When Do You Become “A Writer”?

When I first began writing for the Odyssey Online, I had a lot of trouble figuring out whether or not I could call myself “a writer.” Oftentimes I would opt for “I write for the Odyssey Online” or whatever platform I was working on at that time. I eventually came to the conclusion that I was, in fact, a writer when I had started getting asked to provide pieces for websites instead of seeking them out on my own all of the time. Looking back, I feel like it would be appropriate for me to have said I was a writer once I had been published for the first time, but there were so many milestones that I passed that also could be applicable. I can still remember staying up all night once watching the numbers on my article going up by the minute, and ending up with thousands of views and hundreds of comments on the company Facebook page. However, there have been some negative milestones that also made me start to feel like a writer. That same article, about anxiety self-diagnosis, also received a lot of negative feedback from people who disagreed, some of which contained some colorful language. I remember telling my boyfriend that I was actually happy because “all press is good press” and it was the first time my engagement numbers had been that high.

I still consider myself to be a beginner at content creating, and see my own website/ blog as a good way of starting out with my own personal brand of writing. I have recently started branching out to paid writing positions, and I am hoping to get a job writing for a publication.

For those of you out there who write, when did you first consider yourself a writer? Was it after your first piece was published, or did it take you awhile to get used to the idea?