Weekly Writing Affirmation: There’s no need to 'want' to be a writer. Simply write.

All too often, struggling writers sabotage themselves without even realizing it. They do this by labeling themselves as an “aspiring novelist,” or as a “wannabe writer.” Perhaps they even say stuff like “I wish I were a writer” or “Someday I’ll publish a book.”

Such terminology highlights not the writers’ vision but their failure. Rather than focusing on what they are – writers – they concentrate on what they are not – unpublished.

Such an approach is merely a writer allowing his fear or self-loathing defining them. It gives him an excuse as to why he hasn’t (and maybe never well) achieve his personal dream.

In a day when self-publishing is virtually free and widely accepted, there’s no reason to not write and publish your manuscript. You always can change the text – not just go back and correct typos but even rewrite the paragraphs, whole chapters, or heck, even the whole book.

In any case, you don’t have to be published to be a writer. Certainly Emily Dickinson, who tucked her poems away in the back of her drawer, was a writer even though virtually none of her work was published during her lifetime.

Simply put, there’s no need to want to be a writer. Simply write.

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