Is it enough?

I’ve always written, as a hobby, as a way to relive boredom, as a way to stay sane. I’d never taken it very seriously, it was just this thing I did. Writers, those people who got paid to write, were other people. It never crossed my mind that I could do this professionally.

I was going to be a lawyer. My family is full of lawyers. They make very good money, they have very nice houses, their days bill out in an endless progression of six-minute increments. This is where I was headed, working towards a safe, respectable career that would bring me a safe, respectable lifestyle with a safe, respectable family.

Writing for yourself is great if you can do it. I can’t. I need feedback from people, I need to know people are reading my work or I lose interest. Two years ago I started posting some of what I had written on the Internet. I got lucky and I caught the attention of some very smart, very motivated people.

“I’m starting a company” he said “I want you onboard.”

The writing game can be funny. I write well which landed me a job as an editor. I do development. I do public relations, I plan events. I do everything, in fact, but write.

I fell into this, I understand on every level how lucky I am. I work with great authors who I respect and, just between you and me, who I’m a little intimidated by. I work for a young, dynamic company that I believe in, but is it enough?

I never believed in being a lawyer. Law is, as a friend put it, “the last refuge for the smart but uncreative”. Law school was an easy plan to walk away from.

I love the people I work with and I love the company I work for. But using my writing as a way into a glorious life as an editor was never what I intended. Once I put away my plans for law school something happened. I put away my plans to settle. Now I wake up at six am every morning to write for an hour before my day starts. Somewhere along the way I started to think I could be a writer.

I hope to document the mistakes I’ve made here as well as the few things I’ve done right. The last two years have shown me that life is too long to do something you don’t believe in and yet, very few people take a shot at what they’re passionate about. I hope my experience can, in some small way, help others out. Or maybe it will just be good for a laugh, we’ll see.