At what point does a writer stop calling oneself a writer and start calling oneself an author? I’m nearly 75 yrs old, haven’t finished a novel in over a year, haven’t finished a short story in over three years, and haven’t written a poem in about two years. Plus, when I do start something new, I find myself getting repetitious, which is the last thing I want to do because it reminds me of grad school when I’d bury myself in the journals of famous writers, some of whom complained that they wanted to stop writing but their publishers wanted them to keep cranking, so they did, even though they didn’t really have much new to say.
Another way of asking the question is: does (or can) there come a point in a published writer’s career, when one should stop calling oneself a writer and start calling oneself an author? (Say, for example, when the writer is no longer productive.)