That's an interesting sentiment. Why? Because I think a lot of people have a hard time believing it. I myself even have a hard time believing it. After spending 12 years on a book series and then this enthusiastically maintained blog you CONSTANTLY (right?) find yourself in, I still don't really consider myself a writer. Or an author, as it were. How else could I keep the clever title? Pfft.
Couple things spit-balled into a big fuckin' mess today and left me feeling less than pleased in regards to a particular ability I may or may not show a burgeoning talent in. Photography. Now don't get me wrong, literally anyone with hands (or without hands, I don't know) can take a picture. Point and shoot. Can just anyone take a good picture? I think so maybe, yes. But there is a more creative aspect to photography that seems to escape a lot of people, some call it having the "eye," which sounds kind of mystical but to me just means you can see a good shot and you can capture it. Probably means the same to you.
I don't really have much practice with real photography as of this moment. I know what an f-stop and aperture are and I took a couple classes in high school. I can take a pretty decent self-portrait, and I know my way around photoshop pretty well. Right now, if you handed me a really expensive camera and tossed me in the middle of New York City with an airbrushed model, I could probably take a decent picture. I would say when all was said and done, a solid "B" would be my score. Does all of that combined make me a photographer? Not really, seeing as I don't get paid for it, but then-- oh... hey.
Wait a second.
I don't get paid to write, either, now do I? Not yet at least. And though I like to heehaw and guffaw over my literary talents, I am a writer, through and through. If there is one stake I claim in my life it is that I am a god damn writer. You can't write over 1,700 pages of a series and continue to blush when you say "oh I dabble in it." I can't vouch for how GOOD of a writer I am, I'd have to have the peanut gallery weigh in on that one, but the fact that my books have drawn tears says a little something about my skills.
I don't mean to make waves but this whole idea that you have to be paid to credit yourself as something is stupid, stupid, STUPID. Who is anyone to say you are something other than what you want to be? Sure, you can't call yourself an astronaut if you've never been to space. And sure, you can't be a marine biologist if you don't know shit about aquatic life and are afraid of water. But you can call yourself a writer if you've ever written a poem, a limmerick, a song, a blog, or hell, even a book. You can call yourself an actor if you've ever stood in front of the lens and recited a few lines.
You can call yourself a photographer if you pick up a camera and shoot pictures of something or someone that might inspire you. The point is that you try.
That's the beautiful thing about life; you can be whatever you want to be. I set out this year to nail 26 "New" things to the proverbial wall and I am halfway there. It is a lot of work, it is a lot of dedication. I never would have classified myself as a documentarian, but ya know what? I've recorded seven months of my life so far through video and I'm not done yet, so cross that fucker off the list too.
The whole reason I am writing this tonight is because I am angry. I'm angry that I was told today that I am NOT something I even considered myself to be in the first place. And you know what? It doesn't matter. Because it is just like Aristotle said: We are what we repeatedly do, excellence, therefor, is not an act, but a habit.
I wasn't a writer until I started writing, I wasn't a documentarian until I started filming. I can't be a photographer until I start taking pictures, so for any of you naysayers out there, sit back and watch the fucking show. If I can dedicate as much energy into that as I have with the rest of my endeavours, you're in for a treat. 'nuff said.
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