WRITER! Who is a writer? If you write something that you want others to read, or even if you are a writer who writes for his or her own pleasure, you are a writer.
You should tell your mind that you are a writer. Your mind is powerful, if you tell it that you are a writer it will move mountains to make that so.
You might make your living being a food server, a administrative aide (fancy name for clerk), a mechanic, a baker, a candle stick maker, but do not tell your mind that. You take a chance that you will always be a candle stick maker. YOU ARE A WRITER!
When I was in the Royal Dutch Navy, you had a patch on your sleeve that indicated your job. We did have a category of writer in the Navy, the black patch had a red emblem of a quill. Your duties were administrative for the most part, your were pounding a typewriter rather than lifting an anchor.
I have such imaginary patch on my sleeve today, I am a writer. I did not make a living as a writer, instead for the main part I was a CEO of a large restaurant and fish wholesale business, I also was a computer consultant and owned a computer company. However, I always had a second batch of business cards that said, Johan Van Oldenbarneveld,Writer. I could said Author, but that in my mind is so pretentious. I have had that patch on my shoulder ever since before my teenage years. I grew up as only child, books were my friends, I read everything from the classics, to detective and yes, I admit it, romance stories. Jonathan Swift was no stranger to me, neither was Arthur Conan Doyle and the list is endless. I took creative writing classes in school. Did they help me? Yes. I learned about a formula, most books follow this formula and the more inventive you are, the less likely this formula shows up in your novel or story. Recently a good friend passes away. His widow asked me if I would like some DVD's her husband had recorded. Sure, I did but I did not count on about a hundred discs filled with mostly western movies. I watch every one of them and that formula I read about long ago came to mind. Each of the Western movies followed the formula religiously. In a subsequent blog I will describe the "formula" in detail. Ernest Hemingway knew the it, as does Grisham but you might have trouble finding it. Autobiographies are the exception, my book, Polynesian Dreams is an autobiography written in a whimsical style.  Read a sample chapter in of the e-book exchanges and you see what I mean. Love doing these blogs each day, just hope there are some readers. The End. Johan Van Oldenbarneveld, Writer.