Prep Work

In less than a week I’ll be mailing off my manuscript to the publisher for them to read and to say this is wonderful/awful/meh. And I’ll be one step closer to being a published have a book in my hands writer. It’s still something I can’t wrap my head around. I’ve spent so much of my life working towards this goal that I can’t actually believe it’s real. I probably won’t even believe it when I have the book in my hands. I suppose now I can go onto the more finicky desire of I want to be a published fiction writer.

Talking to a friend on Monday I said that I couldn’t say that I was an aspiring author any more. She said interesting thin back.

“Writers write books; authors wrote books.”

Which seemed like an odd idea or an odd differentiation.

But after thinking about it for a while I realized that it did make sense.

A writer writes. Getting published doesn’t stop a writer from writing. They will still march onto the next project or projects. They sometimes can’t stop. They may not get all their projects published, but they will still keep on going. Writing has a very active and mobile feeling to it. You can see people writing. Their fingers move on keyboards or they scribbling on pads of paper with pens. Always a constant movement. (Except when they’re staring out into space because of Reasons.)

Authors, authoring doesn't feel very kinetic. It’s the photograph of the writer posing at the back of the book. It’s still and done. You have authored something, you’re not authoring. You’ve authored a book. You can’t really see someone authoring.

So, I think I will be a published writer and perhaps when I’m dead I can be a published author.