Now, there is a reason for this: saying who I am and what I do isn’t something I find particularly easy. I do a lot of different things. Firstly I’m a writer. I write. But I write all sorts: poems, short stories, flash fiction, my book for children (which is back in stock at Amazon) – and goodness knows what else. And I run workshops. And a writing group. And I’ve had features published. And photographs.

So. Anyway. I decided, a little while ago, that the most appropriate definition of me, one which would appear at the top of this blog, was: Writer and Poet. 

I kept it simple. 

Last week, I stumbled upon a blog who’d kindly linked to me. It belongs to Emerging Writer and is well worth a look.

What she said initially made me chuckle (in a nice way), because she wondered how I created poems (if I didn’t write them: writer and poet, see?).

And then I worried: had I said something really silly? I scuttled, very quickly, to my OED and was relieved because it said, quite clearly, that writers are people who write (books, stories, articles, as an occupation) and poets are people who write poems. 

But it got me thinking. Of course a poet is a writer. Poets write poems.

The thing is, for me, writing poetry and writing stories are two totally different things. They require me to be in a totally different head space and are created, just, differently. So to me, a writer is different to a poet (and by no means in a bad way). Writing poems and writing stories are two different things. I’m not saying one is better than the other, just that they’re different (actually, I find poetry much more difficult); probably in the same way as writing novels and writing short stories are different.

So, what I want to know is, what do you think?

And I’ve changed my definition of me. Is it better, do you think?

(And thanks to Emerging Writer for making me think.)