• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Survey on full-time writing (Vote, vote, vote)

What are your writing ambitions?

  • I am a full-time professional writer

    Votes: 6 15.0%
  • I would like to be a full-time professional writer

    Votes: 15 37.5%
  • I would like to write as a sidejob, but wouldn't like to be a full-time professional writer

    Votes: 14 35.0%
  • I am purely a hobbyist and don't want to earn money from writing

    Votes: 5 12.5%

  • Total voters
    40

KaeSeven7

Dreamer
I'd love to write full-time in the form of books, and creating a community who actually enjoy and expect the next book and discuss it would be the DREAM.

I'm also a musician so no matter what creativity WILL be my future job, or I will probably live in limbo for the rest of my life.

Moneywise....what comes comes. I'm exploring modern ways to earn without forgetting my passions in writing and without disregarding physical books themselves, so maybe there is more to be explored in terms of writing careers in the modern day.
 
I don't believe I'll ever become a full-timer because, while I do love the craft, I find I love editing even more. I have an innate need to serve others and make others happy/successful, which is something I ignored for years and years while I slogged away in the bureaucracy of local government. As soon as I took my editing work to a full-time job, I knew I'd found my calling, and I'll do this work until the day I die.

But there is that allure to writing full-time that can't be ignored. There is a certain romanticism associated with dedicating one's life to storytelling, but I'm not sure the isolation would suit me or my personality. Tough question!
 

Onemaus

Dreamer
When I was a fifth grader, my teacher Mr. Rosa introduced the class to Shakespeare's Macbeth. Sure we didn't get the themes but we understood the words and some meaning, we even held a hip-hop inspired rendition for the school.

At that age I never thought wow writing could be a great career. Then comes my second read through of Macbeth in 10th grade and it clicked for me, I wanted to be a writer. I lacked/lack the confidence and never pursued my dream. But as I think about what would fulfill me? I would have to say Becoming a writer.
 

Malik

Auror
Am I a full-time author? Not yet. I do have income from fiction writing, and being a full-time novelist is my end goal. Ten years, I figure.

That said, I've had full-time writing jobs for the past 20 years. Granted, ten of those were tech and marketing writing, and now my mild-mannered alter ego writes research papers and gives lectures while I still occasionally rampage through forgotten corners of the world as a gunslinger for the Illuminati and all-around professional badass.

I majored in English. Putting words in a row and getting money for it has been the goal all along.
 
Last edited:

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
Am I a full-time author? Not yet. I do have income from fiction writing, and being a full-time novelist is my end goal. Ten years, I figure.

That said, I've had full-time writing jobs for the past 20 years. Granted, ten of those were tech and marketing writing, and now my mild-mannered alter ego writes research papers and gives lectures while I still occasionally rampage through forgotten corners of the world as a gunslinger for the Illuminati and all-around professional badass.

I majored in English. Putting words in a row and getting money for it been the goal all along.
I can't help myself.

 

Malik

Auror
I can't help myself.


Also, I HATED creative writing in school. Absolutely loathed it with the fire of a thousand suns. Mostly, I hated creative writing professors. I concentrated on sociolinguistics and the philosophy of language, which is probably why I'm a Sapir-Whorf adherent who considered conlang creation integral to authentic sociocultural worldbuilding. Just a guess.
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
Also, I HATED creative writing in school. Absolutely loathed it with the fire of a thousand suns. Mostly, I hated creative writing professors. I concentrated on sociolinguistics and the philosophy of language, which is probably why I'm a Sapir-Whorf adherent who considered conlang creation integral to authentic sociocultural worldbuilding. Just a guess.
I know the feeling. I've been a trashy genre writer my entire life (my mom wrote romance and satire and I get it from her) and most of my creative writing teachers hated me from high school on up. I'm not as good at conlang as my wife, who was a linguistics major for a bit, but I can and do get creative with swearing. Navy brat and all.
 

Malik

Auror
I know the feeling. I've been a trashy genre writer my entire life (my mom wrote romance and satire and I get it from her) and most of my creative writing teachers hated me from high school on up. I'm not as good at conlang as my wife, who was a linguistics major for a bit, but I can and do get creative with swearing. Navy brat and all.

My mother ghost-wrote trash romances on contract for one of the big houses; Harlequin, if memory serves. I remember she had some onerous contract at one point in which she had to give them something like eight "teen romance" / "First Love" books in like two years, which was bad enough, but the stipulations were murderous: they all had to be between something like 40-50k words, obviously no sex (duh), and they all had to culminate in the first kiss. There were also certain characters that each book had to have. There was a list on the wall, and I remember seeing the names and character descriptions crossed out and fantasizing that my mother was a hitman. Mostly, though, I just remember her swearing and drinking at her desk a lot during that time. And yet I still wanted to be a writer. What is wrong with us?
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
My mother ghost-wrote trash romances on contract for one of the big houses; Harlequin, if memory serves. I remember she had some onerous contract at one point in which she had to give them something like eight "teen romance" / "First Love" books in like two years, which was bad enough, but the stipulations were murderous: they all had to be between something like 40-50k words, obviously no sex (duh), and they all had to culminate in the first kiss. There were also certain characters that each book had to have. There was a list on the wall, and I remember seeing the names and character descriptions crossed out and fantasizing that my mother was a hitman. Mostly, though, I just remember her swearing and drinking at her desk a lot during that time. And yet I still wanted to be a writer. What is wrong with us?
Writing is a wonderful disease that we inherit from our parents, if we're lucky. I always knew I would be a writer. That was also my end game, always. But when I was nine my scifi fan of a dad gave me a copy of Anne McCaffrey's Dragon Flight and it was off to the races. I never wrote anything outside of speculative fiction after that. Some days I think I'm slightly mad, to do this agonizing, thrilling, painful work, but it's what pulls at my soul. It reminds me of my parents every day, and I think that's a gift.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
No, no background of writing in my family...apart from a solitary distant cousin who retired from the LAPD to write a western or two in his spare time. Met him like twice, hadn't seen him in probably thirty years.
 

Insolent Lad

Maester
I was pulled into poetry and then song writing at an early age, and was rather old by the time I tackled fiction. My urges were all toward being the guy on stage, not the one pecking at a typewriter by himself. Somewhere along the way I did become that guy, however, getting pulled into journalism and having some modest success (i.e. not quite enough to live on) writing articles for fitness and bodybuilding magazines. I was, of course, a big time reader of everything from the time I was five-ish.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Money isn’t evil at all, it isn’t the one ring. The pursuit of power over others—which arguably finds its foundation in the most basic instinct, the Pursuit of Survival—is the root of all evil. Money is simply a tool, and not even real.

I guess it's a sidejob, though I don't care for the term. I write because I'm a writer. It appears to be what I do and have always done. Nowadays I can self-pub, so I do that, in hopes that others will enjoy my Altearth tales. It would be nice to break even on costs, but beyond that I have no financial ambitions. Money may not be the root of all evil, but it's one of its branches.
 
One overlooked category, "I haven't written a darn thing in 5 years. I'm an imposter. What am I doing with my life?"
Just me?
I'm just teasing. I was never dedicated to writing. My background is in acting, but I haven't touched that in a long time either.
Every once in a while I feel this pull to brainstorm an idea or setting, but lack the skill or follow-through to put words on page.
 
Top