Have you noticed that there are people who apparently live to discourage writers and artists from doing the work they love? “It’s not practical,” they say, nodding sagaciously (as if they, the cubicle-bound, know anything about it). “You can’t make a living at it,” your parents warn, while your friends make oblique references to Poe, Fitzgerald, and the general hazards of intemperance.
In the preface to On Becoming a Novelist, John Gardner says “Almost no one mentions that for a certain kind of person, nothing is more joyful or satisfying than the life of a novelist, if not for its financial rewards then for others; that one need not turn into a misantrope or a drunk; that in fact one can be a more less successful M.D., engineer, or forest, even follow the unfashionable profession of housewife, and also be a novelist–at any rate, many novelists, both great and ordinary, have done it…The worst that can happen to the writer who tries and fails–unless he has inflated or mystical notions of what it is to be a novelist–is that he will discover that, for him, writing is not the best place to seek joy and satisfaction.”
Ignore the naysayers and press forward. There’s no other way to become a writer!
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