I'm in a transition from hobby to calling. How's that for a cop-out answer?
I think that a key distinction is whether you write as a career, i.e., that's how you intend to make your living or whether you have a non-writing career or source of making money.
Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive, but I think people would call his poetry a calling.
Do you live for your writing or do you live off your writing? I'm not sure that's an important distinction as to whether writing is a calling or a hobby.
Actually, I want it to be a calling for me. So, thinking about your question was helpful. Thanks!
"Do you live for your writing or do you live off your writing?" I suppose ideally we'd like to do both, but I do live for my writing. It's not just something I do anymore. It's been my solace and my mission and I can't imagine not doing it.
I agree with David. Writing has been a hobby for years, I'm not very good with conversations, but I love writing. During the past three years, though, writing seems to have become a calling. It isn't about making money, it's about expressing my thoughts and sharing my years of experience with others.
I wonder how often it goes from hobby to calling. And how long it takes. Sharing our experiences is a big part of it, isn't it? So much of the writing we've read all our lives is based on someone's experiences. It's all about interpretation. Wonderful.
Maybe we have to be older and have experiences to share before we are ready for writing as a calling. Actually, I suspect it has to be with having something to say. What do you think?
Oct 3, 2023·edited Oct 3, 2023Liked by Ramona Grigg
— Intriguing question, intrinsic answer. If “to write” means the same as “to try”, and, to try is the only possible way of writing, as with everything else in life, it must be a journey rather than a destination. I have been listening to “the calling” and its most purposeful duet, which is composed of plausible openness and proper opportunity. Xo.
Oct 3, 2023·edited Oct 3, 2023Liked by Ramona Grigg
What a fun and equally stressful question. 😂
The "hobby" bucket never really applied to me because writing is too closely related to how I function and present myself to the world. (Most other forms of communication don't work well for me.) I rely on writing too heavily for it to be purely relaxing.
The "calling" label is probably a little closer to how writing functions in my life as an editor and writer, but "calling" feels loaded.
Did you ever read that poem by Pablo Neruda where he says:
"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love..."
That's how I most often feel about writing.
It is part of my Capital W Work for the rest of my life. The bridge to everything I must do—I must lean on writing to get me there. I write because I don't know any other way to live. (This is both freeing and terrifying!)
That's interesting, Amanda. That the calling was always there. I can see that, considering how much you've experienced and how much you have to offer. I hope you can have fun with it, too. ❤️
My hobby is painting and designing my house. I’d say it is also my calling despite never doing it for a living (paycheck), because it’s my passion and I am driven (in a good way) to do it. I think it you feel something from the depth of your soul it can be whatever you want it to be.
I write primarily as a way of showing up in the world. Maybe it's a hobby, maybe it's a calling, maybe it's a practice.
My focus area for the year (and for the foreseeable future!) is Notice and Name (what's arising in me, those around me, and the environment). To which I've added "...and write about it." Or, as Joan Didion put it, I write to find out what I'm thinking.
I do think about this sometimes — thanks for bringing up this topic. The word "hobby" seems minimizing to me, and writing definitely feels like a calling to me, but I've only recently begun to write regularly for myself (as opposed to for work, which I've been lucky to do more in the last decade but didn't do for much of my career). If anything, it's both, but I guess I've never liked the word "hobby." ;-)
"Hobby" seems a bit frivolous, doesn't it? But I've known many exceptional artists, musicians, and writers who see what they do as a hobby, since they often have full-time jobs, and yet they're full-blown, amazing talents.
So I agree that it's whatever it feels like to you.
Yes, many people seem fine with the word! Maybe my problem with it has more to do with our culture's tendency to associate people with the work they do for pay and to value them based on that.
Oh, absolutely. It's too easy to get locked in by perception instead of reality. "Hobby" does that, but it's really a lovely word and shouldn't feel insulting. Yet, in this society it brands us as amateurs, and we can't go there.
Likewise, I never liked the word 'hobby'. It doesn't seem to do justice to the passion and energy people put into unpaid pursuits with no thought of fame or glory
Perhaps replace or augment “Hobby” with an occupational-activity-handle like “Jobby”? 🤔
Where bucks and passion meet in the middle like great sex memorialized under the umbrella of love, not just “need and greed” ignited under the flash-point of a lust for recognition.
The Cambridge definition of calling seems very restrictive and boxed in. To me a calling is something we feel from the depths of our being, something we do despite the misgivings or comments of those around us and, speaking for myself, something I’ve tried to walk away from but keep feeling the need to return to. My writing seems to be a calling.
Yet it’s also a hobby because I do it for enjoyment, it takes a lot of time and costs me money.
Also, I’m curious is BYOB at the end means Bring Your Own Brain? Haha!
Yes, a 'calling' suggests it comes from the depths of our souls and is there with or without our permission. And then there are your reasons for thinking of it as a hobby, as well. Ai!!
I figured this topic would be a struggle--that's why the BYOB. 😉
I feel like both of these categories - calling and hobby - are concepts we've developed in capitalist culture so that people other than the writer can feel justified in judging the quality or value of the writer and their work. As with all labels, they are usually oppressive and divisive if they are forced on us, and can also be liberating and empowering if we reclaim them for our own use. I really like Donna's definition of "calling" because it then becomes a way of the exploring my own relationship to my interest in writing. In the end, I only find these differentiations useful if I am trying them on to see how they fit; how they feel to me. I will never consent to anyone else applying them to me. I got off track there, but I'd say yes, writing is my calling. I would like it to be my livelihood, but don't feel it's practical or realistic to believe that it will ever support me financially.
Yup, they're both words that can be loaded, which is why I find the concepts so interesting. Do they change how we see ourselves? I think they do. Is there an in-between? Neither hobby nor calling? I suppose if writing is an actual full-time paying job. But we're not really talking about jobs here, in the nine-to-five sense, we talk most often about how our writing reflects ourselves and how we relate it to other people.
Always interesting here in the comment section. Thanks.
I would say that unless any writer is mainstream (and even then, unless they are being paid well), most writers have a second income stream. So assuming that, surely we are all writing for love.
I know I am.
I have a primary income which keeps me alive. If I relied on my booksales, I would be living on the streets.
That said, I do write because I love the word, I love the creative style, I love imagination.
I write fiction and my only goal is to entertain any readers. I never hope to change the world. It's going to take far louder and more forward people than myself.
I take no time at all to examine why I write. I just do. It's the medium I prefer in the same way as an artist might prefer oils, a sculptor marble or a printmaker ink. It's the way I create and that makes me feel inordinately content.
I rarely look at my various publication dashboards . If I relied on the income, I would be tearing my hair out in fear and the love of writing would disappear, I'm sure.
So I just try to remain equanimous and enjoy what I've been given - a small skill with words.
It's the medium I prefer in the same way as an artist might prefer oils, a sculptor marble or a printmaker ink. It's the way I create and that makes me feel inordinately content.
Oh, Ramona, thanks for this, and I appreciate all the other comments here, too. For me it’s complicated by also being a profession, but I think you’re asking something deeper about motivation. Because both “hobby” and “calling” seem too narrow, I’d opt for practice - in the sense that yoga and meditation are a practice - a way to make meaning but also to question meaning. I also agree with others about calling writing (or any of the arts) a passion - passionate curiosity about the world and ourselves and our place in the whole.
I think what I really wanted from this amazing group is a recognition of their worth. There's nothing wrong with writing as a hobby, but at the same time a calling suggests a responsibility, a commitment, maybe even an obligation. I sometimes feel that, even when there's no feedback to suggest I'm on the right track. Then I'm doing it for me.
I like your idea of 'practice'. I think there has to be some satisfaction or pleasure in it in order to keep us going, and it could be that our constant need to get the words just right calls for a kind of meditation. It becomes a lovely sense of focus.
Yes, mountain out of a molehill. You've created a false dichotomy. Why are you assuming that "hobby" and "calling" are mutually exclusive. And then you bring in the question of earning money too. Few of us will ever earn our living writing, I hope someday to break even, but I assume I probably won't, although I've published four books so far, with five more to go. When I'm writing, I feel good. When I'm not writing, I'm thinking about it. What more do we need to know?
And when someone asks you what your writing is about, that's like asking "How high is up." It's different things on different days depending on what you're working on. If someone asked me that question, I'd just say, "I mostly write novels but lots of other stuff too." Then I'd wait to see where the next question took us.
I agree this is making a mountain out of a molehill, but it gets us talking about our own sense of who we are as writers. I'm far from assuming those terms are mutually exclusive. The gray areas between them are miles wide. I love reading about how we writers see ourselves, and as you can see from the comments, the writers here never fail to make it interesting.
I’m more than happy to discuss this topic, but if it were just the two of us in the conversation, I think we’d just be saying, “Exactly. That’s how I see it too.” I might add a bit to the conversation by asking, “Why do we have to decide?”
I used to get upset when people said my writing on my blog or website was “hobby writing,” because I took what I was writing seriously, and hoped my readers did too. I still take my writing seriously, but I guess some might see it as a hobby because I don’t have to make a living at it (thank God), and I don’t even want to have that kind of pressure on me when it comes to writing. I’m too old for that.
I do like to think of my writing as a calling, or maybe, more of a purpose for getting up in the morning and sitting down at the computer and typing out words on my memoir or on my newly created Substack site.
I made my living at one point from a BA in English and a teaching certificate, so I guess that qualifies me as a professional person when it comes to the realm of words and syntax and sentence structure and the like. If I stepped back into the classroom as a teacher of writing, no one better call what I would be doing a “hobby” because I would find such a remark disrespectful of my education, experience, expertise, and calling. I retired from my profession, but I did not lose all that went with being a teacher of language arts and writing.
On-line writing is seen by many as a hobby if one is not a published writer, or doesn’t have a book in the works, but I think that speaks more about the one who views my on-line writing as a hobby, then it speaks about how I see how I pursue the writing I’m doing.
On the other hand, writing here is so relaxing, and it also provides connections to other like minded people, so maybe it is a hobby.
I enjoy writing and intend to keep doing it in any form it takes for as long and I love doing it. That is the beauty at being in the stage of life where I find myself.
You've touched on so many great points, Sally, including that phony stigma over online writing, or blogs. I've hesitated to call myself a 'blogger' many times, though that's basically what I am now, because too many see it as a reason to dismiss me as a serious writer. Yet this is as close to a calling as I've ever felt.
I called my blog "Writer Everlasting" to emphasize my work here. I'm in it for the long haul and so are most of the writers who come here frequently.
I like that we can talk about these things and find mutual interest. It's why I do these Q&A's. Thanks!
I know what you mean about the hesitation to call yourself a blogger. When did that become a bad thing? I have been blogging for years, and I wear the title proudly. Other’s perception of that is not my concern. As Anne Lamott said, “What other people think of you is none of your business.”
Writing is off and on for me. I write when I am dealing with major life moments. It helps my health. When the pandemic hit I was forced to be home & I felt that I couldn’t have any control over many things so I wrote a novel about a world I could control. Now I am working on a second novel & I write on Substack. I think it was Aristotle who believed that in a good society people had time for amateur activity. It had to be challenging & individuals also did these activities for the love of them. I like the process of writing more than having people reading my work. Weird feeling even when I receive great reception. Lately I have been thinking that I write for the Lord. I heard this in a group & it resonated with me. I am moving towards writing to counter the negative forces in the world. That is helping me continue.
Regina, thanks so much for joining in. So many thoughts here and all of them intriguing. The process of writing is everything to me, but would I feel as good about it if I knew there would never be an audience? I don't think so. Part of the joy is also the thrill of knowing people are reading what I write. I can't lie. It keeps me going.
But writing to counter the negative forces in the world is important work. If more of us did that we might just get somewhere.
Thank you for your reply. I was an actress years ago and that was satisfying because there was an immediate connection with the audience. I think if I read excerpts of my work I would feel engaged. I am glad you wrote this. It is helping me find the reasons to continue writing. I love the written word and I think if I speak it as well I will be on to something.
When I retired from a 35-year teaching career to start a sustainable farm, I bristled at perceptions of hobby farming. I took my new calling seriously. After eight years of farming that overlapped with historical research, I sold the farm and became an author. Since then, I’ve been writing articles. I may have another book in me. Writing has become a way for me to connect with a wider world, a world full of chosen interests and passions. If I don’t make any money, this will still be a calling for me.
You are inspiring to me. I am a career coach and now a fiction writer. You are a great example of what good career development means. You had a long, stable career as a teacher, then you kept that nurturing quality & transferred it into a farming career, & now you are an author. Learning new things is healthy. Good for you!
I’m glad you’re here. If you’re doing it and it feels right you don’t have to define it. It’ll tell you what it is.
I'm in a transition from hobby to calling. How's that for a cop-out answer?
I think that a key distinction is whether you write as a career, i.e., that's how you intend to make your living or whether you have a non-writing career or source of making money.
Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive, but I think people would call his poetry a calling.
Do you live for your writing or do you live off your writing? I'm not sure that's an important distinction as to whether writing is a calling or a hobby.
Actually, I want it to be a calling for me. So, thinking about your question was helpful. Thanks!
Ha! Any answer is the right answer.
"Do you live for your writing or do you live off your writing?" I suppose ideally we'd like to do both, but I do live for my writing. It's not just something I do anymore. It's been my solace and my mission and I can't imagine not doing it.
Thanks for joining in.
I agree with David. Writing has been a hobby for years, I'm not very good with conversations, but I love writing. During the past three years, though, writing seems to have become a calling. It isn't about making money, it's about expressing my thoughts and sharing my years of experience with others.
I wonder how often it goes from hobby to calling. And how long it takes. Sharing our experiences is a big part of it, isn't it? So much of the writing we've read all our lives is based on someone's experiences. It's all about interpretation. Wonderful.
Maybe we have to be older and have experiences to share before we are ready for writing as a calling. Actually, I suspect it has to be with having something to say. What do you think?
— Intriguing question, intrinsic answer. If “to write” means the same as “to try”, and, to try is the only possible way of writing, as with everything else in life, it must be a journey rather than a destination. I have been listening to “the calling” and its most purposeful duet, which is composed of plausible openness and proper opportunity. Xo.
Beautifully put, Thaissa. Thank you!
What a fun and equally stressful question. 😂
The "hobby" bucket never really applied to me because writing is too closely related to how I function and present myself to the world. (Most other forms of communication don't work well for me.) I rely on writing too heavily for it to be purely relaxing.
The "calling" label is probably a little closer to how writing functions in my life as an editor and writer, but "calling" feels loaded.
Did you ever read that poem by Pablo Neruda where he says:
"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love..."
That's how I most often feel about writing.
It is part of my Capital W Work for the rest of my life. The bridge to everything I must do—I must lean on writing to get me there. I write because I don't know any other way to live. (This is both freeing and terrifying!)
That's interesting, Amanda. That the calling was always there. I can see that, considering how much you've experienced and how much you have to offer. I hope you can have fun with it, too. ❤️
My hobby is painting and designing my house. I’d say it is also my calling despite never doing it for a living (paycheck), because it’s my passion and I am driven (in a good way) to do it. I think it you feel something from the depth of your soul it can be whatever you want it to be.
Ah, perfect! A calling is a passion, no matter where it takes us. Your last line says it all.
What an interesting question!
I write primarily as a way of showing up in the world. Maybe it's a hobby, maybe it's a calling, maybe it's a practice.
My focus area for the year (and for the foreseeable future!) is Notice and Name (what's arising in me, those around me, and the environment). To which I've added "...and write about it." Or, as Joan Didion put it, I write to find out what I'm thinking.
It's just part of me now, like speaking.
Yes! "It's just part of me now, like speaking." I like, 'as a way of showing up in the world', as well. Sounds like a calling to me!
I do think about this sometimes — thanks for bringing up this topic. The word "hobby" seems minimizing to me, and writing definitely feels like a calling to me, but I've only recently begun to write regularly for myself (as opposed to for work, which I've been lucky to do more in the last decade but didn't do for much of my career). If anything, it's both, but I guess I've never liked the word "hobby." ;-)
"Hobby" seems a bit frivolous, doesn't it? But I've known many exceptional artists, musicians, and writers who see what they do as a hobby, since they often have full-time jobs, and yet they're full-blown, amazing talents.
So I agree that it's whatever it feels like to you.
Thanks.
Yes, many people seem fine with the word! Maybe my problem with it has more to do with our culture's tendency to associate people with the work they do for pay and to value them based on that.
Oh, absolutely. It's too easy to get locked in by perception instead of reality. "Hobby" does that, but it's really a lovely word and shouldn't feel insulting. Yet, in this society it brands us as amateurs, and we can't go there.
Likewise, I never liked the word 'hobby'. It doesn't seem to do justice to the passion and energy people put into unpaid pursuits with no thought of fame or glory
No, it doesn't. It looks like we all agree "hobby" should be retired.
Perhaps replace or augment “Hobby” with an occupational-activity-handle like “Jobby”? 🤔
Where bucks and passion meet in the middle like great sex memorialized under the umbrella of love, not just “need and greed” ignited under the flash-point of a lust for recognition.
The Cambridge definition of calling seems very restrictive and boxed in. To me a calling is something we feel from the depths of our being, something we do despite the misgivings or comments of those around us and, speaking for myself, something I’ve tried to walk away from but keep feeling the need to return to. My writing seems to be a calling.
Yet it’s also a hobby because I do it for enjoyment, it takes a lot of time and costs me money.
Also, I’m curious is BYOB at the end means Bring Your Own Brain? Haha!
I love your definition of a calling.
Yes, a 'calling' suggests it comes from the depths of our souls and is there with or without our permission. And then there are your reasons for thinking of it as a hobby, as well. Ai!!
I figured this topic would be a struggle--that's why the BYOB. 😉
I feel like both of these categories - calling and hobby - are concepts we've developed in capitalist culture so that people other than the writer can feel justified in judging the quality or value of the writer and their work. As with all labels, they are usually oppressive and divisive if they are forced on us, and can also be liberating and empowering if we reclaim them for our own use. I really like Donna's definition of "calling" because it then becomes a way of the exploring my own relationship to my interest in writing. In the end, I only find these differentiations useful if I am trying them on to see how they fit; how they feel to me. I will never consent to anyone else applying them to me. I got off track there, but I'd say yes, writing is my calling. I would like it to be my livelihood, but don't feel it's practical or realistic to believe that it will ever support me financially.
Yup, they're both words that can be loaded, which is why I find the concepts so interesting. Do they change how we see ourselves? I think they do. Is there an in-between? Neither hobby nor calling? I suppose if writing is an actual full-time paying job. But we're not really talking about jobs here, in the nine-to-five sense, we talk most often about how our writing reflects ourselves and how we relate it to other people.
Always interesting here in the comment section. Thanks.
There's definitely an in between if you want there to be. 🙂💚
Goodness!
I would say that unless any writer is mainstream (and even then, unless they are being paid well), most writers have a second income stream. So assuming that, surely we are all writing for love.
I know I am.
I have a primary income which keeps me alive. If I relied on my booksales, I would be living on the streets.
That said, I do write because I love the word, I love the creative style, I love imagination.
I write fiction and my only goal is to entertain any readers. I never hope to change the world. It's going to take far louder and more forward people than myself.
I take no time at all to examine why I write. I just do. It's the medium I prefer in the same way as an artist might prefer oils, a sculptor marble or a printmaker ink. It's the way I create and that makes me feel inordinately content.
I rarely look at my various publication dashboards . If I relied on the income, I would be tearing my hair out in fear and the love of writing would disappear, I'm sure.
So I just try to remain equanimous and enjoy what I've been given - a small skill with words.
Love this:
It's the medium I prefer in the same way as an artist might prefer oils, a sculptor marble or a printmaker ink. It's the way I create and that makes me feel inordinately content.
Oh, Ramona, thanks for this, and I appreciate all the other comments here, too. For me it’s complicated by also being a profession, but I think you’re asking something deeper about motivation. Because both “hobby” and “calling” seem too narrow, I’d opt for practice - in the sense that yoga and meditation are a practice - a way to make meaning but also to question meaning. I also agree with others about calling writing (or any of the arts) a passion - passionate curiosity about the world and ourselves and our place in the whole.
I think what I really wanted from this amazing group is a recognition of their worth. There's nothing wrong with writing as a hobby, but at the same time a calling suggests a responsibility, a commitment, maybe even an obligation. I sometimes feel that, even when there's no feedback to suggest I'm on the right track. Then I'm doing it for me.
I like your idea of 'practice'. I think there has to be some satisfaction or pleasure in it in order to keep us going, and it could be that our constant need to get the words just right calls for a kind of meditation. It becomes a lovely sense of focus.
When it goes well.
Yes, mountain out of a molehill. You've created a false dichotomy. Why are you assuming that "hobby" and "calling" are mutually exclusive. And then you bring in the question of earning money too. Few of us will ever earn our living writing, I hope someday to break even, but I assume I probably won't, although I've published four books so far, with five more to go. When I'm writing, I feel good. When I'm not writing, I'm thinking about it. What more do we need to know?
And when someone asks you what your writing is about, that's like asking "How high is up." It's different things on different days depending on what you're working on. If someone asked me that question, I'd just say, "I mostly write novels but lots of other stuff too." Then I'd wait to see where the next question took us.
I agree this is making a mountain out of a molehill, but it gets us talking about our own sense of who we are as writers. I'm far from assuming those terms are mutually exclusive. The gray areas between them are miles wide. I love reading about how we writers see ourselves, and as you can see from the comments, the writers here never fail to make it interesting.
I’m more than happy to discuss this topic, but if it were just the two of us in the conversation, I think we’d just be saying, “Exactly. That’s how I see it too.” I might add a bit to the conversation by asking, “Why do we have to decide?”
I used to get upset when people said my writing on my blog or website was “hobby writing,” because I took what I was writing seriously, and hoped my readers did too. I still take my writing seriously, but I guess some might see it as a hobby because I don’t have to make a living at it (thank God), and I don’t even want to have that kind of pressure on me when it comes to writing. I’m too old for that.
I do like to think of my writing as a calling, or maybe, more of a purpose for getting up in the morning and sitting down at the computer and typing out words on my memoir or on my newly created Substack site.
I made my living at one point from a BA in English and a teaching certificate, so I guess that qualifies me as a professional person when it comes to the realm of words and syntax and sentence structure and the like. If I stepped back into the classroom as a teacher of writing, no one better call what I would be doing a “hobby” because I would find such a remark disrespectful of my education, experience, expertise, and calling. I retired from my profession, but I did not lose all that went with being a teacher of language arts and writing.
On-line writing is seen by many as a hobby if one is not a published writer, or doesn’t have a book in the works, but I think that speaks more about the one who views my on-line writing as a hobby, then it speaks about how I see how I pursue the writing I’m doing.
On the other hand, writing here is so relaxing, and it also provides connections to other like minded people, so maybe it is a hobby.
I enjoy writing and intend to keep doing it in any form it takes for as long and I love doing it. That is the beauty at being in the stage of life where I find myself.
Thanks for your great post!
You've touched on so many great points, Sally, including that phony stigma over online writing, or blogs. I've hesitated to call myself a 'blogger' many times, though that's basically what I am now, because too many see it as a reason to dismiss me as a serious writer. Yet this is as close to a calling as I've ever felt.
I called my blog "Writer Everlasting" to emphasize my work here. I'm in it for the long haul and so are most of the writers who come here frequently.
I like that we can talk about these things and find mutual interest. It's why I do these Q&A's. Thanks!
I know what you mean about the hesitation to call yourself a blogger. When did that become a bad thing? I have been blogging for years, and I wear the title proudly. Other’s perception of that is not my concern. As Anne Lamott said, “What other people think of you is none of your business.”
“When I was young, I worried about what people thought of me.
When I grew up, I stopped caring about what people thought about me.
Now I’m older, I realise no one was ever thinking about me at all!”
Yet that quote is now all over the place.
Kind of negates the whole thing.. 😏
I had no idea it was ubiquitous! It always tickles me, reminding me not to take too much to seriously. 🤔🧐🤭
Writing is off and on for me. I write when I am dealing with major life moments. It helps my health. When the pandemic hit I was forced to be home & I felt that I couldn’t have any control over many things so I wrote a novel about a world I could control. Now I am working on a second novel & I write on Substack. I think it was Aristotle who believed that in a good society people had time for amateur activity. It had to be challenging & individuals also did these activities for the love of them. I like the process of writing more than having people reading my work. Weird feeling even when I receive great reception. Lately I have been thinking that I write for the Lord. I heard this in a group & it resonated with me. I am moving towards writing to counter the negative forces in the world. That is helping me continue.
Regina, thanks so much for joining in. So many thoughts here and all of them intriguing. The process of writing is everything to me, but would I feel as good about it if I knew there would never be an audience? I don't think so. Part of the joy is also the thrill of knowing people are reading what I write. I can't lie. It keeps me going.
But writing to counter the negative forces in the world is important work. If more of us did that we might just get somewhere.
Thank you for your reply. I was an actress years ago and that was satisfying because there was an immediate connection with the audience. I think if I read excerpts of my work I would feel engaged. I am glad you wrote this. It is helping me find the reasons to continue writing. I love the written word and I think if I speak it as well I will be on to something.
When I retired from a 35-year teaching career to start a sustainable farm, I bristled at perceptions of hobby farming. I took my new calling seriously. After eight years of farming that overlapped with historical research, I sold the farm and became an author. Since then, I’ve been writing articles. I may have another book in me. Writing has become a way for me to connect with a wider world, a world full of chosen interests and passions. If I don’t make any money, this will still be a calling for me.
You are inspiring to me. I am a career coach and now a fiction writer. You are a great example of what good career development means. You had a long, stable career as a teacher, then you kept that nurturing quality & transferred it into a farming career, & now you are an author. Learning new things is healthy. Good for you!
Thank you, Regina. This keeps me grounded at age 70.