In my Monday post I mentioned a little maxim the Boy (and I) heard repeatedly when he declared his intent to major in music. Don’t do it unless you can’t imagine doing anything else, they said.

This got a lot of comment. One of my Facebook friends said, “This lesson can be applied to many things in life.” Oh yes, it can. And then my friend April Line* read my Book Bug post and left such an insightful comment that I wanted to bring it to your attention.

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I have heard the same advice about getting an MFA, going on to more grad school, writing a book … (Don’t do it! Unless you have to.) And while I appreciate the honesty in that advice, it can be really damaging.

Like, I spent a lot of time trying to be something else, anything else. I forget who said that. “If you want to be a writer, first, try to be something, anything else.” It was a writer. The quote is familiar to me from a number of places. Maybe from Lorrie Moore’s short story “How to Be a Writer”? (Which is great, even if that’s not where this quotation is from.) I leveraged my natural talents to sell things, tried my hand in all of the other arts (music, visual art, theater), and those were all fun. I was competent. I have been a part-time nanny, laundress, worked a million and two tiny half jobs so I have time for writing.

But writing keeps me up at night. If I don’t do it, I lose faith, perspective, the very will to live. I’m saying that that advice, that “No! Head for the hills!” advice, comes from a really solid, honest place. But I think it would be more helpful to utilize our penchant for the dramatic and tell stories about how sometimes it is physically painful to write.

And lonely.

And it feels like you are bleeding from your soul via your fingers, from a gash that will never heal.

And how it makes you feel crazy sometimes, because all this stuff that comes out is alive inside you and you don’t always have total control over it.

And how if you are a writer, you are pretty much destined to a life of social awkwardness except around other writers who have the same kind of broken relationship with the world around them as you do.

And how if you love other people sometimes they’ll be in your stories, and it’ll piss them off, unless they’re other writers.

And sometimes they will beg you to be in your stories.

And how if none of that happens, you’re not doing it right.

And sometimes people will come up to you and talk about this work you do, and how great it must be, and how they have a cousin/aunt/uncle who’s got a book under their bed and could you pretty please take a look at it?

The underlying sentiment to that sometimes flattering conversation is one of envy that is surely born of ignorance. Of the notion that being a writer is something that’s so friggin’ easy. That we just lie around all day dreaming, then we sit down at the keyboard or pad of paper and Athena springs from our brow, fully formed, ready to hotfoot to the publisher.

But I hate when writers say it’s a big burden to be a writer. I get the sentiment, but I choose to focus on the positive. Like about how well I understand myself via my writing, and about how I am so, so lucky to have this gift, even if it causes me pain. And affirmations that are few and far between are much more meaningful than those that come in batches. I mean, every published writer I know has published at about the ratio of one published word for every ten thousand unpublished ones. Unless they are self-published, then there is a different metric, and I can talk bitterly about that, later. Though not as bitterly as Franzen does. 😉

And truly, I can’t be anything else, so even though I am broke most of the time and right now I am so busy I can barely breathe because I’m actually making enough money and writing a book, being a writer is a pretty great thing. So I encourage others to aspire to it, but with the knowledge that it has to be for its own sake.

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Also in response to the Book Bug post, I received a somewhat different description of the writing life from one of my authors:

Only when I began writing on a daily basis did I also figure out how to have happy kids, get dishes done, get dressed and ready at the same time each morning, and make dinner—all in the same day! Not joking. My creative brain could not process and practice everyday routine until I inserted into that routine a time to write. Not a time to invest in getting famous; a time to just write a thoughtful tale and play pretend.**

In both cases, excellent advice. And an excellent description of the writing life.

Or a musician’s life. I’ve watched the truth of this play out with the Boy. The music (or the writing) must be its own reward. It should be noted that no one told him not to major in music; all his teachers were enthusiastic about his prospects. But they were also cognizant of the detours and pebbles present in a musical career path. He’s tripped on a pebble or two. He’s also making a living making music.

It’s probably going to be hard to make a living no matter what you do. So do what you love. You’ve been warned.

* April Line is a writer, editor, teacher, blogger, thinker, feminist, and life liver. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and creative writing and is presently working toward her MFA at Wilkes University. April is also an instructor at Pennsylvania College of Technology.

** Cyndi Hampton lives in the Midwest with her husband of eleven years and their three little boys. In her spare time (ha), she writes spoken word poetry and other stories. Her first novel is called The Adventures of the Brothers Brave and Noble (NYP).

Tweet: Two descriptions of the writing life. You’ve been warned.
Tweet: Don’t do it unless you can’t imagine doing anything else, they said.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”