On Being a Writer

I always wanted to be a writer. I met a published writer one day quite by accident. His name was Cameron Mitchell. (No, not the old cowboy movie actor.) While hiking to the observation deck at the top of Mount Mitchell in North Carolina I paused to ask a sophisticated, older gentleman to snap my picture against the backdrop of distant mountain peaks. He agreed. As I handed him my camera it slipped, fell, and bounced off his boot. Fortunately, the camera was not damaged.

After joking about our lucky breaks (his foot breaking my camera's fall and the camera not breaking his foot), he took the photograph and we introduced ourselves. He said he was a writer, mostly magazine articles and short stories. I told him I had always dreamed of being a writer. There was an embarrassed pause.

Then, to demonstrate my talent for turning a phrase and my keen sense of irony, I said, "Gee, isn't this ironic? I dropped my camera on Cameron Mitchell on Mount Mitchell."

Another embarrassed pause, this one longer than the first.

"Could you offer me advice on how to get started as a writer?" I asked.

"Well" he said, "a writer writes."

"About what?"

"About what he knows", he said.

We muttered a few parting pleasantries and then I was alone to steep in my humiliation.

I never forgot my encounter with Cameron Mitchell nor the simple, valuable advice he offered that day. I began writing with purpose. I limited my topics to things I knew. I explored them deliberately and expressed the feelings they awakened in me. I tried to convey the importance I discovered in simple things when viewed from my perspective.

I call myself a writer now. I write. A writer writes.