different ways

I was so afraid of being a writer when I was a teenager. This was in part because my parents were afraid of me being a writer. They so carefully steered me away from it that I think I was even more afraid of it. But one of the things I have started to realize after actually being a writer for a few years now is that there are lots of different ways of being a writer. You don't have to be a full-time, NY Times Best-Selling Writer to be a writer.

A writer can be:

1. Someone who writes faithfully in a journal.
2. A journalist, movie writer, TV writer, or any other kind of media writer.
3. An essayist.
4. A poet.
5. A picture book writer.
6. A non-fiction writer who waits for projects to be assigned to, and then does them.
7. A self-published writer.
8. A small press writer.
9. A writer who does anything for money, to keep a family together.
10. A writer who has a day job and writes on the side, but only what is interesting.
11. A writer who wants to quit the day job, but isn't there yet.
12. A writer who has no intention of quitting the day job, ever.

Just like there is no one way of writing properly, there is no one way of being a writer. You can write with an outline or without. You can write every day or on the weekends, or only when you have a project that you work intensely on for days without sleeping. There is nothing terrifying about being a writer. It is what you are when you are writing, and that's all.