When Are You a Writer?

 A couple of months ago I mentioned how much I hated the Amazon movie The Tender Bar.  The main character, JR, quotes someone as saying that you're a writer as soon as you think you are.  At the end of the movie he says that leaving Long Island to go to Manhattan makes him a writer.  Um...why?  It seems more arbitrary than Luke Skywalker declaring himself a Jedi because he fought Vader a second time.  And then arbitrarily declaring himself a Master later on.  

As for the quote, whoever said it might have been famous, but I don't agree that thinking you're a writer makes you one.  To me, you actually have to write something to be a writer.  And really I think you have to write something all the way through.  Once you type "The End" (or some variation) then you've actually become a writer.

Because the thing is, plenty of people can THINK of writing a book.  People all the time think about writing something.  Many of them never do it.  Many others will start but never reach the end.  I do not consider those people to be writers.

Think of it this way:  if someone enters a marathon but doesn't actually go, are they a marathon runner?  No.  Just because they thought about it doesn't mean they did it, thus they don't earn the title.  If they run part of the way and pass out and never finish then they might be a runner, but they are not a marathon runner because they did not actually run a marathon.

It should be pretty obvious but thinking of doing something doesn't mean you did it.  That's some pretty lame Millennial bullshit where you should get credit for something you didn't come close to doing.  What the kid leaving for New York has to do with him being a writer, I have no idea.  New York is filled with writers and people who might think they're writers but never actually DO anything and people who might start some writing but never finish.  All that along with plenty of real writers who actually publish books to make them authors.

Since JR published a memoir (God only knows why anyone published it) he did eventually become a writer (and an author) but just thinking he was a writer and leaving his home did not make him one.

But that's my opinion.