I Want to Be a Writer
When I finally decided to write with the intention of making money doing it a weight was lifted from my shoulders. I saw the world clearly. My mind wandered freely like a child in a field of flowers. There was serenity. Then a new weight crashed down on me and I wanted to take a dirt nap again.
The crippling anxiety, the one that was colored by a fear of working in a career I hated, was replaced with the reality that I was going to struggle with no recognition, to say nothing of income, for years. Miracles happen, but I tend to assume they won’t.
Still, the trade-off isn’t 1:1. My corporate anxiety was myopic. I was just trying to get by, get paid, and get out. Unfortunately, there was no getting out. My work always stayed with me long after I left the office and well into my restless nights. This promised to go on for decades. Staying on that course was a certain, never-ending anxious nightmare and I’m not sure I could survive it. The new anxiety I’ve traded up to offers a light at the end of the tunnel if I succeed, in no small part thanks to readers like you. I sleep better at night.
I should take a moment here and express how lucky I am. My partner is going to support me. My family is supporting me. I have savings I can use from a decade-long successful career they’re willing to let me blow up so I can indulge in this fantasy, this dream. They’re not even being mean or dismissive about it. They believe in me. To them, I owe everything that may come of this journey.
I worry that these conditions make a phony. I am content to force myself to believe that it doesn’t, so long as I am writing. Writers write, right?
It’s only been about four months since I started this journey in earnest, and only one week since I stopped working entirely. It feels right. I feel good. I feel more hopeful about the future than I have at just about any other time in the last decade, which is saying something considering I was glued to Twitter watching a coup d’etat unfold in real time. I think that speaks volumes to the power of doing something you are sure you were meant to do. I only wish I was surer sooner. Such is life; can’t turn the clock back so there is no time like the present.
For anyone else considering doing this who may read this, I hesitate to offer advice as I am a nobody writer with very little work under my belt at this time. I’m still experimenting with tactics that will make me more productive, such as being at my desk for fixed hours each day, turning off my phone so I can work uninterrupted, things like that. For this kind of detail, I’d turn to guides written by pro’s, such as Hugh Howey’s multi-part piece, which begins here.
The one thing I can say with certainty is if you want to be a writer just begin writing. Start putting words down on paper. Let the hypnotic flow of tapping keys carry you away to your own worlds. Whatever gets you there, just get going. Worry about editing it and making it good later. Ignore feelings of being an imposter, or criticizing your work as derivative. Just chip away at it. If you do, you’ll look back and realize you’ve already written tens of thousands of words. It’s a pretty remarkable sensation when you realize you’ve crossed a milestone, especially if you think you were further behind than you really were.
For now, I’m going to keep writing every day. Hopefully for years. If I’m really lucky, I’ll get to keep writing every day for the rest of my life. I hope you get to, too. At this stage, I am pretty sure that is really all there is to it.
