As a writer, one of the questions I get asked often is this: “How does someone become a writer?” And it feels like a loaded question, although it really isn’t.
The answer is quite simple. To become a writer, one must simply…
Wait for it…
Write.
That’s it. That’s all someone needs to do to become a writer. You don’t have to even show that writing to other people or have something published. If you write, you are a writer. Easy, right?
But it isn’t always easy: Sometimes the hardest thing that a writer can do is write. If you’ve ever sat down with a pen and paper or behind your computer display, staring at the keyboard and wondering if the words will ever come, you’ll understand this. We’ve all been there. But the key is to just write something, anything.
I often talk about Neil Gaiman’s Rules of Writing. I even dedicated a blog post to it. The most important rule that you can remember is the first one. And guess what it is? “Write.”
I often see people saying that they’re “aspiring” writers, but I don’t think that word means what they think it means. If you already write, you’re not an aspiring writer, you’re just a writer. You made it. Congratulations.