Does calling yourself a writer make you a writer?

“How do you become a writer?” people ask me.

While many of my memoir-writing clients are one-time authors, not everyone is in that category. Many people join The Memoir Network secretly wanting to become “a writer” and hoping that memoir writing will be their ticket into the writer’s life.

I might, in all seriousness, respond, “Start calling yourself a writer and see what happens.”

“Does saying you are a writer make you a writer?” might be their comeback and likely will be.

Well, of cour...