Why a pet turtle?

I am a writer. Forgive me for repeating myself, but, I am a writer. I had to practice saying that. I am a writer. For years it was, “I want to be a writer.” That was my response to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and its taller equivalent, “What are you planning to do next?” At some point the “want to be” seemed silly. When do you cross over from the “want to be” to “am?” I’m not sure, but in the years of journaling, the hundreds of college papers, the newspaper articles written freelance, and the smattering of poetry throughout it all, surely I crossed over. The first time I was paid for something I wrote, the first time something I wrote appeared in a publication people had to pay for, the first time someone I worked with said I was a good writer—was that it?
I remember feeling like a liar the first time I said I was writing a novel. The responses were fairly standard.
“Oh,” from the non-writers.
“Yeah,” plus a half laugh from the writers, followed invariably by a page count, “I got to page 32 on my novel.”
When I finished mine I felt so justified. I had done what so many others didn’t really think I would get around to doing. I must have been a writer at that point. The sense of accomplishment slowly evaporated, however, with that eternal question, “What are you planning to do next?” Sometimes I say, “I am an unpublished author,” rather than “I am a writer.” It raises fewer questions, though the same amount of eyebrows.
Having done both, I can honestly say that I prefer writing to the trying to get my writing published. So, why do I bother? Why not just write for writing’s sake and leave careful instructions in my will that all the journals should be cremated along with my body? It can’t be money. If I thought I could make money from clever wordplay, I wouldn’t drive myself to cubicle land five days a week.
There’s that nagging need for someone to read it. If someone writes a note in a forest and no one ever reads it, isn’t it just paper? Someone else has to read it. They have to read it and respond. They have to love it or hate it or walk away perplexed by it. They have to take the time to acknowledge its existence and then pass judgment. That’s writing. I never felt like a writer so much as when I held my first rejection notice. A major publisher had read my first 30 pages and deemed it, “not what they were looking for at this time.” Ah, validation.
I still send out my first little novel that could. I occasionally work on its sequel. I write in my journal once a week. I write down the nonsense phrases that collect in my head and call it poetry. And now, due to the influence of other writers I know, I keep a blog. (Egad, what a word. Perhaps I’ll call it something else more poetic, like “pet turtle.”) I am a writer. I’ll keep writing and occasionally force myself to send my little words out into the world. Someone might see them. Someone might acknowledge them and pass judgment. I’ll keep writing. If not for glory and fortune—though I won’t turn those down—then for that elusive sense of accomplishment from knowing I wrote something worth reading, so someone did.