Writer’s Block

My personal story of finding my educational direction and the role of writers in society.

I remember when I was deciding between Industrial Engineering and Writing and Rhetoric as a major here at UCF. My sister was a Writing and Rhetoric major, and a huge advocate for the program. I was already leaning away from engineering, I knew my work life would be too dull. I loved engineering concepts, and in high school I was the only female to receive a STEM honors diploma. I loved the “breaking glass ceilings” feeling, I liked to be thought of as smart, and industrial engineering held possibilities for working for various companies. Still, I knew that lots of difficult classes and huge conglomerates awaited me if I chose that career path. When my sister brought forth the idea of Writing and Rhetoric, I responded with, “writing is lame.” The only people I'd ever known to be self-proclaimed “writers” were the kids who wrote fantasy fanfiction in high school. (Nothing against fantasy or fanfiction, but I think you know the reputation that precedes such writing.) Beyond that, you don’t see the writing profession as something that is glamorized or even praised, much like a technician or a barista, their role exists in the background. Oftentimes, the author’s name in an article is two font-point sizes smaller than the actual text. Writers aren’t viewed as people who change things, but merely comment on them. At least that’s what I thought. And to take it a step further, I didn’t even know what rhetoric was, I just thought it was writing and speaking. 

I guess I was thrown into the rhetoric world, with my first class being Rhetorical Traditions, a course dedicated to dense theory and analysis. This was my first in-person class since before COVID-19, it had been two years since I was in a classroom, and my first time stepping foot on a college campus. Class after class, I was both engaged and shocked. My professor would sit criss-crossed on her desk when hosting class discussion, and even mathematical graphs were used to explain some of the theory. Discussing Burkean identification and consubstantiality was what initially got me interested in the craft. At this point, I had a strong view of rhetorical theory, but not a good understanding of what rhetoric meant. Everyone had a different definition of the word. Perhaps because that’s the point of rhetoric, everyone uses it for different purposes. In my case, I never imagined using rhetoric for writing purposes. I loved to write poetry, but narratives or essays were never my thing. I saw rhetoric as an analytical framework and an art to help me host better conversation, create more efficient material, and speak better to audiences. The written word wasn’t considered to be one of those pathways. You could say that I wanted to be perceived as smart by others, and I didn’t think that writers naturally obtained that title. Now, I do not have some prejudice against writers - what I am saying is, culture doesn’t designate writers as strategic and highly intelligent, but why?

There are an average of 131.17 million full-time employees in the United States, and according to Statista, only 49,410 of them are writers. Further, Medium states that writers are only 0.03% of the population. Everyone lives to express ideas, and almost every innovation in STEM is to help further the humanities professions. Although career choice isn’t the perfect reflective statistic to showcase the interest of writing in America, it does show that companies generally don’t value the writer. There are multiple reasons why this could be true. First, writing is a lengthy process, and unless your writing is going towards completing metrics such as reports, data surveys, articles, or AD/PR pieces, there’s not much ROI on independent articles or works of writing. Unless your company lives to produce media, having a writer on board is just like having someone who can only proofread, edit, or do copywriting. Freelance writing is yet another field that people find it difficult to “make it.” It’s equivalent to acting or dancing, the market is saturated, and the outlets are few. This, we owe to the fast-paced, image-based world that we live in. In the past, brands were brands, and we knew that the people representing that brand could be trusted. Now, people are brands, and the brands that they endorse are the ones that are trusted. We live off of celebrities' names, and whatever they say, we have to follow. Further, long-winded articles just don’t engage like they used to. The biggest pieces of writing some people engage in are 300-word Instagram captions. Now we have things like ChatGPT, and people online are posting articles titled, “The Career Writer is Dead” or “Is This the End of Human Writing?” You wouldn’t imagine an article titled “The Career Doctor is Dead” or “Is This the End of Human Nursing?” We don’t argue replacing doctors with robots because there is nothing that technology can do to replace the diagnostic and interpersonal value of a human doctor. So why is it different with writers? Well, it’s not. There is not a large gap between a doctor and a writer. They both diagnose situations. They both take into account the past and the future. They both respond in ways adequate to the situation. They both maneuver their present circumstances with tact, precision, and knowledge of their present territory. Writers and doctors exist for the same purpose – to improve the lives of those around them. 

Culture has long diminished the job of a writer. I am as guilty as the rest of us. I’ve rejected taking on the word “writer” as part of my identity. But the reason I did so is because I had a misconception about the role of a writer in society. Writers exist to speak on behalf, and oftentimes, speak to society. Writers get to bask in the strides that STEM fields make, by using their apps to create communities. Without discourse, social media would be nothing. Without communication, we would have no need for the iPhone. Writers have the capability to utilize language functions to best convey messages about our present realities. Writers reveal unseen truths about situations. Writers give words to those who don’t have any. This takes practice, tact, and skill. There should be no block against the writing profession in our minds. Words create worlds.