The Life-Cycle of a Book
you’re right, parts of this are hard…
Last week, my writing group discussed the difference between a writer and an author. Writers, we decided are creators and artists — the act of writing is what makes you a writer. Anyone can decide to be a writer and dedicate themselves to this career.
An author is made by others. You have to have an external product to be an author, a finished piece of work: a book. Imagine it in terms of actors and movie stars: you can be an actor in any of a hundred ways, even a kid who is a liar is a kind of actor, but movie stars must have been in at least one movie in their lives — you can’t be a movie star before starring in a movie.
Until then, you are aspiring.
(Nothing wrong with aspiring.)
But this is not about the creator, but about the thing that is created — the book itself.
A book begins as a piece of art. The process is magic. It is godlike. It is literally the act of creation of something from nothing. It doesn’t matter if the process is pedantic and organized and full of research. It doesn’t matter if it is drug-infused and the writer doesn’t remember any of it when it is done. It doesn’t matter if it is none of those things and all of them. It is simply a fact that creation happens — a blank page must fill with words.
