I Am A Writer

Lesson Learned & Shared

This year I am taking on the #100dayproject by sharing one lesson a day from my Stop Writing Alone journey. I am looking specifically for the lessons I not only learned myself, but the ones I find myself repeating to writers and creatives in my community over and over again.

O

Own This Identity

When I first tried to claim my place as a writer here on the World Wide Web, I wrote in all of my social media bios, "aspiring writer." I was in a #StoryDam writer chat on Twitter when a fellow writer called me out on it. They asked me, "Are you actively writing?"

I explained that I wrote every day, was a regular writer on three blogs at the time, and was in the midst of drafting a novel.

They told me, "So you are a writer." When I agreed they then said, "Why does your bio say 'aspiring writer?'"

I didn't realize I had the permission to make such a claim without publication, or representation, or any of the other many things that we tell ourselves we need to be fully realized. But the facts were there: by definition and by my actions, I was a writer. I changed my bio immediately.

I can not tell you how many other writers I have come upon in this same boat, how many writers I have told to OWN their title based on their actions. Are you one of them? When did you begin to call yourself a writer?

My #100DayProject for 2024

Introducing my #100dayproject for 2024:

To know me is to know I have a teacher soul. At the end of the day, my passion is learning and sharing that learning with anyone willing to listen. So, when it came time to think of a project that I could realistically take on for 100 days straight, it had to come back to that passion.

For the next 100 days, I will share one lesson learned each day that I find myself continually sharing with writers and creatives in my community. There are plenty of things that come up again and again (in fact, I'm kind of betting that there are at least 100 of them!) and it's about time I wrote them all down somewhere. Let's see how far we get with these mini lessons, let's see how many you remember me chanting before, and how many you needed to be reminded of!