Why.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
We could spend our entire lives not writing, in privacy and peace.
We could avoid being criticized, having our work picked apart, sentence by painstaking sentence, and yet...
When I announced that I was going to be a writer, my older sister said, "I knew it. I've always known you'd become a writer."
My head was swelling before I even asked her why, knowing she'd say, "Because you've always had a way with words," or "Because of that one time when you were in fifth grade when you won the spelling bee and an entire bag of marshmallows," or "Because of the way you speak, it's just so interesting."
But what I got instead was this:
"Because you've always been a drama queen."
Nice.
I'm convinced that writers are born this way. We seldom experience anything without thinking about how to retell it to someone else. I literally walk into an event or a beautiful scene and go right to work, thinking about how I'd describe it. The sights, the sounds, the smells. I'm a book on two legs.
My daughter's friend told her, "I can tell your mom's a writer. She just thinks differently than other people."
Thanks.
I guess.
When people find out what I do for a living, interesting comments are sure to follow.
One blunt woman told me flat out, "You'll never make any money at it."
Another conversation, more recently, amused me even more.
It went something like this:
Her: "Are you still selling Real Estate?"
Me: "No, I haven't done that for about five years. I went from that to running a housecleaning business. Then I opened a property management business, and for the last two and a half years, I've been a professional content writer."
Her (with hand now on side of face, looking dismayed): "Oh, so you just write a little blog or something?"
(I guess she didn't hear me say 'professional', meaning that I get paid for my talent.)
Me: "Yes, and articles for magazines, newspapers, and content for websites."
Her: "Well, that must be a fun little hobby. It's nice when you have a husband with a steady job so that you can do things like that."
Me: Shocked silence.
Unless you're extremely well-known (which means no ghost writing or content writing without your name attached), very few are going to take you seriously.
It's a subtle form of self-torture.
Ask the people who've written the most, the majority of them are no longer among the living. A few have even helped themselves right into that category, may they rest in the peace they never found with so many words and sentences swimming around in their poor heads, pestering them night and day.
Don't try to make any sense of it; it's not possible. If you know a writer, good luck easing them away from the keyboard. It's an obsession without a cure.
