Should I be an author?

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Here's my blog which has some examples of my writing: https://benjaminartifex1985.wordpress.com/

Does anyone think I have the writing skills necessary to be an author? Should I bother to try? Discuss, please.

If you have already written stuff then you are already an author.

Well, as I would define the word, "author", I am not. I'm a writer, but I'm not being paid to write. Not yet. Should I bother to try to write stories for publication? Is my writing good enough to sell or just crap that I wish others liked?

Sure. Why not? You don't need other people's permission to write. As long as you put in the time and effort to write, read, and improve your craft, you should do fine.

Well, it's not that I feel I need permission but that I want to know if I'm good enough. My family members and a few friends tell me I'm a good writer, but they could just be saying that to be nice just because of them being my friends and family. I much rather have the opinions of people who might feel free to tell me if my work sucks. I could post this in PPR and, if the mods didn't move it out of there in a femptosecond, I'd probably get a lot of people telling me precisely that, but I thought here the opinions of other writers might help because the likelihood of constructive criticism is optimum here.


Thanks for the advice. It is difficult not to procrastinate or be overwhelmed by the evil menace of Writer's Block though.

I'm not being paid to be a writer, either, but I consider myself to be an author.
As for "to be or not to be" a writer, I say go for it.

I skimmed some of your samples, and like your story premises on the Sci-fi. I think my main critique would be to break those sentences down. I'm guilty of the same in my writings. I think if you simplify and expand a bit as you do, the scene has more time to solidify in the reader's mind. IMHO, of course.

I suppose that would be valid. A person can invent any number of items and never make money from them, but that doesn't make them any less of an inventor.

Thank you. Yeah, I know I tend to make run-on sentences. I try not to, but it is so difficult sometimes. When I was in college I remember reading in one textbook that, it was either words or syllables but I think words, 17 words is the recommended maximum length of a sentence for people to be able to remember the content easily. I just like to challenge things sometimes, but I suppose it wouldn't be worth it so much to prove a point if I want my work to sell. Thanks again though, I do appreciate the advice.

You know something, parakeet, I really must be sleep deprived these days, because I hadn't recognized your name till this morning.

That's okay, I'd been offline for a while so it's normal for people to forget me.

Is the picture on your avatar of you and your lovely bride?

It's not inborn talent, it's dedication.

Yes, that is my lovely bride. I had complained about her here on WP and her brother read it and asked her to babysit for him and, presumably, went over everything I said with a fine tooth comb and convinced my lovely bride to leave me. Perhaps I should have just saved up $50 for another marriage counseling session rather than complain here to vent frustrations on this anonymous forum, March was when the counselor said that we should check in anyway, but we were poor then and we're even poorer now. I don't know if she's working anymore and I have no work either, so she'll just stay with her brother and I'll need to find someone to take care of my birds whom I can trust.... So, yes, that's my lovely bride who I miss and love now more than ever. She said my complaining, or slandering she said, about her here was the last straw. So, she is the woman I love the most and I hurt her feelings enough that she decided to leave me. I really do hate myself for hurting her feelings, but I had nobody to really talk to either and I needed to talk. I don't want to talk to my stepdad though, he's often more of a power-and-control freak than anyone else I know and he's always giving "advice" that must be followed under threats of excommunication or whatever other nonsense that farts into his head. He's a nice guy for most of the time, just not when he's angry and not following his letter of the law is the fastest way to make my stepdad angry. Anyhow, yes, that's my wife there and I love her and miss her dearly.

I am so sorry to hear that. Do you think there is still a chance to salvage things?
Luckily, my wife has long known that her brother is an idiot, and has absolutely nothing intelligent to say, were he ever to try to pull a stunt like that on us.

Well, where there's life there's hope according to Cicero. I hope there's a chance. No matter what she does, I still love her and even though I said so many thing about her that I shouldn't have, I said them hollowly because I just wanted to get rid of those thoughts. I don't know what I'm going to do, but life is just sadness right now. Things were actually starting to get really good between Jackie and I again, and then what I said on here was brought up and my lovely lady is gone. She's still alive and probably doing okay, but she wont even speak to me anymore. I think the only good thing that's become of this is my finding an electrical fire starting in time to put it out. If she hadn't left when she did, we could have all been dead. Maybe it's God's timing of everything, it probably is really, just like going and buying the bird food and some food and cleaning supplies when I did, because now my accounts are gone. I just had a feeling of, you need to go now and get the birds food, and I did and it's a good thing I did because now my birds will still have food for a few more days. I love my Jackie, and she's gone and probably being walked through all the steps for divorce and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I love her so much though, I wish she'd just speak to me and work things out. Jackie, if you're still reading this, I love you, please speak with me again I miss you so much that words are not enough to convey. I love my wife Jackie. Jackie please don't go away.