Is a writer still a writer if he isn't writing?

For the last year or so (if I'm honest, nearly two years now) writing has been far more difficult than it should be. By writing, I mean anything that requires putting words in a cunning order. Be that blog posts, letters, novels, or really anything. I managed to complete NaNoWriMo 2017, but it was torture and well, quite poorly written. For NaNoWriMo 2018 I never got past 14k words. 

I have always considered myself a writer, not because I had published anything or because I was always writing something, but because I loved writing. Whenever the opportunity presented itself I would write happily away into the night. whether it was instructions on some process or system for work, a letter to someone, a short story, a blog post, or anything the words just poured out (not always good, but easily). This is no longer the case.

Quiet Desperation

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. 

What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. 

From the desperate city, you go into the desperate country and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. 

A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. 

There is no play in them, for this comes after work. 

But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things." 

      - Henry David Thoreau

Winter Returns and With it My Discontent.

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

The Ending of an Era, the Turning of a Page...

OK so sappy lyrics aside, The past few weeks have been very strange. My youngest children, the twins, have graduated from high school. I am at once very proud of them and yet saddened by the fact that my relationship with them is going to change.