Am I a fake writer? 
The other day, I had a (very brief) conversation with someone, a conversation that both vex and confused me. This persona asked me what I did for a living, and I replied “I write for a living.” When he asked what I wrote, I told him that I did technical writing corporate writing, articles, and the like. His face bunched briefly with a perplexed look, and he blurted out “Oh, you’re not a real writer.”
After a bit of probing, I found out that he thought a “real” writer penned short stories, novels, poetry, and such. It never occurred to him that other types of writing are valid forms of expression.
The last time that this happened to me was 14 years ago. Has this ever happened to you? If so, how did you handle the situation? Feel free to leave a comment.
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Oh, that’s really annoying!
The problem is not knowing how to handle it, I think, but in understanding that there are people who are not kind, and so they always twist things. It’s not, perhaps, that they are actively nasty people, but there are a lot of people who seem critical of everything.
I say this because I’ve been an article writer, interviewer and fiction writer, and from my own experiences, I’ve found that that same person who had the gall to say that you’re not a real writer would have said, “Oh, have you been on the New York Times bestselling list, yet?” if you told them you were a fiction writer. Or if you say that you do interviews, they expect you to name someone they’ve heard of, or they are less than impressed.
The best way to deal with that is to say, “Yes, I am a real writer. The truth is, in my field, I am much more successful and in demand than most fiction writers.” That’s a generalization, but when you think of it, it’s true. You might not be J.K. Rowling, but but you make a steady living from your writing, which most of us, including me, don’t.