my own inadequacies: my books were self-published, my following is laughable compared to my other writer friends, I don’t have an agent, I haven’t finished a novel since I was 15, my work won’t be seeing a publishing house or Hollywood for a long time, if ever, and my magazine is flailing for life. An “established writer,” I thought, was someone who regularly went to writing events, readings, lunches with their publishing team, who signed contracts and had fans and made this unpredictable occupation their living just with their pen. That just isn’t me.
And still, I had to ask myself: where does that idea of being “established” come from? Is it capitalism? Is it my imposter syndrome, my identity as a person of color in a largely white landscape, that makes me refuse this title? Is it because I’m not Stephen King? Is it the discomfort I have knowing that if I call myself “established,” I’m claiming power and privileges that others don’t have? Even now, I don’t have the answer. Or perhaps I have too many.
The funny thing is, even those writers I think of as “established” would likely hesitate to call themselves that, too. For all of us at each stage of our careers, the finish line is always moving, as are our insecurities, inadequacies, ambitions, and dreams. I don’t have a fanbase like that writer, I haven’t published as many books or pieces as that writer, my events aren’t as well attended as that other writer. We will always look at the person in front of us and never feel like enough, and neither will the names we call ourselves. For me, I’m trying to let go of those worries and confusions and fears, stop comparing myself to others (because that will bring nothing but grief), and most of all, keep my eyes on my own paper. To remind myself, I am a writer, I am someone who writes and that is enough.
notes from the writer’s desk ✍️
my favorite recently pub’d pieces:
updates:
STREAMING SERVICE: season two, the sequel to my self-published debut poetry chapbook STREAMING SERVICE: golden shovels made for tv, IS NOW OUT! Digital and signed physical copies are available, as well as the option to bundle both chapbooks and receive a bookmark and sticker with every physical order! Order your copy today! Thank you as always for your support :’)
I am now a media mentor for Tectonic Media! If you are a young/aspiring journalist, I am available for consultation and mentorship on a variety of topics. Learn more about my areas of specialty and how we can connect here.
I am announcing an exciting new initiative next month for my fellow writers and creatives. Keep an eye on my Instagram for more details!
resources:
Looking for book recommendations? Check out my Bookstagram and TikTok to keep up with what I’m reading and loving right now! On TikTok, you’ll also get more snippets of my everyday writing life and lifestyle/fashion content. See you there!
other stories i’m loving 📖
currently reading:
The Other by Daniela Pierre-Bravo
currently watching:
Abbott Elementary, S2
currently listening to:
“what’s wrong with you” by Lexi Jayde
all my love,
sofía xx
The most famous self-published book is the Bible, a perennial best-seller. You are in most excellent company.
I love your examples of what writers can look like. I also appreciate your reflections on the aspiring vs. established writer. Maybe in the middle of that is emerging writer, too, as a term? As someone who has published some individual pieces but maybe not an actual book yet, this would be how I self-identify! Great blog post overall. Thank you!! Keep writing!