What Makes a Writer?

"The Thinking Cap"

I love this art by Leah Saulnier, and I thank her for permitting me to post it here. Isn't the depiction of those "light bulb" moments wonderful? Ms. Saulner's delightfully whimsical thinking cap houses all of those wonderful, creative ideas that flow in and through the windows of our minds, yet the look on her subject's face implies that this is pretty serious business. She has really sparked my imagination, and I like where this piece takes me.

Having just completed the 1,000th post on this little blog o' mine––and as I put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, as it were) to create my annual Christmas story––the process of writing has meandered through the windows of my mind to the extent that I want to explore it a bit. Sharing Leah's work with you today affords me the perfect excuse!

On another blog recently, there was some conversation about how a person knows he or she is a writer. My own answer is fairly simple: You know you are a writer because you can't stop writing! In other words, the act of writing has become a necessary part of who you are, to the extent that you are compelled to capture your thoughts and feelings on paper in order to make sense of the world. It is both your mechanism of understanding and your reflexive response. It is comprehension, contribution, and resolution. It makes you real.

I must admit that this particular (self-coined) definition is fairly new to me. Being someone who has held a pencil in her hand and poetry in her heart from a very young age, it still took me a long time to think of myself as a writer. Mrs. Russell, when I was seven years old, was the first of many fine teachers to tell me that I was "quite a writer," but taking any of these people literally never occurred to me. When I was asked to write a little story in fourth grade and came back the next morning with a near novel about Helen Keller (as told from the POV of her right eye, no less!), it never occurred to me that this behavior was unusual. I journaled and rhymed and prosed my way through middle and high school without ever considering the possibility that I might be a writer. I was just "someone who liked to write," and I was told many times how difficult (nigh on to impossible) it was to get published.

Once published, I still found it hard to claim the title. Publicists introduced me as the "author" on my book tours, but even that didn't put me over the top. I simply didn't think of myself in those terms. It seemed...presumptuous...to call myself a writer. Happily for me, things have changed, and time has wrought a miracle. Today, I not only call myself a writer, but I have a card! (Here it is, Polly. I told you I'd post it!)

I'm even including the case...

So here's the question: When does someone go from being someone who runs, to a runner? Someone who paints, to a painter? Someone who plays an instrument, to a musician? Someone who takes pictures, to a photographer? Personally, I think it's when those individuals begin to own the essential nature of that activity in their lives...when it becomes or is recognized as a visceral part of them.

All I know is this. For me, writing is a gate to myself...and when that gate is open, words flow like sweet, sweet honey...making all the right sounds stick together and holding me together, too. The only thing better is praying, but then writing is a form of prayer anyway, isn't it? Because it brings the writer into communion with that Source from which all creativity is derived.

No matter what your particular medium of communion with the Source is, I wish you great joy in it. As for me?...Back to the drawing writing board. Christmas is only 36 days away, and I always like to get that story done before Thanksgiving!

=)