Happy October everyone! Such a wonderful time to embrace autumn, turn against your favorite football team, and wonder if it’s early enough to set out the Christmas decorations. But as I’m sure you’re well aware there is a holiday towards the end of the month which bridges October and November as well as Christian and Pagan traditions. Of course I’m speaking about Halloween.

Halloween or Everyone Cosplay Day is a fun time of year to dress up as any and everything from superheroes, naughty nurses, monsters, and other things. Thinking about the day made me think about costumes and dressings, and I wondered “what does a writer look like?”

Since back in in high school (don’t ask how long), I’ve been King Stereotype to anyone who doesn’t know me. I can’t help being 6’4, 275 pounds, black and built like a linebacker. No matter what I’m wearing, someone will come up to me and ask what team I play for. “Hey, you play for the Eagles/ Sixers, right? No? Are you sure? Hmmm…So what do you do?”

Now imagine this person deflating like a Tom Brady football (allegedly) when I say I’m a writer. I get another once over before they shuffle off confused.

I may not be able to stop the immediate conclusions that run through people’s heads at first glance but what happens after that moment I am in complete control of. The look of a writer isn’t in a style that’ll come and go, or a hairstyle. No, the look of a writer is defined by the actions.

A writer doesn’t look like they write, they write. A writer stays up to the midnight hour editing word after word. A writer bleeds ink, coffee, and tears. Whether in pajamas or dressed to the nines you will write if you’re a writer. You can’t put on writer clothes and pretend. Either it’s in you or it’s not. If it is let it shine through your actions, let others see you at work in your craft. If not Halloween is in a couple weeks.

So this holiday season don’t let the image of a writer be a disguise. Be a vampire or a superhero…or a vampire superhero for a day. But be a writer always.

Until next time stay writeous!
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Matt Williams is an avid reader, a collector of many pens, an ever improving father of two, and an all-around fanboy. When he’s not wrestling with cats or a long commute you can find him hunkered down writing something imaginative. He’s working on publishing his first book Beyond Here, a middle grade story involving a coma and a singing flower with a bent stem sometime in 2016, along with a few projects with his other daughter.