Some thoughts on being a writer

Sometimes I think the most difficult part of being an English professor is understanding what it means "to be a writer." I'm convinced that 99% of my students do not think of themselves as writers; they don't write poetry or short stories, they write only when forced to for school, so they don't consider the hours they spend blogging, emailing, commenting on YouTube videos, or instant messaging "writing."

The same is also true for my colleagues in the academy, though: Our jobs depend on our writing, yet few of us talk about ourselves as writers. That's a domain held for the creative writing faculty, those who publish poetry and fiction. The rest of us wouldn't dare be so bold as to assume the label "writer," which means, in effect, that we don't consider what we do - whether it's putting together a research prospectus, a grant application, a syllabus, a lesson plan, a course website, an academic article, or a conference presentation - "writing."

This subject is on my mind more than usual because in two short weeks I'm co-directing a scholarly writing institute for 25 of my faculty colleagues. The goal of the institute, to speak concretely, is for participants to produce a text that is ready for publication. That's a tall order for five days, no doubt, although most everyone is coming in with something already written. But my goals for the institute are even loftier: I want the participants to leave the institute valuing their work as writers, seeing the texts they produce as writing, and being committed to the continual cultivation of their craft.

And so, I'm thinking of the advice I want to give to these writers. Here's what I've come up with as I reflect on my experiences as a writer and what has motivated me, since the age of eight, to write nearly every day of my life:

Write everyday, even if it's only for a few minutes.
Write because in the act of writing, I find the words, words I didn't even know were there, inside me.
Write to know that I am still real. I have substance and thought. I have ideas worth writing down.
Write because it is in the writing that the idea lives, not in the thinking of the idea or the imagining of the idea or the best intentions to give life to the idea.
Write, even if it is only for five minutes, because five minutes over and over during a day will add up to hours, and the ideas will multiply with the minutes.
Write because someday I won't be able to, and I'll miss it. Write everyday.