Being a writer

BEING A WRITER


I still remember a famous journalist we had once here, in Brazil. She had a column in a newspaper where she wrote very good articles and she often made her articles the answers to readers who addressed to her in search of advice. One of these was an answer to a person who asked her about his or her possibilities as to being a writer. The article was called "The Message" and I cut it out and kept it for so many years that the paper became yellow. Of course it had been written for me, too. I used to read it every time I needed encouragement, every time I found that the time would never come when I would be able to write something good. ( By the way, what is good?)

She said that everybody has a message to deliver. Some people do it through their work, like painters and singers. Even people who are not artists, like waiters, doctors, nurses and so many others are in fact delivering a message. What makes a person a writer is the fact that he (or she) is not satisfied with what he (or she) does. It´s simply not enough.Writers are people who may have a happy family, a pleasant work to do, a successful career to pursue, but still need to write. She said that if everything is all right, if all the others are sleeping quietly and you just "have to" sit at your computer and write, then you´re a writer.

She ended her article saying that it was important to develop the tool writers use, which is the knowledge of the language. And practicing. And living.