I am considering changing my user name.

[Writer]

Writer: One who writes; assumably, one who writes fiction. Makes money doing it. Is good at it.

Writer the DU'er: A failed fiction writer; lacking the ambition and discipline to make it work; is now earning a doctorate in a different field.

Over the last year or more, I've had a few approach me, asking me for tips on writing and publishing. I haven't yet published a single piece (although I have tried.) I've taken two fiction-writing classes, which were somewhat successful, but I haven't yet "broken through," as it were. I've tried, but so far in my life, have failed.

So, should I change my user name? Should it be Wannabe Writer? Writer the Pathetic? Writer the Latent Media Scholar? What? I'm NOT a Writer now, unfortunately.

Please - help me through my virtual existential crisis! (I've already dealt with the real one.)

Sincerely,

~Writer the Perplexed~

[Boojatta]

1. Start drawing pictures and posting them on DU...

or accept that here you are a writer.

[Writer]

3. If I were to do that, it would be a bunch of crudely drawn boobs. n/t

[Boojatta]

7. Compromise: change your name to Riter.

It's related to rites and rituals and so on. We can make a pact. I could change my name to Oojatta.

[Writer]

9. How very Roland Barthes of you.

We should combine together and create a myth: Ooriter.

[DS1]

2. How about Writer_Lady

?

[Writer]

4. ...

Wally?

:rofl:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. My dear Writer!

Did you realize that you've just passed 15,000 posts?

Well, you did.

And if you change your name, you lose all of those...

You go back to ZERO.

Now, this would matter to me...

Maybe not to you, though...

Just thought I'd point it out!

And, BTW, I don't think of you as failed...

You are a writer, even though you haven't published anything yet.

You will.

:hug:

[Writer]

6. Well if I could rename you, it would be CalPeg the Positive.

You're always so uplifting.

But no, I didn't realize I had just passed 15K posts. Do I get a prize?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. Alas, no prizes!

I was just pointing out what I see as important...

I consider myself a poet even though I haven't published anything yet...

Outside of my college's literary magazine, anyway...

:hug:

Thanks, sweetie!

[Crabby Appleton]

10. "The Once and Future Writer" nt

[Writer]

12. Hrmmm... a little more heroic than I deserve. n/t

[TZ]

11. Posterformerlyknownaswriter?

Hey, it worked for Prince....;-)

[Writer]

13. Wouldn't I need to create a symbol for my name?

Something obtusely sexual with a few extra swirls added?

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

14. You publish something every single time you post here.

Think about it.

[mwooldri]

15. Writer, your username is A-OK with me :)

Besides usernames only give a hint behind the person. Do you like writing? That's good enough for me.

My username was well chosen for me, thanks be to the University of Dundee and Unix.

Mark.

[struggle4progress]

16. How about "Writher"?

If you need advice, you'll be glad to hear I'm full of it!

(1) Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaYJaFWTHgM

(2) Start doing something interesting, or learning about something interesting, that people might want to read about: call up all the ministers in your town to find out how they lost their virginity, or find out where every single component in your computer was manufactured and what the environmental and labor consequences were, or research Mr Writer's family history until you can identify all the black sheep in his family for the last ten generations, or something

and importantly

(3) Repeat compulsively: "I is a writer! I are gonnas write meself out of this here funk!" Then pick ten silly projects (e.g. redoing Moby Dick in the style of the Dick and Jane readers or recasting The Odyssey as a series of limericks). Every single day, get up at 5AM and pound the keyboard until it's noon or until you have written five thousand words

<edit: cuz one of my suggestions weren't very original>

[Parche]

17. Change It To Written

:woohoo: :hi: :hug:

[hunter]

18. In unfamiliar grocery stores I have to hunt for the tofu.

You are far more a writer than I am a hunter.

:hi:

[kentauros]

21. Does that mean a nick-change is on the horizon for you, too?

If so, then go for "Tofu Gatherer"

[DarkTirade]

19. I hadn't written anything in a LONG time

but I still consider myself to be a bit of a writer. That part of me may not have surfaced anytime recently, but it's still in there. Maybe it will again.

And maybe it will for you too. :hug:

[kentauros]

20. Okay, if you're going to change it due to past problems in the field,

then go with the past tense:

Written

Writ

:P

[struggle4progress]

22. Not sure what the past tense of "Writer" would be: "Wroter"? "The Late Writer"?