Word Count: 11076. 15k, I WILL meet you by Sunday night!
All through high school and undergrad, when people would ask me what I "did" or what I "wanted to be", I would find myself tongue-tied, tripping over words as I tried to come up with a way to say "I'm a writer" or "I want to be an author" in a way that would not elicit a patronizing smile or, worse, wide-eyed confusion.
I imagine anyone who loves an art form runs into this problem at some point in life. We live in a society that favors the Protestant ideal of hard work all the time and reaping the rewards of that hard work. Writing a story, composing music, drawing a beautiful landscape...those things aren't seen as "hard" or "work", and people simply can't get their heads around the fact that someone would want to make a career out of it.
Which is why the next question, when I inevitably manage to spit out, "I am/want to be a writer", is "okay, well what do you plan to do to pay the bills?"
Fair question, particularly in this economy. There are plenty of majors in university that segue directly into an easily identifiable career with job security: teacher, doctor, nurse, lawyer, accountant, you name it. And with job pickings as slim as they are, I can easily see why someone would want to go into a career that at least gives them a level of expertise in a particular field. The more arts-related programs--English, Creative Writing (the majors with which I graduated), Music and so on--don't carry quite the same level of oomph in the big world of money-making.
As one of my coworkers at Starbucks once put it: "you could throw a rock in the air, and when it comes down it would hit twelve English majors."
So it's even harder to explain to someone not just that I want to make what most consider a hobby (writing) into a career, but that for the entire month of November, I am devoted to writing--and completing--a novel-length work of prose.
"Do you plan to get it published?" Is usually the first question, usually followed by dismay when I tell them likely not. "But then what's the POINT?"
Again with the Protestant work-hard-reap-benefits model. The idea that the exercise itself, though it garners no actual profit financial or otherwise, is "profitable" in other ways tends to elude a lot of people. But the simple fact is that most of the things we write will never see an editor's desk. Does that mean we shouldn't write them? No. The only time we shouldn't write a story, paint a picture, or create a song is when that story/picture/song doesn't bring the maker any happiness. Then its time to move onto a different project.
I still get stuck sometimes when people ask me what I'm "doing now". There's the unconscious desire to be validated: "I'm getting my Master's degree in Journalism" I often say.
But other times, I just say the most basic truth: "I'm a writer."
How do you respond when people ask you what you "do" for a living? And how do you explain Nanowrimo to non-Nanowrimos?
As always, good luck to everyone!
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