Writer. It seems to be something of a dirty word. Were I to go into a room full of Creative Writing students and ask them how many were writers, I wonder how few tentative hands I would see raised. Instead we hedge ourselves, saying we want to be authors, journalists or screenwriters: practical jobs that we can assign a label and a pay-cheque to. We all love writing, but we're ashamed of being writers. In my opinion, as soon as children enter primary school their creativity is culled. These small children are already deciding what they want to be in life: firefighters, police officers, teachers, vets or nurses; all practical and sensible occupations. To say they wanted to grow up to be a writer would be like them saying they wanted to grow into a penguin. A ridiculous notion! Anyone can write; everyone has a book in them : these are the things we're told from the beginning, and as with Rose in Who Do You Think You Are? when we try to be a writer, we're told that...
This works in its simplicity Holly. I like the way you have pared down what could easily be interpreted as a huge dilemma into a simple, yet still difficult, decision.
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