by Clare Callow

Created on: July 11, 2008   Last Updated: January 30, 2009

Sometimes I wish I was less of a cynic. If I was, I could contemplate the above topic with the seriousness it deserves. As it is, I find myself shaking my head, wondering exactly how bored people have to be to sit themselves down, plan, compose and then publish an essay which ponders the question of how one becomes an author.

My weariness comes from a certain sadness for those who cannot see that the answer is fairly simple: you become an author when you get published. That's it, folks.

Seriously. Authorship is not a measure of quality, of achievement, or really of anything other than the possibility that someone may have viewed your work. (So much sadder than the callowness of the question is the fact that it points out the most depressing thing about being a writer: namely, that being published is considered a sign of talent, and the reverse a sign of failure.) 'Author' is a label, pure and simple; unfortunately, it's just as much of a mind-twister as any label can be.

Look it up in any dictionary: 'author' is the writer of a book, article or text. I say 'writer' here, but in fact the more definite title is 'creator', as authorship can belong to those who construct scientific code or compose music.

Authorship, since the advent of internet publishing, has become slightly more problematical than it used to be. These days, calling oneself an author means in real terms even less than it used to, as anyone can ensure that their work gets published somewhere. Those who rely on titles might find their stock depreciating slightly with this development.

'An author is any person who instigates, or gives existence to, something,' notes the relevant author of the entry on authorship in Wikipedia, in a fit of positivism about human existence. This definition is, sadly, too broad to be terribly meaningful, but I encourage all writers to hold it to yourself in times of self-doubt. An author, at the most basic of levels, is someone who creates. From a mother with her children to an monkey scratching in the dirt, everyone is an author of something. As you can guess from the description above, the title is not the important thing: it's the nature of your creation that truly counts.

Asking how one becomes an author, with the unspoken assumption that an author is a thing to want to be, is like asking how one becomes a giraffe. It's a status thing: you either are or you aren't. If you aren't, perform the necessary operation: put on the spotty coat, stand on a ladder stretching your neck out and start eating leaves. Publish something. If you can't manage it, don't worry; you're still a writer. It takes others to label you as a giraffe.

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