On "Being a Writer"

On Saturday, an old friend called me up. He asked if I'd be willing to read something he had written and share thoughts on it. It just so happened that I had just finished reading a chapter of a challenging book and was about to make a cup of coffee before starting something new, so I promised to read it immediately.

It was an essay on a timely topic -- the War on Christmas placed in a deep historical context (I won't give away his punchline just here), very well written, geared towards a general readership publication like The New Yorker or The Atlantic. I spoke to him the next day and we discussed submission pathways -- people we knew in common from Yale at each place. Yesterday he called during the day to say it had been accepted for publication at The American Scholar, then he called back around 10 in the evening to say that the literary editor at The New Yorker had shown interest and he was having bird in hand vs. bird in bush anxiety.

I am, of course, rather jealous, but mostly really happy that he is getting this validation. But it also raises the question in my mind about being a writer. While we were talking he thanked me for some minimal suggestions I had made about specific word choices and we discussed the craft of writing. I said I didn't really often make time to read things by people who didn't really trouble themselves with writing well, but then I thought about the blog. On the one hand, the Grouse is an exercise in staying limber in my writing, just getting things down "on paper" and keeping at it. On the other, I can't spare the time to really go back and do quality control. Which makes me endlessly grateful to those of you who take the time to read it somewhat regularly.

One time a few years ago I was leaving an Al Anon meeting and a woman I was talking to said something about "being a writer." Naturally I asked about things about where and what she had published, and she was taken aback. She hadn't really published much, she just wrote. Which is cool. It's a free country. Who am I, or anyone, to say what it means to be a writer?