Struggling to be a writer

So I've been struggling to be a writer, to be a paid writer that is, but am I a writer? Can I call myself a writer? In class we've been discussing how socially constructed we all are which got me to thinking can you really call yourself a writer with no public validation? In other words are you a writer if you have no audience, if no one ever reads your words? It's kind of like that age old riddle, If a tree falls in the woods but no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound? I say yes, but it doesn't matter.

Here's a copy of my forum post from class addressing this issue.

“Although we struggle for rights over our own bodies, the very bodies for which we struggle are not quite ever only our own. The body has invariably its public dimension. Constituted as a social phenomenon in the public sphere, my body is and is not mine. Given over from the start to the world of others it bears their imprint, is formed within the crucible of social life…”  (26) In essence Butler* is pointing out that yes we are individuals with autonomous, natures, inclinations, and belief systems, but even more so we are public entities, very much socially constructed, and exist within social networks, and to deny this aspect of ourselves and our existence is to misunderstand how influential society, community, culture are on us.

Butler says we are physically dependent and physically vulnerable to one another. I had an aha moment as I realized the “truth” of Butler’s claims when as I was contemplating my career as a “writer.” I generally label myself as an “aspiring” writer and I do that because until I am “successful” society says that I am not really a writer. But it is not only society who believes that. I have bought into this as well. I can try to be autonomous in this situation and call myself and see myself as a writer despite the fact that the public has not yet made me successful (i.e, the public has not supported me enough to make a living off my talents as a writer), but there is little satisfaction in that. To be an artist is to have some public recognition and validation of that fact. Without it you’re just a wannabe.

But the case of artists aren’t so cut and dry as public recognition and validation. What about those artists who spent their whole lives working on their craft but did not receive acclaim for their talent until after their deaths? But I guess even in this case it is society who ultimately decided, albeit late, that the artist in question was indeed a legitimate talent.
*Butler, Judith. “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy.”  Undoing Gender. New

York & London: Routledge. 2004. 17-39 Print.

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