I Guess I’m a Writer

In a plane, one of my favorite places to be, I filled in the form on the tray table.

If I designed customs forms, I would make them with a crease in the middle so that they could easily fit into a pocket. As is it’s a bit of a predicament. I don’t want to just hold on to the thing while I get my bag out of the overhead compartment. I might lose it or crumple it.

I don’t want to fold it either. That might be a sign that I’m a drug dealer, or at least someone with some contempt for authority. Those bored people in the little glass booths have a lot of power. Deny my extra-long-and-thin piece of paper, and I’m in trouble.

First Name. Tynan. Sex. Male. Flight. Let me check my similarly poorly shaped ticket.

Occupation. Writer.

That’s a new one.

First it was student, then professional gambler, then pick up artist, and now it’s writer.

I wrote it automatically without consideration, and until that moment I hadn’t ever considered that I had actually become a writer.

I make money in two ways – Make Her Chase You, my book, and writing for Gadling.com. That’s writing.

And I do a lot of it. On a good week that’s an article for Gadling, a Make Her Chase You newsletter, Two articles for this site, another two for Life Nomadic, and seven little ones for Daily15.

Soon I’ll be making the bulk of my income from Conversion Doubler, at which point I’ll officially be a programmer, marketer, or maybe even an entrepreneur.

But until then, I’m a writer. I get a kick out of that. I realize, of course, that the gamut of writers range from blog/ebook authors all the way up to the literary greats like the writers for Arrested Development, and that I’m at the bottom rung.

What’s funny is that I don’t actually like writing very much. I consider it a necessary and not particularly offensive obstacle in the way of me doing things that I really like doing: telling stories, sharing my opinions, and massaging rows of small plastic squares.

For example, when I write ebooks (I’ve actually made several little ones you probably don’t know about), I never design it until the end. I love designing ebooks, so that’s my carrot at the end of the stick that gets me through the hundred or so pages of typing.

Once in a while I get the idea that I’ll write a real novel. It’s something to do, and I want to do everything, so I imagine that I will actually finish one someday (PS – congrats to my friend Tiffany for actually DOING it!).

I started one about an awkward high schooler (hmm… where did THAT inspiration come from), and then another about a kid whose father is killed, which leads him to discover that he was a government agent and then he has to go avenge him or something. I loved the idea of him finding out this huge thing so much that I never got past that point.

Now I’m thinking about some ideas for writing a “how to live an awesome life” book. That’s what I need… another project…