Writing is not like knitting. ‘Writer’ is a profession, a well regarded one. ‘Knitter’ is an identity of someone with a hobby. True enough, writer can also be a hobby and professional knitters exist. But take a look at how many list each as their profession: writer is 15 times more common*.
Did you know that you could be a professional knitter? And by this, I don’t mean someone in a factory, though I would include someone operating a knitting machine which requires handicraft skills. (If you’ve not heard of knitting machines, they’re fascinating, dating back to Elizabeth I and share some history with coding, so take a detour now to the link above).
Professional knitters knit, of course. But they also create knitting patterns
“The
truth is, not everyone can – or should
- be a writer, in the same way that not everyone can or should be an
accountant, or a ballet dancer, teacher, pilot, soldier, or marathon runner.
The same combination of aptitude, experience and acquired skills apply to being
a writer as to any other job. We would never think of telling a doctor that we
were thinking of taking up medicine when we retired.”
Joanne Harris hits the nail on the head about how people undervalue professional writers. Expectations of working or providing training for free. Or the assumption that, with a bit of luck, anyone can make it as a professional writer. These are deeply unfair and unrealistic.
But, anyone can be a writer.
Gender
‘professionalism’
* I base this on some amateur sleuthing Googling of stats and cross-referenced with my experience of knowing only one knitter but several writers and wordsmithing types, but everyone loves a statistic however poorly substanstiated.
