Chasing Wattpad

Who told you that you were a writer?

I AM A WRITER. I know this is true because, well, you know, I write stuff.

But that is the extent of the definition I am comfortable with when I call myself a writer. I don't mean anything other than that when I talk about myself and say the word "writer". I am okay with that.

There are millions of you out there. I don't know where you came from or what the hell got into you but for some reason you guys all want to be a writers. Some of you have been wanting to be one all your lives. Others just recently woke up and got this stupid idea in their head and now it's stuck there. To make matters worse, somehow you ended up here on Wattpad, typing away like a mad person.

So here's my question to you. Who told you could be a "writer"? Huh? What on earth possessed you to walk into a bookstore and look around and say, "I can do this". I really am curious about that and I think that is a fair question. Do you just like telling stories? Did you read a book one day and say, "I can do better than this crap"? What was it?

A great majority of the people on Wattpad are readers. They have no desire to write. They just downloaded the app so they can read free stuff on their phone whenever they feel like it. 

But the rest, they want to write. They want to be writers more than anything else in the world. They want to be published and see their books in bookstores. They want to pour out trilogies or never ending fantasy stories. They want to do book tours and have hordes of people bow at their feet and ask "how did you do that?" Some of you reading this are those people.

Is that a reasonable expectation? There are millions of people on Wattpad who are writing. Very few of them will ever get their stuff into a bookstore. Many who do will actually have to pay someone to make it happen. That brings to mind another question. If you pay someone to print your book for you does that make you a writer? There are thousands of books out there by wanna-be authors who paid to have their books printed or put on line. Are they writers?

What about all those people on here who somehow managed to get a million reads on Wattpad? Is that girl who wrote that lousy piece of crap about that girl who likes that guy that doesn't like her back and got a million reads, more of a writer than that guy who wrote that beautiful gorgeously written short story that only 20 people read?

When thinking about this question I went on line and looked for quotes about writers from famous "writers". I read dozens of quotes that I thought might be appropriate here. But as I kept reading more and more of them I came to a stark realization. Those writers have no freaking idea what a writer is. They really have no words to describe what they are. Many of them don't even consider themselves true "writers". They don't know what drives them. They don't know where their stories come from. They don't know much at all.

Maybe we should change what we call ourselves. How about we call ourselves all "storytellers". That's nice and simple and easy to verify. You tell a story and you are a story teller. That's settled. We are storytellers.

Well...no, that isn't enough is it? We love the written word. It's more. I don't know how or why, but somehow it is more. I can't explain it either.

When I wrote that first paragraph and told you I was a writer simply because I wrote stuff that was a lie. Well, not a lie, but more of a cop out. I am not a writer simply because I write stuff. I am a writer because I desire to write words that are more. I am writer because I want my words to move you, to pierce you in a way you can't recover from. I am a writer because I try and write my words in such a way that they don't stay on the page. You carry them with you when you go. They become part of you. They engage your heart as well as your mind. I am a writer because even if I don't succeed today to do any of those things, I will try again tomorrow.

I think these are the things that separate a writer from a person who just writes. A writer does not need to be successful in the writing world. He just needs to be successful in his writing.

The writer will know he is one. He won't need me or anyone else to tell him that he is. He won't need a million reads or votes. He won't need a million followers telling him how great he is. He won't need his stories in a bookstore or even on Wattpad. He will just need to write. Someday, if that is what he really wants, his audience will find him.