All I ever wanted was to write but…
I started writing when I was a kid. At first it was poetry, and then at some point in my late teens, early 20s, I switched over to writing short stories. Eventually I ended up writing non-fiction and currently I’m in the process of returning to writing fiction and continuing to write non-fiction.
I always knew I wanted to be a writer…that I wanted to make it my main way of making a living. But up until now I never embraced it. I’d say all I want to do is write, but…
And the but was usually something along the lines of I’ll never be able to make a living as a writer.
Why did I tell myself that?
Part of it was because as I grew up I was told you can’t make a living as a writer and you should be prepared to do something else to support your writing.
Wise advice…true advice, for the most part, but as a result I always held back on my writing. Sure I wrote books, got them published but I never had any expectation that writing books alone would work. So I would write, but I would never focus solely on my writing.
Instead I’d give academia a try for a while because I was told that getting a degree in English, it was either academia or asking people if they wanted fries with that burger. But academia and I weren’t a good fit and eventually I discovered you could make a living as a writer, if you wanted to be a technical or copy writer.
So I became a technical writer (Copy writing and I don’t get along because it’s all about persuading people to do something). And I was pretty good at it, did it for a couple years, and then the great recession of 08 hit and it was hard to find work if you were a contractor.
So I went full on self-employed as a coach for 9 years, helping clients with their social media and business.
Lately I've gone back to work for someone else, but through it all I’ve always had this thought in the back of my mind. All I want to do is write, but…
I finally, after over 2 decades, realized something important.
It’s time to kick the but to the curve and just write. If that’s what I want to do, then that’s what I’ll do, regardless of how much I do or don’t make from it, regardless of whether it does or doesn’t become my full time occupation…it’s what I’m doing, because that’s all I ever wanted to do…and everything else was just a distraction and an excuse for why I couldn’t focus on my writing the way I wanted to.
And what’s the moral of the story here?
Simply this…If there’s something you feel called to do, that you love to do, that speaks to who you are, then do it and offer no excuses and take no excuses because you want to do it.
Yes you may have to work at a job and do what you love to do on the side, but if its what you love to do, then do it because its what you need to be doing. Don’t let the well-meaning advice of other people or your own hidden doubts stop you from just doing what you love to do in whatever way you can do it. Don’t pursue possible careers because you feel that’s the only option you have available to you. Simply do what you love and whatever else must needs be done to support it…do it to support what you do, but don’t let it define what you can do.
Taylor Ellwood is an experimenter and writer and author.
