What Makes a Writer?

The cashier gave a visible start when she opened the box that contained my new running shoes. “Whoa!” she said as she jumped back a little. I can’t blame her; they are very pink. My daughter later told me she thinks they probably glow in the dark. At 70 percent off, I wasn’t going to quibble over the color.

She asked, “Did you try them on?” Um, yes. I spent the better part of an hour walking around the store with different shoes on each foot, looking up reviews on my phone. I had done more research than was warranted for the amount of use these shoes are likely to get. Her next question gave me pause: “Are you a runner?” I think I stammered a bit and then said, “well, I’m buying them to run in.”

You see, several of my friends run marathons, triathlons, and ultramarathons. Compared to them I’m not a runner. In fact, each spring I start again, shuffling around the block, intermittently running and walking. With all my fits and starts due to one thing and another, by the end of the summer I’m lucky if I can run 2 or 3 miles without stopping. By August of this year I had run about twenty times in my new shoes. I don't feel like I’m worthy of the name runner.

But that’s not really the point. I bought running shoes and I intend to wear them to run. Not fast, and not as far as I’d like, but running nonetheless. And that makes me a runner. I just need to own it, and to learn to define what I do not in comparison to others, but as a calling of my own. Progress, not performance. Practice, not perfection.

It’s kind of like that with writing. For many years I’ve called myself an editor who also writes. I think that was partly a way of protecting myself from expectations or responsibility. I will never be a Hemingway or even an Ann Voskamp, just as I will never be a marathoner. But that doesn’t mean I am not a writer.

Last year, as I shuttled my youngest off to all-day school for the first time, I asked God to give me a job to do, and I told him I’d do anything. You can use me for whatever you want, just make it useful in your Kingdom. In response, he sent me writing—lots of it. So here I am, a year later, a writer who also edits. Semantics to many, but a seismic shift in identity for me.

That redefinition frees me up to devote time to writing, whether or not what I’m working on gets past draft stage. In the honing of any craft, there are bound to be some failures along the way. It also helps me to be okay with the little part I have in the world of words. Like it is with so many other things in life, I can’t compare my gift or results to someone else’s. God has writing for me that I can do, in my voice and with my abilities, and I trust him to use it to help someone, somewhere, see more of his beauty and truth.

Defining myself as a writer is also a challenge for me. I need to set myself to the task, even on days when it’s hard and even when the tasks I am assigned feel too difficult. Really, it’s not that different from running. One foot in front of the other, one word after another, some days harder than others, all for progress that isn’t linear. The hardest part is putting on your shoes . . . picking up your pen . . . and adventuring into the unknown.

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