"Who in their right mind would choose to be a writer?"
"Wouldn't you prefer a real job?"
"How hard can it be to daydream all day?"
These words, spoken by those who claim to support me, sting deeply and echo repeatedly in my mind. How can they not understand?
No one chooses to be a writer. If they say they do, then they're crazy. Writing is an art form, a passion that one follows. You do not choose it, it chooses you. From an outsider's perspective, however, it seems like writer are choosing the "lazy road." Like any true artist, we are met with harsh criticism. You must be strong to survive it. But we know, as any artist practicing our craft, that we have no choice. We are merely a vessel for the words and stories within us. I could not imagine myself doing anything else because I know that, eventually, in some not-so-distant future, I will always return to writing.
To the outsider, the observer of our craft, writing is seen as a hobby - a way to spend lazy Sunday afternoons and lonesome sleepless nights. We know that isn't true; writing is extremely intensive. Grammar, prose, literary devices, narratives - all these things and more we need to know. Like training for a new job or practicing a skill, we study them extensively. Our mind plans out every detail of our characters and our stories, waking or sleeping, and we carry our workload with us at all times. What may seem like daydreaming is our 24-hour struggle to get ahead of the competition, to produce something we know people will want to read. How is that not a real job?842Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqNVS28RJcp
Yet still, almost on a daily basis, people do not understand and do not approve, like deciding to produce art rather than something more "substantial" is a form of weakness. Their opinions will never change, so we writers must steel ourselves and continue, for the sake of words left unwritten.
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