I am quite new to writing, I’ve only been doing it for really a year now. Seriously anyways. Before, it was a hobby or at least something I kept secret. It made it easier, lessened the anxiety of the whole endeavour because no one asked me about writing.
But now I’m a writer and there’s no denying it. I basically think about it all the time, and how I can be a better one much in the same way someone thinks of their Christianity (don’t know how else to frame it, that’s not to say I’m Christian or religious in any way though). It just is who I am.
But, I’ve been wondering, to get to the point of the title, what the relation is between my love for writing and making a career of it. How do I earn my daily bread, can it be done only with the thoughts in my head?
And to a greater extent do I want that?
I am, for one, not great in group settings. Especially not when it’s a group of writers. I am too self-conscious, too aware of how weird and annoying I can be when I get into the writing trance. It makes my output shitty and the people around me don’t like me because I can be, well, an ass or at least easily construed as one. At least that’s what I constantly think, and well if thoughts are how you make your money it’s not good to be riddled with ones so unproductive to the overall goal of being a good writer.
But, I also don’t want to be a solitary, lone-wolf either. It just seems un-fun and boring as all hell.
So, I don’t know what to do for sure with myself. Also, writing for a living leaves many in penury, or something close to it and well that’s just also not me.
Food for thought I guess.
-Clay
Clayton Tomlinson 