Anyone know or heard of this usage? Or am I just making it up?
Maybe for this reason/bias, I've never felt comfortable calling myself a writer, for fear of being mixed in with this association, like someone who just "writes anything". I take pride in writing essays and feel aversive about writing articles meant as "content" for general/mass consumption (damnit I sound like a douchebag).
I know many people who proudly call themselves writers, so I know it's not a universal thing. And I know PG calls himself a writer/programmer (don't remember the exact source, but probably a tweet), which never made sense to me because he strictly writes essays, so I would've thought "essayist" would fit him better.
I know I shouldn't care about labels or whatever, but I find it hard to shake. I don't know, maybe I'm just thinking too much (sorry this got a lot more personal than I had originally intended). What do you folks think??
EDIT: Did some digging, I think this article explains what I'm talking about:
"Are You Really a Writer ... Or Just a Copyist?" https://copyblogger.com/writer-or-copyist/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Didion
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Choderlos_de_Laclos
as "writers" and have a lot of respect for them, not to mention many others.