6 reasons why it sucks to be a writer

My, oh my, why couldn’t I be an accountant?

or a banker?

… or a freaking lawyer?

My last 3 posts on Vocal are all about how thanks to falling in love, becoming an immigrant and COVID-19 I re-discovered myself as a writer. However, I'd say that for a long time I was afraid to even call myself one because I was too scared of what people will think. Why? Let's be honest, being a writer or any kind of artist doesn't necessarily mean that you have a job. It just means that for some unknown reason you love sharing your mind and soul with the rest of the world and hope to get money from it.

Oh, did you just think I’m wrong? That you don’t do this for the money? Do you have a job that provides you enough to pay the bills, go out with friends and go for a vacation once or twice a year while still having time to write as much as you want?

Well, then congratulations! You did it. You did something I still have no idea how to pull off. Currently, I'm more creative than ever but don't have that much time to put that inspiration into work since I'm struggling to pay the rent. In order to do so I spend most of my week doing the job I hate. To be honest I probably wouldn't hate it that much if it didn't suck all the inspiration out of me but it does so... yeah, with no further ado here's 6 reasons why it sucks to be a writer.

1. It doesn't pay the bills

Unless you're a very successful journalist or you published some bestsellers you probably can't live off being a writer. Well, yes, I'm new to the "business" so it might take me a while to get my big break or something but in the end either you're famous or poor. The middle ground... well, it's exactly that, midiocare, average. If you're lucky enough to pay your rent just from writing that's awesome! My question is, how many of us actually can?

2. The Middle Ground

You might wonder what do I mean by all that. "The Middle Ground" and it being average and not special at all. The middle ground for me is when you get to write a bit each day or each week, make some money off it but still need a full time or part time job in order to support yourself or your family. I feel like there are way too many members of that damn group. Why is it so terrible? Because you can't be a part time writer. I'm sorry but you can't. Either you live and breathe your art and commit yourself 100% to it or your work will always be suffering.

3. The Endless Circle

The points above are the worst thing that could ever happen and unfortunately happens to most of the artists. We can't pay the bills with our art but we won't do our art if we find a job that can. To create a masterpiece we need time and full focus. That's impossible if we work somewhere else for most of the day. It's also impossible while being homeless which will happen sooner or later if we commit to the idea of not finding a "real job". Basically the only way out of this circle of artistic madness is to get your breakthrough without going broke first. Otherwise you either get lucky and get discovered while still being only a part-time writer or you'll forever treat your art as a hobby which (as the whole point of this article says) SUCKS.

4. Passion is everything

If you haven't figured it out yet it's not possible for a real writer (in my own personal opinion) to work a 9-5 job. It's not because we are lazy or love chaos... no, it's because we can't write whenever people tell us to. We need something to make us write. Not a boss, not a paycheck... real writers write whenever the inspiration strikes. We need to "feel it". We need to want to write something, share our story with you. If we don't , whatever comes out of it will probably be not that good. There are so many factors making a great story and I'd say that 90% of it is us being passionate about it. The rest are writing skills, editing, audience, etc. but with no passion the story will simply feel flat and uninteresting. Now try to find enough of that passion in order to write 10 different posts or for 300 pages. Feeling constantly inspired is not as easy as it seems to be and it's the key to any good read that you'll ever have in your hands.

5. Your friends and family might hate you

If you're anything like me, you'll base a lot of your stories on your real life. That means your close ones might be appearing there from time to time. When I wrote my first book I knew that some people won't be happy with how I portrayed them. To be honest I was holding back a lot in order not to offend anyone too much. Still, I feel like I'd be happier with my book if I never did that. Unfortunately, I wasn't bold enough to write the truth (the entire truth) about many of my book characters. Instead I let my husband freak out about me mentioning my past relationships and I censored a lot of the things I really wanted to write about. Then I let the fear of hurting people's feelings get to me and I cut out even more. It almost seems like it's impossible to be a writer and have friends. Don't we all base our characters on real life people?

6. It takes forever

Anyone who thinks that they can just write whatever they want to within 30 minutes and then publish it… hate to break it to you but you probably can’t. Not unless you want to be successful. Take it from a person who's an incredibly fast writer. It takes me about an hour or two (or three like today) to write a post for about 1000 words. It took me 3 months to write a book of 160 pages and I self-published it (and I'm not happy with it). God knows how long it would take to do it with a traditional publisher. It’s not just about passion and a good story. It's about grammatical errors and spelling checks. You need to make sure that everything is cohesive and makes sense. That also it’s easy to read and you won’t bore anyone to death. That whoever reads what you just wrote will actually enjoy it and maybe read your other projects. Remember, that if one reader decides you’re not a good writer they will not only not read any of your other articles, posts or books but they might also tell others not to do so either. As struggling artists we can’t afford losing an audience since it’s already so difficult to gain it.

If you got to this part without thinking that I hate being a writer... Well, joke's on you because I do! I hate feeling like I'm going to walk out of my own skin if I don't share a story. I hate spending hours on writing and then realizing that the story was not successful at all. Every time I post on Vocal I'm hoping to see my article on the main page as a "Stuff Pick" and then after a few hours I realize that this time it just won’t happen . I end up getting 7 views including my mum and dad. Actually, I bet my mum read the post twice or more just to make me feel better (skipping the fact she has absolutely no knowledge of English whatsoever).

Being a writer sucks... yet, I can't live without it. Once I created my website, published my book and signed up for Vocal I was long gone. I’m addicted to sharing my life with people. Can’t stop, won’t stop. These days I live in a world full of passion that's just waiting to be poured out on paper. I live from one Vocal challenge to another and write to random literary agents trying to sell them on my next book. I'm ready to quit my job and become a full time writer. I gave in my notice. I’m excited to live and breathe with my writing. I'm terrified of failing and not being able to pay my bills but what scares me the most is that I could ever go through my life without trying to make it.

Make my art real.

PS. Have I mentioned I absolutely hate anything I write?