A writer explores why partners and family dismiss writing as a hobby, and how that belief becomes self-fulfilling. Treating writing as a serious skill instead changes what you produce. Like vacations or fitness, it enriches life whether or not it makes money.
Chapters
The other day, a writer told me that her husband sees her writing as a hobby. In fact, he told her to just stick with her day job, retire, get her pension, and then maybe she could focus on her writing at that point. But then what she told me is that writing is her passion, that when she's writing, she's filled with joy and creativity and energy, and she thinks this is what she's actually meant to do. So which one of them is right? A lot of writers have internalized the message that writing isn't a real pursuit. It comes from spouses, parents, friends, society. Another writer said that his wife told him he should just stop because it's never going to be profitable. And over time, that message gets inside your head. You start apologizing for wanting to write. You feel guilty about spending time on it. You definitely feel guilty about spending money on it. But here's what I've noticed. The people who treat writing like a hobby get hobby results, and then they point to those results and say, see, it was just a hobby. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. But here's what I want you to think about with your life. How many things do you spend money on that don't have a monetary value at the end? Most of the things that you spend money on are things that make your your life better, vacations that improve your life, learning other skills, working out, all of these things that don't add money to your life, but they make you a better human. They get you closer to the things that you're passionate about. They help you actually improve in the ways that you care about and will matter at the end of your life. Writing fiction is a skill, a real, trainable, measurable skill. But here's the thing. You shouldn't pursue it just so that you can get rich and publish a big bestseller. You should pursue it because it's worth pursuing. That in that pursuit, you will become the human you've always wanted to be. You will finally accomplish that thing that you've wanted to do since you were 9 years old and didn't care about money at all. Doing this means something to the world. The only way to make the world a better place is to tell better stories, and our world needs your story. And I want you to get it out before you die. I want you to publish something you're proud of that makes you proud to give it to your friends and family and leaves a legacy long after you're gone. You don't have to quit your day job tomorrow. That's not the goal here. The goal is to take this thing that you care about and take it seriously. If writing is the thing that fills you with joy and energy and purpose, and you know this is who you are, If you think about your story every day, even when you're not writing, this is not a hobby. It's a calling, and callings deserve to be taken seriously.
