When can you say you are a writer? Is it once you’ve published something? Is it when you decide to seriously pursue the art of words? Is it when someone reads something you’ve written and tells you it’s good? Is it when someone else calls you a writer?

I can’t definitively say what makes or doesn’t make someone a writer. I can, however, share what makes me feel like a writer. Feeling like a writer, for me, is a conditional state. I have yet to discover a way to exist as a writer without effort and discipline. To reach the state of writer, I have to be consumed in a story that I am developing. I say developing and not writing purposefully. My stories grow in my mind as I mull over characters, their motivations, their backstories, key plot points, conflicts, etc. I love to listen to music while I shower or while I go on walks with our son that jives with the story I am currently developing, and I will just imagine my characters in situations that my story creates and imagine what their most genuine reactions will be. When I think I have something good, I’ll write it into my story outline or do my best to write the scene as soon as I can while it is fresh in my mind. When the inspiration is flowing like this, I get a creative high and I feel like a writer. I have the thought, “I would really enjoy analyzing this with the high schoolers I teach,” and I have shared stories with them before, immensely enjoying the discussion that followed. 

The Google Drive that houses my fiction is a mad scientist’s lair, filled with mongrel unfinished creatures–some with only eyes and a finger, others only legs, and others just grimey toe nails.

Yet, there are other days, weeks, and months where I don’t feel like a writer at all. The guilt of so many unfinished creative projects rests like a spectre over my keyboard. The Google Drive that houses my fiction is a mad scientist’s lair, filled with mongrel unfinished creatures–some with only eyes and a finger, others only legs, and others just grimey toe nails. Yet, if I could talk with you about all the incomplete beasts, I could describe all their missing members and bits–I just can’t seem to get myself to write about them as much as I should.

“What you can always do is set the table for art to come in, and you can’t guarantee that will come in but you can invite it.”

– Neil Gaiman

That is where this website comes in. Like a gym membership, I bought this URL in hopes that the commitment to pay for it would motivate me to write more. To finish building the half-alive art that lurks in the alleys of my mind. Maybe it will work. I hope it does. Neil Gaiman once said, “What you can always do is set the table for art to come in and you can’t guarantee that will come in but you can invite it” (from Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert Ep. 207). I can’t guarantee that everything I write will be amazing or even good, but I can guarantee that I write. Whether it is good or bad, I’ve never felt awful when working on a story. The creative work is life-giving. The act of creating stories and characters fills an empty space that has existed my whole life. So I’ll keep writing. Feel free to tell me what you think about any of it. 

I feel like a writer when I am writing, but I hope to one day exist as a writer. 

Stephen Nothum

_{was born in St. Louis, Missouri. From a young age he was crafting stories, mainly sprawling epics with action figures. He is a graduate from Brigham Young University with a BA in English Teaching and currently a high school teacher in Eugene, Oregon. When he can get himself to, Stephen likes to write scholarly articles about education and fiction that explores how individuals perceive their reality and what happens when conflicting realities collide. Stephen’s favorite writers are C.S. Lewis, Ray Bradbury, and Will Sheff.}

_{Stephen has published fiction, poetry, and scholarly work in a variety of academic and literary journals. He has presented at state and national conferences on writing and teaching writing, and has worked as a professional consultant to teachers helping them improve their craft.}