The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#50) -- Considering Yourself a Writer

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

From: http://familynatters.blogspot.com/

I guess I first considered myself a "real" writer when I entered my first college competition and won. It was judged by Judith Ortiz Cofer, and to have a nationally recognized literary author choose my story over all the others really gave my self-confidence a boost and let me know that maybe I could do this thing called writing.

I first considered myself a professional writer the day I got my first paycheck, which wasn't much. It was a 25 dollar check from the local paper, The Alpharetta Revue, for a stringer job, but it was money I got paid for writing. It could have been a million dollars and I couldn't have felt prouder.

The day I got my first paying work for comics and for fiction, however... Well, after that, my self-confidence slid the slippery slope toward ego, and I have never turned back.