Can anyone write?
That depends. It depends on what word you mean when you say “write.” Do you mean “make letters on a surface”? Or some other definition?
“Can anyone write?” is a subject for a longer post. I’ll get around to writing it. Someday. Let’s ask the question a different way:
Can anyone be a writer?
No.
I own a phone with a built-in camera. I sometimes use that camera to take photographs. That does not make me a photographer.
You may know how to fix an amazing martini. That does not make you a bartender.
We have a piano in our front room. I sometimes sit down at it and pick out notes with one or two fingers. That does not make me a pianist.
You may care for your partner when he or she is too sick to get out of bed. That does not make you a nurse.
I used to write my parents letters with some of the news from wherever I was living. That did not make me a journalist.
I’ve already outlined 5 duties of a technical writer. Even there, I left things out. And that was a narrow topic compared to whether anyone can be a writer.
If not everyone can be a writer, then what does it take to be a writer?
It takes a human being who can write. And “write” doesn’t mean “form letters.”
To be a writer, you must create writing that communicates. If you write “Clean up your room” on a sticky-note, that doesn’t make you a writer any more than putting the sticky note on your teenager’s door makes you a publisher.
It may mean that you can write. May. But it does not mean that you are now a writer.
When Irish-American author Colum McCann wrote Letters to a Young Writer, he was interviewed for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Sunday Magazine programme. Mr McCann said, “…it’s about stamina, and it’s about perseverance. It’s about putting your rear end in the chair….”
I don’t want to be elitist. You can be a writer if you can’t afford a chair. I don’t want to be ableist. You can be a writer if you can’t sit in a chair, and you can be a writer if you dictate because your hands don’t work or because you don’t have hands.
But you have at least the chance to become a writer if writing is something you do.
Aren’t you glad that I didn’t raise the question “Can anyone be an author?