I write, therefore I am.

First let me preface by saying I have always been a writer. I know there are people that go to school and get educated for writing, and in truth their writing is probably far more grammatically correct than mine. All of this aside however, first and foremost I have always been a writer. I can remember as a child carrying a notebook to the woods with me and how the poetry just flowing out of my fingers. Reading back on some of it now I visibly cringe. Yes, some of it was saved and no, you can’t see it. I’m a writer, not a sadist after all. There is some speculation that writing flows in family lines and though I do not have the research on hand, I can say that my Grandmother Mary was an avid writer and my mother as well can phrase a pretty prose when suitably inspired. So where this came from I can’t say definitely, only that it is and it has been for as long as I can remember and it is a connection with my ancestry that spans years and generations. In fact, it might be interesting some day when I have the time to research exactly how many writers we had in our family. Perhaps one day when I have more spare time.

For years and years I wrote with no particular goal in mind other than to release these words that came to my mind. I liken the experience of being inspired to a poem or a piece of flash fiction like this pressure that builds up with the only release to be to let go, and let it flow out my fingertips. Over the years, pencils and spiral notebooks were replaced with keyboards and 20” flat screen monitors, but the effect is always the same. There was a time that I slept with a notepad next to my bed so that waking inspiration could be jotted down quickly. Many times, especially with poetic lines, they were there for only a few moments before disappearing into the mists of oblivion. If they were not captured quickly, like a glimpse of a fairy wisp in your peripheral vision, they were gone forever.

After many years of writing just to be writing, eventually I happened upon people who actually read my writing and commented on it. This encouraged me to explore it more, to share it with others and the feedback I gained was always complimentary. Well, except from other writers with who offered critiques. I do think that as a community, writers are our own worse critics. There are simply so many styles and like training horses, there is something that works for each individual not necessarily making it “wrong” for others, but just different from what they are used to; therefore, odd to them.

In any case, the people that matter are the only ones I’m concerned with and about a year ago I joined a site called www.Textbroker.com. This site is a ghostwriting site. It gives writers a chance to accept jobs from clients, mostly for website content, some sales pages, some blog post, etc. Since starting to write for them I have written over 150 articles and blurbs and have maintained a 4 rating, with the highest rating being a 5 reserved for professional writers. I aspire to this level so continue to work on grammar and punctuation (those darn commas are everywhere!). Regardless of ranking, I have been writing more and more for them and it has really stretched my writing abilities. Try coming up with 23 different descriptions for a pleated air filter sometime and you will see what I mean. ~.~ Keeping in mind this is a ghostwriting site which means no credit as a writer for your work. In effect, you are writing so someone else can put it up under their name and ownership and you release all claim by benefit of being paid for it. My daughter Megan fusses at me frequently for this because she says I write well (I do love my Meggers hehe) and that I should be getting credit for my work. As for me, I consider it a learning experience and I do think this site has made me a much better writer who is more aware of what exactly is coming from the fingertips and onto the paper or screen. The fact that ghostwriting pays better than most paid writing sites out there doesn’t hurt and in truth, the bulk majority of the things I write for www.Textbroker.com I would not necessarily want my name attached to mainly because it’s just advertising text and dry content.

The site www.Textbroker.com has a forum for their writers to compare notes, share stores, visit, etc. and so far, it has none of the drama shared commonly on message boards. A interesting question was raised the other day however which made me think in several ways about my writing. It made me sit back and consider how I’ve arrived where I am, along with how I’m going to get where I want to be with it. Currently I am far from making a living writing, but the revenue increases each month and this last month I actually made enough to cover my truck payment (yay me!)

The question they asked was, as writers for www.Textbroker.com, are we salesmen or are we authors? This question probably stemmed from the fact that 99% of the content available on the site is for blurbs, advertisements, reviews etc. It’s not creative writing by a long shot, though there are some clients that want excessively elaborate adjective laden descriptions. As I sat back and pondered this I realized that even though it’s sales writing for the most part, I am an author by the purest sense of the word. I am given a website or a picture with a few lines of descriptive bullets and told to write a 150 word description for the item, which I do. As writers, we are painters of words. We take simple words and paint them into a picture in the reader’s minds. Those few lines of bullets are woven into a tapestry of meaning that wasn’t there before. That simple silver office chair becomes something beyond what it is at its truest form and this can only be done in word form by an author. Are we encouraging buyers to buy a product yes, but what we do is far more than being a salesman. It doesn’t matter what you are writing, whether it is simple advertising prose or the most elaborate creatively inspired sonnet, writing is an art form unto itself and there is room in the world for writers of all kinds and all styles. It doesn’t matter if you are ghostwriting for a office supply chain website or at the top of the bestseller list, at it’s essence, writing has to come from the soul and truly good writers have a passion about their writing that cannot be learned in any classroom, it simply has to … be.

When people ask me what I am, who I am, what I’m about I can answer a lot of things. I am a mother, a lover, a cook, a cleaner, a lover of fine horses and really any horse fine or not, an avid fiber artist, a day dreamer, a pure romantic but at the end all of these things coalesce into one answer. I am a writer pure and simple. I write, therefore I am and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

*Photo credit Arielle Fragassi