So what we have are a whole bunch of people who mean “you ought to sell your work” when they say “you ought to be a writer.” But when you say to people (sometimes the same ones!) “I am a writer,” the next question they ask is “Have you had anything published?”

They never seem to understand that I don’t *WANT* to. I have no interest in entering the writing market, and don’t want my writing to ever feel like a job, or something I HAVE to do. I want to do it because I love it and if I want to get up and walk away from it for awhile – or put a story down because I can’t seem to follow it (to be returned to later) – then I like having the freedom to do that.

People, in my life, anyway, don’t seem to get that just because you aren’t being paid for it doesn’t mean its not worth it. There are other things to be paid in.

And the only benefits (apart from the money) that I can see, is that your work is protected by copyrights when its published. But I get around that by just letting a few people read what I write. (IE, I do not put my work online for just anyone to read or steal.)

I’m not saying I would *never* be interested in ‘going proffessional’, but at this point in my life, I’m not. But people can’t seem to grasp that and leave me alone.

So I fully agree with what you are saying here. So nice to hear other writers see it and understand.

I have the kind of personality that makes people think that I would be good at their profession. My HS biology teacher tried to talk me in to going in to biology. My music teacher thought I should go into the movie-recording industry like her (after more training, of course); my bro-in-law thought I should do physics like him; his office mate who was studying acoustics thought I would like acoustics; and my friend’s dad thought I would be good at Facilites Management. Which is his profession.

It took me a very long time to choose. In the end, I picked to be a philosophy major, then go to grad school for teaching (which my parents encouraged– and yes, they’re teachers, or at least they’ve both taught a lot). I discovered that teaching, while incredibly enjoyable, isn’t something I want to stay in forever as my main profession. So I started getting a little more serious about my writing.

I sometimes wonder if I wandered around looking for something that no one was telling me I “had” to do, so that I could feel like I chose it for myself. Which– would mean– that I HADN’T really chosen it. So I choose to believe that that mostly isn’t true.

Encouragement and support is way different from pushing, though. Those same “teach-y” parents thought it was SO COOL that I wanted to be a philosophy major, and let me tell you, this isn’t a very common reaction. They also think the writing is great, as long as I keep teaching to support myself until the time may come that I don’t have to (and they are also perfectly willing to waste an evening, enthusiastically listening to me describe my latest plot developments). Not that it’s their business, per se, what my profession is. But the support is beyond wonderful.