A little while back, my company had one of their monthly all-hands meetings. The new head of marketing (a person I respect and enjoy working with) presented. He introduced himself, discussed what our new team’s strategy was, and how we were going to get where we want to go – the usual.

One of the slides had headshots of the entire marketing team, with their job titles underneath. I’m a contractor, and have been mostly helping with social media, blogging, tone of voice, and general copy editing. I hadn’t really thought about what my title would be. But there it was, up on the slide, under my name and photograph: 

[PHOTO OF MY FACE]
Erica-Lee Lick
Writer

In high school, I dreamt of writing for a living, but I didn’t know how I’d do that or in what capacity I’d write. Maybe I’d study journalism. Maybe I’d go into business writing. Maybe I’d write a fucking book. But it’s always been a pull for me, and it’s something that keeps me happy, even as a hobby. Sadly, only a few of my previous jobs had any tasks related to writing, and even then, they were few and far between (and entirely uninteresting, for the most part). 

For a long part of my twenties, I didn’t write a single word for fun. Not one. My reawakening happened when I left my ex and I discovered how freely I could express myself on the internet, and I fell in love with it all over again.

Suddenly, I’m being referred to as a writer. It’s a small thing, and I’m not even sure he realizes how much it means to me, but there you go. 

I did it. Almost by accident, I’m a fucking writer.