Writing is a Verb

For me, there are only three types of people when it comes to writing as a career:

• Type 1: the majority who wish to become writers but who just keeps wishing and never get to it (too busy, too distracted, too lazy, or too daunted by the idea);
• Type 2: those who call themselves writers and style themselves as such, pseudo-intellectuals who care much about being seen at hip coffee shops looking like “writers” but never actually write anything (well, maybe an angst-filled egocentric essay or two…); and
• Type 3: those who actually have the talent, who are either unaware of their talent or are afraid of rejection (they could also belong to group #1, but unless they try they really wouldn’t know that they’ve got what it takes).

Many people want to become writers. I hear it a lot: from former co-workers at call centers, to my acquaintance at a local massage therapy parlor, to my teenage cousins. But for most people, it remains to be a fanciful, if fond, wishing.

The loud, snobbish kind (#2) is partly to blame for perpetuating the notion that writers are a special class of people who go only to certain events, hang out with a particular set of people, speak a “cool” kind of language, and have select cultural tastes.

There are among them, of course, who are the real thing, and talents are also nurtured within that atmosphere of exclusivity. I genuinely respect these people; they are entitled to their eccentricities; they’ve earned it. It’s those who turn up their noses at less informed mortals but who have the least claim to talent whom I’d like to shoot water guns at. Just because you’ve read (put name of any heavyweight author with an unintelligible work here), you have talent? Oh please!

Having read Kafka, Proust, or whoever’s fashionable at the moment does not make you a writer, it does not even mean you write better. It only means you know more than the average person about Kafka or Proust, and that, given either topic for a writing assignment, you’d be in a better position to write about it.

Granted, what you read may inspire you and give you models to pattern your writing style after. But unless you actually do strive to put down your thoughts on paper or type it on your computer screen, don’t kid yourself.

To be a writer, you write. Forget what you may have seen, heard or read: a writer is simply, first and foremost, a person who writes.

Writing is a verb, an action word. You sweat it out, much like any other kind of work. You toil with every phrase, wrestle with your unruly thoughts, ask a lot of questions, relentlessly seek the answers, revise continually, think endlessly, do all the dirty, hard work involved in the process.

And a writer keeps writing. No one becomes a writer overnight; you must first lose a lot of sleep, waste a lot of paper and ink, use up plenty of electricity, and bleed money for your utility bills. It is an investment of your time, energy, knowledge and creativity.

So to those who only have come as far as wanting to write, stop wishing and start writing. I recall what writer Ricky de Ungria said about writing over Jessica Zafra’s old radio talk show, Twisted, several years ago. This is, roughly, what he said: “Don’t keep talking about wanting to write—why not go on and write, instead of using up all your time talking about doing it?”

Well, to those of you who are already working on making that old dream come true—be proud of your accomplishments and carry on! Show your work to people and get feedback, take writing gigs, sign up for classes, continue improving your skills. The important thing is that you keep writing.