How to spot a writer

Apologies for going a bit off-topic, but someone mentioned tweed.
To understand tweed one needs to understand Harris Tweed. There are other (inferior) tweeds but Harris Tweed is the one.
Have a wander around https://www.harristweed.org/
It is hard wearing, warm, light, and entirely natural (100% wool).
And hand-made.
And comes in a million and one different colours/patterns.
There’s a Harris Tweed for everyone.
These two random photos of Harris Tweed samples may surprise you re the range/variety available.


12 Likes

I found no non-paywall route to the article but I strongly defend these definitions:

One is a writer while one is writing or editing. One is a photographer while one is photographing, or pre- or post-processing. One is a guitarist or banjoist or fiddler while one’s fingers abuse strings. Dictating into a voice recorder whilst bicycling is dictating, not writing, unless one’s voice-to-text AI is really hot. Carrying a loaded 'ukulele case down a sidewalk, I am a pedestrian, not a bad musician.

We ARE something whilst we DO that something. Right now, I’m a couch slug.

4 Likes

The plural of anecdote is not necessarily a publisher’s advance.

5 Likes

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully trying to find a “fountain pen accident” gif, but just can’t seem to find one.

You know, “spotting” a writer. Then maybe blotting them also.

11 Likes

That is their underwear, they’re Brits in Scotland…

5 Likes

But they aren’t true Scotsmen.

7 Likes

I know the one.

8 Likes

today i will waste seven hours

17 Likes

My parents were both in publishing, my father a “writer” my mother an actual publisher… and I must say that the pretension of calling one’s self a writer has always been a bugbear of mine.

My father got up at 6:30, was at the typewriter (later computer) at 7:30, wrote until about noon, spent the afternoon doing other things (dropping of manuscripts, shopping for groceries, playing tennis). After dinner he spent several hours reading manuscripts for the next day’s work. My mother left for the office by 8, home by 7ish, spent the evening after dinner reading manuscripts and editing, and spent most of the weekend reading manuscripts and editing.

The key point is that they got paid for their work. Some of it was stuff that they were proud of, some of it was real drek. But they made enough money for us to have decent lives. I’ve observed a lot of people claiming to be writers, who may or may not have written well, but who did not actually depend on writing to pay their rent and food. The pretense really irritates me.

3 Likes

Writing for a living is akin to playing music for a living: many try, few succeed.

10 Likes

I’ll strongly disagree here. A writer is someone who writes. If they get published or self-published or whatever is immaterial. The whole “real” writer thing is an unnecessary and harmful status game just like being a “real” gamer.

The only time I would use writer in quotation marks is if they don’t, in fact, do any writing at all (which, admittedly, is a fair number).

9 Likes

By this reasoning I’m a chef, a carpenter, a programmer, a house painter… which seems rather an insult to those who actually do any of these things professionally.

I completely agree that there is not always a indisputable distinction between professional/amateur, there is a spectrum. But there seem to be a disproportionate number of people who are clearly on the dilitante end who assume a professional identity which appears to me to be aspirational rather than actual.

So I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. That’s ok :slight_smile:

4 Likes

I am a writer. But only in JavaScript and related stuff. :robot:

6 Likes

You lost me at moleskine. Isn’t that just shorthand for “impossibly privileged and entitled, I create because my trust fund means I don’t have to work?”

Oh, that’s a good point, about different kinds of writing… isn’t writing code also writing? It’s just in a different language, but the end goal is the same - communication, only in this case, to a computer, which will hopefully communicate with other humans…

True. It’s also important to note that some people who write as part of their living (me, @fnordius, others) aren’t called writers, but by different professions.

10 Likes

And every last one of them is fecking ugly as sin! :face_with_raised_eyebrow::wink:

1 Like

Maybe not encourage all aspirations unreservedly?

A little precious. A little self-deprecatingly superior. Dangerously twee.
Not insightful, funny, or even entertaining.
Almost painfully New Yorker Magazine.

3 Likes

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

1 Like

Keeping notes in a $10 notebook means you’re a trust fund baby?

LOLWUT

On the other hand, there are alternatives to the Moleskine that are cheaper, sure. I used to work in the newspaper business and I’m a lefty, so I prefer steno pads. The pages are about the same size as a Moleskine, and you can get a 12-pack at Staples for $22.

3 Likes