Am I a Writer?

This question has plagued me for a long time. I have doubted being a writer so many times. Why? Because I don’t always write. I can go days or weeks without writing. Sometimes I have gone longer, at least without writing fiction, something I really want to do.

The reality is that I have never written a book. I have never finished a short story even. I have written poetry and I have begun many things, and had ideas for more. But finishing? No I can’t say that I have finished very many stories.

Does this mean that I’m not a writer? Everyone says ‘writers write,’ I have said as much myself. So if writing isn’t the one thing I can’t go a day without doing does that mean that I should be looking else where for my future?

Sometimes I think so. But then I remember the thing I can’t go without.

Stories

 I can go for days without reading, at least reading fiction. I can go without writing. But I can not go for long without stories.

Sometimes I narrate things in my head. Sometimes I act out stories in my room or talk them out when no one’s around.

 Always there are stories with me, in me. Always the words sift themselves into the patterns for telling them. Sometimes I can not hear all of the words but there is always something.

I do not want them to go to waste, these stories, that is how I know that I should be writing. It is not that I can not stop writing, that is easy, it is because I can not stop telling stories.

Many do not have endings. Some never will end. Sometimes they are not worth writing down, just pretendings. But some are worth telling.

I know that I should be writing. Every day I should be writing. I don’t always, but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be. I will write, today, tomorrow, the day after that. Even if one day I again stop for a wile I know I will come back to it. I know because there will always be stories in me. They will remind me and I will come back for them.

I will write and I will be a writer. Not because I can not stop writing but because I can not stop the stories, and isn't that why we write anyway?

~ Rita