While doing some leisure reading, I noticed that a blogger whose work I enjoy explained a recent absence by saying that he had just finished up high school.
Hi. Yeah. I’m 40.
When I started blogging for TUAW, I thought, “Wow, I’m getting paid to write!” Calling myself a “writer” at that point would have been like a hummingbird calling itself a space shuttle. Both can fly, but one produces 1,315 tons of thrust and can withstand temperatures of 1,650ºC.
The other entertains retirees from their kitchen windows.
I’ve been able to delude myself into believing that I deserve that title over the years. It started the 1st time someone called something I had written a “piece.” Much like a Lay-Z-Boy is a chair while an Eames Molded Plastic Rocker is a piece, the term elevated my pedestrian re-working of a common opinion to something worth your time and attention. As the head swells, so does the pen and I wielded mine like a Louisville Slugger.
However, the act of typing doesn’t turn one into a writer any more than sleeping in a garage turns one into a car. It’s something you either have or you don’t. Like Herpes.
In “On Writing,” Stephen King notes that most decent writers can become good writers, but they won’t become great. So I’m at my desk, behind the keyboard, writing pieces.
Shooting for “good.”