I see on
Facebook a lot of quizzes regarding likes, what character you resemble, and
what would be your ideal job. I remember taking a few of the last in high school,
and they all came up the same way: writer.
Unfortunately,
as any writer will tell, this isn’t exactly the most lucrative profession,
especially when it comes to fiction writing. The number of people that aspire
to be fiction writers far outstrips the number of people who actually make a
sustainable living off of the job.
That’s
fine. That’s understandable. It’s part of the package. I anticipated it, even,
desiring to become a teacher to do most of the bill-paying while writing on the
side. But I didn’t foresee the pervasive nature of teaching. It really is an
all-consuming profession. With the constant grading, lesson preparation,
research, and the necessary decompression with friends and colleagues, there’s
very little mentality left for not-teaching.
I need to
change that. I need to stop thinking of myself as a teacher and make myself a
writer, sequestering time for that as a primary profession in order to get the
focus back. I remember last summer, November, and my winter break where I
became very productive as a writer once I managed to move my focus. So I’m
actively pursuing my resolution by treating this not as a side job, but a main
job. I think only in that way will I really achieve the goal of something
sustainable as a writer.