Tuesday, July 27, 2010

On writing.

When do you go from being a person who likes to write, to a writer?

From there, when do you go to being an author? Do you have to be published? Is that the rule, authors are published, writers are not?

Do you have to have written a full book? Does an anthology of poetry count as a book? What if you've written just a few lines of verse, yet those have been published in a magazine? Does that count as being an author?

Does your plan have anything to do with what you can call yourself? If you plan to get published, but you haven't written word one as of yet, are you an author?

If you have finished an entire novel, yet you have no desire to do anything with that manuscript barring having it sit on your shelf, are you an author?

Just something I was musing about.

I have written a full length novel, BUT have no plans to get it published...right now. Does that make me an author, a writer or someone who likes to write?

I'm interested in hearing what you have to say.

~Whimsy

P.S. It's either feast or famine with me. You get no posts for nearly five months, and all of a sudden two a few hours apart.

2 comments:

  1. I think you can use them interchangeably, but an author is usually someone who's been published. Anyone who likes to write can be a writer. But that's just me guessing :)

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  2. That would be my assumption as well. However, the people who run NaNoWriMo insist that as soon as you start work on your novel in November, you are an author. I'd like to think that's true, since it gives my ego a boost. XD

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