Writers Write!

I was reading a piece the other day that asked, "What are two things you enjoy doing most?" That's a much harder thing to sort out than you may think. Most of us enjoy doing a lot of things, how do I narrow it down to just two?. It also said meditate on these two things because they are in your soul.

What are my two most enjoyable things? I finally settled on observation of  the human race and writing about it. I discovered how closely they are linked. Without observation I would have nothing to write about. I have written a self-published book. I was a columnist for a trade magazine.  I have done genealogy research and written my family history. I have written a group of essays and made poor attempts at poetry. I currently publish a blog.Yes I am a writer . I  actually made money writing. When I write, I get in a zone of concentration and words and the words flow automatically.. Time passes quickly. I love the zone. It truly is a calling to use this talent. Sometimes when I read a piece I have written years ago, I am amazed that I wrote anything that good, even if I have say so myself.

You become a better writer by writing, but I think some schooling in the creative process of writing will make a better writer as well.  If you write, you are a writer.  It has little to do with writing as a profession, although it can be a profession.  Writing can simply be a form of personal expression of your inner most thoughts to yourself and to others, if you choose.  It can be a source of personal therapy and/or simply for your own pleasure and enjoyment.  I do it because I like to do it.  Writing for me is like a mind laxative - it flushes out and makes me feel better. 

Professional writer means that you have been paid money for writing.  I have sat in a writing of professional writing “wannabes” with their little round steel-rimmed eye glasses (both sun and regular) expounding on the artistic intellectual elitism of being a writer.  They may feel writing is a noble profession; but if they want to make a living at it, they may have to compromise some of their artistic pureness.  I have to laugh because I may be the only non-professional writer in the room who has actually been paid a semi-handsome sum for writing.  Between the magazine articles, my books (two versions of the same book) and a couple of sales and product manuals, I have made over $60,000 writing.  If you throw in the seminars based on the book the figure is over $90,000.  Writing about foodservice may not be very glamorous to some professional writers, but it made me a non-professional-professional.  I have probably earned more money than many in the room will ever earn as professional writers.

So I write because I have something to say. Whether anybody cares is their problem.

Sam Arnold

Writer