What Can a Writer Do?

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” – Maya Angelou

For the longest time, I figured that my passion in writing meant that I would have a minuscule chance at obtaining a real job; I soon realized that my passion writing meant that I would have too many chances at getting a real job.

My name is Taheera Washington, and I’m currently a sophomore at St. Edward’s with a major in Writing and Rhetoric with a concentration in Creative Writing and a minor in Digital Marketing. From my school’s newspaper – Hilltop Views – to poetry publications like New Literati and Arete, I do just about as much writing as you would think that I do, but many writers are often faced with the question on what do we want to do – better yet, what can we do? The answer is simple – anything that requires a computer and someone else out there to read it.

In my time here at St. Edward’s, I have found that my passion for writing includes its flexibility of genres. From content development to short stories, all means of writing must fulfill the goal of informing someone out there to new information and content. Writing is an outlet for creatives while simultaneously providing people to new discoveries and epiphanies on their subject of choice.

That all potentialy sounds pompous, but trust me when I say that writing is truly my life.

In high school, I thought that I could only pursue one form of writing, so I took turns in developing my craft. For a while, poetry consumed my life to say the least. I joined the Texas Poetry Society in tenth grade and even won awards for a couple of other poems and short stories, but it wasn’t enough. I had to do more with my time; at least, that’s what my mother told me.

Becoming copy editor for my school’s press – the Panther Prints – during my senior year was the highlight of my career in my eyes. It’s what I worked for by enduring the trials and tribulations of Yearbook in ninth grade, and it paid off by providing scholarships and expanding my knowledge as a writer through my craft. Understanding AP style and normal grammar rules made me, for lack of a better term, more powerful as a writer. It’s like I unlocked a new skill in a video game, and now I could use it to its full potential.

Except I didn’t and moved onto something entirely different. I was keen on becoming a writer of pride, wanting to become more like, Jericho Brown, Toni Morrison, or James Baldwin in terms of excellence for my community. In starting my own e-book series on Issuu.com a year ago, I found that establishing myself as a freelance writer was to be difficult. It required a level of marketing, social prominence, and confidence to build up a reputation and following deemed worthy of such pride. However, it aided in developing my graphic design skills since there’s no one else other than me that sees my work before it goes online.

Still, that wasn’t enough for me. It should’ve been, but it wasn’t.

As a writer, it is essential that you push yourself to your limits. If you think you know everything, then you’re either egotistical or you’re shortening yourself of your capabilities; for a good writer to be considered ‘good’, they must be well rounded. Interning at the Texas Book Festival as a Development and Finance Intern pushed me to my limits. I was thrown completely out of my comfort zone with the mentioning of finance; this was before I decided fully to become a Digital Marketing minor. Creating Excel sheets, contacting publicists and authors, organizing files, answering business calls, taking count of books… it was all things I didn’t consider to be in my line of work. How can a writer be trusted to do anything related to math? I didn’t understand then, but the difficulties faced there were a learning curve. If I limit myself to what I can and cannot do, then how will I be able to grow?

So, now we’re here. What can a writer do? A better question to ask is what can’t one do, but to answer our looming question, a writer can do whatever they allow themselves to be capable to do. In having the will to succeed, they must be impassioned by their passion to write to continue learning.