The Most Important Career – an Email to a Friend

Frankly, I think writing fiction is the most important, most noblest career anyone can aspire to.  That may just be my years of wanting it so badly brainwashing me into thinking that, but stories are important.  They change lives, they comfort us when we’re sad (no one understands you like your favorite book, you know?), they let us glom up all the experiences of another person, both the fictional experiences of the characters and the real thoughts and emotions and tidbits of reality put in by the author.  Stories are transformative and allow us to experience change in a safe setting.

And writing is hard.  You could take a writing class, turn in all your assignments, and get an A but still be a crappy writer.  It’s learnable, obviously, but it takes a lot of time and effort.  People often say it’s a ten year apprenticeship, which it definitely was for me, though I guess it depends on how quickly you get in your million words/10,000 outlier hours.  But that’s a lot, and that’s just to be publishable, just to start a writing career.  And most people don’t have the discipline to put in the crazy time and effort it takes to become a pro writer.  Everyone who’s read your books has a little piece of you in their minds now.  That’s pretty amazing.  More amazing, I think, than going to grad school or earning lots of money.