writer

Definition:

(a) A person who writes (articles, stories, books, etc.).

(b) An author: a person who writes professionally.

See also:

• Writing
• Collaborative Writing
• Composition
• Writer's Block
• Writing Center
• Writing Group
• Writing Process

Writers on Writing:

• Advice From One Writer to Another
• John Updike on the Pleasures of Writing
• The Peculiar Habits of Writers at Work
• Toni Morrison on Writing
• Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews
• Writers on Writing: E.B. White
• Writers on Writing: Overcoming Writer's Block
• Writers on Rewriting

Etymology:

From an Indo-European root, "to cut, scratch, sketch an outline"

Examples and Observations:

• "Everyone is a writer. You are a writer. All over the world, in every culture, human beings have carved into stone, written on parchment, birch bark, or scraps of paper, and sealed into letters--their words. Those who do not not write stories and poems on solid surfaces tell them, sing them, and, in so doing, write them on the air. Creating with words is our continuing passion."
  (Pat Schneider, Writing Alone and With Others. Oxford Univ. Press, 2003)



• "A writer is someone who writes, it's true, but a writer is also someone with a large capacity for adversity. You'll want to cultivate that capacity. Stamina is a writer's first quality."
  (Bill Roorbach, Writing Life Stories. Writer's Digest, 2000)



• A Writing Exercise
  "Before you begin writing about your life, I want you to think about how you feel about writing. We all have our personal mythology of what a writer is and does. I want you to write for fifteen minutes to complete the following sentence: A writer is someone who _______.
  
  "Write for fifteen minutes without stopping, letting yourself explore the possibilities. Let go of all your inhibitions and enjoy yourself. Remember to be honest. When you are finished, take a look at what you have written. Did anything surprise you?
  
  "If you are working with a partner, take turns reading what each of you has written and discuss the work."
  (Janet Lynn Roseman, The Way of the Woman Writer, 2nd ed. Haworth, 2003)



• Writers Write
  "If you simply define a writer as someone who is writing, clarity sets in. You're truly a writer when you're writing; and if you don't write regularly, don't pretend to give yourself that title. 'Start writing more,' Ray Bradbury tells would-be writers at conferences, 'it'll get rid of all those moods you're having.'"
  (Kenneth John Atchity, A Writer's Time: Making the Time to Write, rev. ed. W.W. Norton, 1995)



• You Are a Writer
  "A writer is a writer. You care about writing. It isn't men or women. . . . You sit down, you write, you are not a woman, or an Italian. You are a writer."
  (Natalia Ginzburg, interviewed by Mary Gordon, "Surviving History." The New York Times Magazine, Marc. 25, 1990)



• What Is a Writer Like?
  "A writer is like a bean plant: he has his little day, and then gets stringy."
  (attributed to E.B. White)



• "Being a writer is like being one of those riskily overbred pedigree dogs--a French bulldog, for instance--poorly suited for survival despite their very special attributes.
  
  "Being a writer is in defiance of Darwin's observation that the more highly specialized a species, the more likelihood of extinction."
  (Joyce Carol Oates, A Widow's Story: A Memoir. HarperCollins, 2011)



• "A writer is like a Gypsy. He owes no allegiance to any government. If he is a good writer he will never like the government he lives under. His hand should be against it and its hand will always be against him."
  (Ernest Hemingway, letter to Ivan Kashkin, Aug. 19, 1935)



• "Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life."
  (attributed to Lawrence Kasdan)



• "On the whole, professional writers are a lot of whining bastards who wouldn't last a day in a real job. . . . The true mortification of being a writer is having to meet other writers from time to time, and listen to their mundane egotistical rantings."
  (Duncan McLean, quoted by Jim Fisher in The Writer's Quotebook: 500 Authors on Creativity, Craft, and the Writing Life. Rutgers Univ. Press, 2006)

Pronunciation: RI-ter