I’m A Writer (No, Really): The Problem with “Aspiring"

by Paul Krueger

One of the cool things about my adopted home of Los Angeles is that everyone here’s got a secret identity. That waitress over there? Right now, she’s waiting to hear from her agent about that Scorsese feature she got called back for. The guy on the other end of your tech support call? He’s been putting short films up on YouTube for years, and in a few months one of them is going to be absolutely everywhere. And me? I’m a writer.

I used to garnish that introduction with a, “No, really,” at parties, when the people I was talking to would barely stop themselves from rolling their eyes. Not that I can blame them; I’m sure by now they’ve met very few writers, but plenty of “writers.” It’s a frustration we all run into: we practice a craft, take it seriously, spend hours a day perfecting our technique, and some jackass with a copy of Word she hasn’t touched in years gets to saunter on up next to us and call us her peer if she feels like it...and there’s nothing we can do to contradict her.

But if you ask me, that’s kind of what’s great about writing.

Back when I first started publicly labeling myself a writer, I attached a label to that label: “aspiring.” It was how I hedged my bets: I could float the writer thing out there in the hope that people would take me seriously, then hide behind my semantics shield when they inevitably didn’t. But looking back on it, I think calling myself an “aspiring” writer was one of the first and most persistent mistakes I made when I was starting out. Fortunately, though, it was also one of the most easily corrected. And my solution is this: if you’re writing--really writing, not just talking about it--you’re not aspiring.

One of the turning points in my relationship with my work was during a phone conversation with my dad. I’d just moved to LA, and was spending my days digging for jobs and writing as fast as my fingers would let me. And that particular afternoon, a spate of fresh rejections had rolled in for the novel I’d been trotting around then. So by the time my dad got to me, I was in a fine, fine mood.

“What the hell has it all been for?” I said to him, except I totally didn’t say ‘hell.’ “All this work I’m doing...it’s not going anywhere. It doesn’t mean anything.”

My dad immediately said, “That’s not true.” When I reacted with characteristic incredulity, he continued: “All the writing you do is work, and you’re not going to get anywhere unless you do it. It matters. It means something.”

I stopped calling myself an aspiring writer after that phone call.

I’ve sat through plenty of charlatans prattling on about the Great American Novel percolating between their ears, if they could just find the time or the inspiration to write the thing. When I was younger, I resented them. They made me feel like I had to apologize for and explain away the thing I loved, and how dare they. Now, though, I’ve come to a new understanding. I write, and I know I write, and that’s enough. I don’t have to prove anything, and neither do you. Your words are all the proof you need. If you’ve got those to offer up, then congratulations. You’re a writer.

And of course, there are still plenty of things you can aspire to be: a professional. A bestseller.

Or perhaps loftiest of all: a good writer.

So what do you think, guys? Am I onto something? Am I full of it? Take to the comments section and vent your spleen!

Paul Krueger wrote the upcoming NA urban fantasy, The Devil's Water Dictionary (Quirk Books, 2016). His short fiction has appeared in the 2014 Sword & Laser Anthology, Noir Riot vol. 1, and in his copy of Microsoft Word. You're most likely to find him on Twitter, where he's probably putting off something important.