Words for writers and non-writers who like to scoff at writers

I’m pretty sure that anyone who has ever admitted to anyone else that they would like to be a writer has had a conversation that ends something like this:

“You’ll never make any money doing that.“

I’ve had about two or three conversations that ended this way.

Obviously we don’t go into writing because we want to get rich quick. That is a given. I am not ready to say money is not important to me. I sweat over it from time to time. If you are the kind of person who has no plans to be a writer, I’d like to politely ask you to refrain from making this unproductive statement. Writers know this already, I can assure you, and it’s certainly not what they need to hear. We have enough trouble believing in our writing as it is, and the reminder that we are probably destined for poverty doesn’t help us. I’d like to see the money-making world respond to writers with different kinds of statements.

How about: That sounds like a lot of work.

This is something I need to be reminded of. Writing takes a lot of work, and it helps when we get nudges in that direction. We spend hours on paragraphs that, a week, later, seem phony enough to highlight and delete. This can be discouraging, but we just need to tell ourselves to keep working. Writer’s do have a hard time getting merit for their efforts, especially financial merit, but we can get it. It is possible. We just have to keep pushing ourselves toward it.

This response would be great: What kind of books do you read?

That’s right, not “What do you write,” but “What do you read?” Whenever someone asks me what kind of writing I do I clam up a little. Maybe I’m the only writer who does, but I feel like the person who asked it just opened up a shoe box for me to crawl into. I am not a genre writer–not yet, anyway, and I haven’t even committed myself to a form. “Whatever form fits my idea,” is a pretty good explanation of what I write. I sometimes say “realistic fiction,” but then I feel like I’ve shut a few doors on myself. Sometimes my fiction is not realistic, and sometimes my writing is a song or a poem. Right now, I’m pretty comfortable with that.

But if someone asks us, “What do you read?” we will get the benefit of another good reminder. Writers have to read, of course. Other people’s good writing is our inspiration to write well. And then when we do get to talking about the good books we read, we can get excited about them and the person we’re talking to can understand a bit of what we write because, chances are, we write the kind of stuff we like to read.

How about this one: I guess someone has to write the bestseller and it might as well be you.

I’d probably snort with laughter if someone said this to me, but it sure would be nice to hear. I don’t necessarily read bestsellers–I guess that’s why I’d laugh. But I do from time to time and there is truth to the statement that it might as well be us. It should be us, if we’re working hard and don’t give up.

Once I met Arthur Miller and, I’m not name-dropping here, the conversation with the man is relevant, and he asked me if I was an actress and I said, “I want to be a writer and he said, “Good luck.” And maybe that’s all we really need to hear. Good luck. Because, Thanks. We need it.

I know the world won’t read this little blog entry, and more writers will read it than non-writers (thank you, tags) so my final word here is that when someone tells us we’ll never make anymoney writing, a nice response might be:

Every writer I know has three cars in their garages.

or:

Yes, that is why I also plan to be a pirate.

or:

Yeah, do you think you could help me out with the money thing?

or maybe just:

Thank you.