What Ultimately Defines Me?

I am a huge fan of film, but not to the point of snobbery.  I love movies of all shapes and sizes and from almost every era.  I enjoy both cheesy chic flicks and the deeper independent films alike.  I know that movies like “How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days” do not exactly define great cinematography, but they are certainly entertaining.  I am also not always in the mood for the deeper more artistic films like “Requiem For A Dream”; sometimes I just need to laugh.  So, I suppose the movie I choose to watch any given day has a lot to do with the mood I am in at that moment.

Last Thursday evening, my mom and I went to the movies for a girls night out.  Hubby had played basketball with a friend the night before and, since he wanted to watch the NBA draft (something I was not particularly interested in, though I do like basketball), it seemed like the perfect night to have some girl time with my mom (we missed you Heid!).  I guess we were both in more of an artistic film mood (though, there was definitely a twist of romantic comedy) because we chose to see the wonderfully thought provoking “Midnight In Paris”, a Woody Allen film with Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams.

Here is a brief Fandango synopsis of the movie (I recommend reading the longer NYT Historical Review too):

A romantic comedy about a family on a business trip in the City of Light. As a young couple engaged to be married experiences a profound transformation during their visit to Paris, an idealistic man with a romanticized view of the city finds that there’s plenty of truth to that old adage about the grass being greener on the other side.

The movie opens with a dialogue between him and his fiancee, Inez (played by Rachel McAdams), regarding Paris in the 1920s and his desire for the ability experience the city in that period of time.  Without giving too much away, by some strange turn of events, Owen Wilson’s character, Gil, comes into contact with his literary icons from the twenties.

Gil is a former (very successful) Hollywood screenwriter, who has decided to give up the job he never really enjoyed to pursue his dream career as a novelist.  He is working on a book that he has not let anyone read, including his fiancee (not surprisingly, considering her lack of confidence in his ability to write a novel).  Nonetheless, every – single – time Gil introduces himself to the people he meets from 1920s Paris, he defines himself as a writer and, more specifically, a novelist.

After watching the movie, I was left wondering what ultimately defines someone as a writer?  I mean, there are various forms of writing and Gil was clearly a writer in some form, given his success as a screenwriter, but he begins to specifically identify himself as a novelist as the movie goes on and he gains more confidence.

I have enjoyed reading and writing for as long as I can remember.  I used to jump up and down with eager excitement every time my mom mentioned going to the library to take out new books.  I would run to a quiet room and begin reading those books as soon as we returned from the library and get very frustrated whenever someone would interrupt me.  I also used to write short stories and excitedly share them with my family.  Up until senior year of high school, when I was pushed towards math and science (due to the lack of female interest, as well as my grades, in those subjects).  But, then again in college, though I picked a  more technical school, I chose to major in Political Science with an English Literature Minor.

I did not pursue writing after graduation, however.  I did not major in journalism and I did not know how to find freelance writing opportunities, so I gave up on my dream as a writer and pursued a career in a field in which I already had connections: Information Technology.  For some reason, it was not until after I decided to resign from my career as a data warehousing and migration developer, that I started blogging.  Probably because, until then, no one I knew blogged and I had no idea what it really was.

I have been blogging for about a year now, and I find more and more enjoyment in writing about… well, just about everything I experience.  So, does that make me a writer?  Is someone a writer because that is where their passion is or that is how their brain works?  Or will I only be considered a writer after I have been recognized as such by another writer?  And, probably a whole other post in itself, should anyone really define who he/she is, by what he/she does for a living or in his/her spare time?  What are your thoughts?

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