The old dream of writers doing nothing but writing is pretty much dead unless you’re a bestseller like Stephen King. Instead, even with traditional publishing, writers need more than just the ability to craft well-told stories. Writers need a friggin’ hat-rack to hold all the extra publicist, marketer, and advertiser hats. With self-publishing, that hat-rack is even bigger.

That’s all well and good – artists in other mediums have needed tertiary skills like this for a while – and it’s probably time for writers to catch up. That’s cool. I get it.

I also get that all writers aren’t Emily Dickinson or Thomas Pynchon. Some writers thrive on self-promotion. Indeed, self-promotion might BE the logical extension of the urge to write in the first place, if the urge to write stems from self-expression (I’m not convinced that it does, but that’s another conversation).

But what about the writers who tend away from self-promotion? There’s a dilemma there, especially for self-publishers who don’t have any corporate help.

I’ve been considering all this because of the #amwriting hashtag that’s recently appeared in the self-publishing community on twitter. Including the hashtag in a tweet is the first step to being included in the corresponding website, amwriters.wordpress.com, a writer biography portal and storefront.

It’s silly to be conflicted about little things like a hashtag, but damn it, I’m nothing if not a dude who over-analyzes things.

So, while I respect what amwriters.wordpress.com is doing for the community by linking writers together, I can’t help but feel the same way about the #amwriting hashtag as I do about that hipster I see in every coffee shop ever. You know the one I’m talking about. He’s always sitting in the corner, typing away on a Macbook, wearing emo glassses, a plaid shirt, and pants so tight I can see his sack, all while trying his best to look like he’s concentrating on the NEXT BIG THING even though he’s really just blogging to rant about silly things that don’t matter (VERY AWARE OF THE IRONY, THANK YOU).

“But, luke,” you say, “Aren’t you the guy who always writes his name in lowercase like a pretentious tool and shamelessly promotes your work even while you’re still writing it?”

“Why yes,” I’d say (in our theoretical conversation. Also, you should back up a little – I can tell you had garlic for lunch), “I am indeed such a person. But, lo, I sayeth unto you – there is a key distinction between promotion of the work itself and promotion of the activity that produced it, and therein, as they say, lies the rub.”

What the hell am I talking about, you ask? I’m talking about people who have to declare that they #amwriting. It feels to me like something they are doing to “be seen” rather than just doing because they like it, just like that hipster guy who has to write in public.

Writing is inherently a solitary activity and the real thing that matters is the product, not the activity itself. The actual act of writing is stupidly boring to the outside observer – that’s the reason they’ve never made writing into a reality show ala Project Runway. Writing is some person sitting at a desk for hours typing and playing “let’s pretend.” There’s no reason to broadcast that activity to the world – when you put out a book, a story, or anything else written, people know how you did it. You sat there and you wrote for awhile.

Now, I get that some people might include the #amwriting hash tag not to be seen, but to feel community solidarity and encourage themselves that they are doing something meaningful. But it seems to me that if they need those things – a community and public encouragement (for performing the activity. Encouragement for producing a quality work is something totally different) – then they should question why they are doing it in the first place. The meaningful thing is the work that’s produced.

Unless I completely misunderstand the intent (which is possible, I suppose), including the #amwriting hashtag is no different from informing people you’re doing other things. Perhaps I should start including #amdefecating or #amstokingmyego hashtags in my tweets.

Because it’s the same damn thing.

Or, it’s even worse – it’s attempting to buy into an idealized conception of an artist, the idea that artists are these mystical unicorns that should be encouraged for doing what they do. But that’s dumb and not anything like the actual experience of writing.

Robert Heinlein said it best when he said, “Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.”