Why are we so often tempted to do something we know we shouldn’t?

For example, I’m terrified of heights.  Yet whenever I stand at the top of a multi-floored building, peering down at the tiny cars and tinier people below… I invariably wonder what it would feel like to jump, and hurtle twenty or thirty stories down.

For a few seconds, at least, it must be exhilarating.  Amazing.

But then there’s the inevitable, messy ending to consider – so I draw back, my palms clammy, and remain (sensibly) right where I am, on solid ground.

And so it is with the decision to call myself a writer.  For years, when asked what I do for a living (a question one gets asked with tiresome frequency in Washington, D.C.) I would dutifully smile and state my job title.  Then I’d hesitate and add, ‘And I write a bit on the side, as well.’

I suppose I feared that if I actually came out and said “I’m a writer,” the ground would open up and swallow me whole, and I’d go straight to Hell… with no return ticket.

I imagine my visit to the Inferno would go something like this:

“So you’re a writer?” the devil sneers, and eyes me with studied malevolence.  (For some reason, I picture Peter Cook as the devil.)

“Well… erm, yes.”  Despite my trembling knees, I screw up all my courage and say more confidently, “Yes.  I’m a writer.”

“You audacious little worm!” he roars.  “You have no six-figure book deal!  You’re not on the bestseller lists!  Your book hasn’t even been optioned!”  He cups his hand around his red, pointy ear and hisses, “Do you hear the phone ringing?  No?  Neither do I – because Hollywood isn’t calling!”

“B-but they might do, one day,” I protest, and wish my knees would stop knocking together.  “It could happen.  Possibly.”

“Oh, don’t make me laugh!  You’re nothing but a lowly, pathetic little scribbler,” he snarls, “and that’s all you’ll EVER be!”

With that, he knocks his pitchfork twice upon the ground and vanishes in a huge puff of lurid green smoke.

So you can see why I never quite dared to call myself “a writer.”  Because surely that title only belongs to a published writer, a famous writer; not an unknown, wannabe scribbler like myself.  After all, I’m no Ernest Hemingway, no J.K. Rowling.

But I’ve changed my mind.  I am a writer, damn it.  And I think it’s time to own it.

I may not be published (yet), and I may only be known to a few hundred (very discerning) people, but I do, by definition, write.  I’ve written three books all the way through to “The End,” and am halfway through the fourth.  I’ve secured a literary agent who was impressed enough with my writing to offer me representation.

I’ve given up most of my weekends, lunch hours (what are those?), and nights out with the girls to write.  I’ve taken classes in social media and tax law for writers.  I maintain a weekly blog and a website, and I post random things about myself and about my writing journey on Twitter, using 140 characters or less.

Surely that qualifies me as a writer.  I write, therefore I am.

So I will fear not, and I will walk unafraid through the valley of the shadow of the uncertain future of publishing; and one day, perhaps (if I’m very lucky and if I don’t give up), I shall see my word in print.

And that nasty fellow with the foul temper and the pitchfork will just have to deal with it.