Writer, who me?

Am I a writer?

A question I am certain everybody bold enough to put pen to paper since the pens were quills and the paper, papyrus, has asked themselves at one point or another.

My answer.

I don’t know. Don’t ask me.

If I’m lucky I can get a couple of thousand words out of an illegible soup and call it a story. If I am really lucky the story has a beginning, a middle and an end, and maybe a character or two with a tale to tell.

Does that make me a writer?

I have had a few scribblings published by kindly editors. I have even been paid for a few of them. I’m not going to get rich, don’t get me wrong, but someone, somewhere wrote a cheque with my name on it, for something I wrote.

Does that make me a writer?

I sometimes wake up at night with a story whole in my head. The dialogue playing out in my mind like a fast forward tape recording. The story spinning like a top, throwing off sparks in my mind. On those occasions I could no more stop myself writing than I could will my heart to stop.

Does that make me a writer?

I don’t know. Don’t ask me.

Maybe I just tell stories, and sometimes those stories are bigger than the sum of the parts, sometimes they are bigger than the slightly bemused guy writing them.

I tell you what, you sit down and I’ll tell you a story and we’ll see what happens.