Is writing a good career?

 

Is Writing a Good Career? (Don’t Ask Me, But Also… Ask Me)

So here’s the thing—I probably shouldn’t be writing this post.

I mean, I’m at the very beginning of my writing career. Like, toe-in-the-pool, still-reading-the-instruction-manual levels of beginning. I don’t have a bestselling book (yet). I’m not writing this from a cozy cabin in the mountains with a mug of tea and three book deals in my inbox. I’m sitting here, likely overthinking every sentence, wondering if I should be writing at all today.

But here I am. And maybe you’re here too. So let’s figure this out together.

“Is writing a good career?” is one of those questions that sounds simple until you actually try to answer it. Like, define “good.” Good for your soul? Good for your bank account? Good for your mental health? (Trick question. That one’s a war zone.)

Honestly? Writing can be beautiful and brutal in the same breath. There’s the thrill of finishing a chapter, the spark of a new idea, the rush of seeing your name on a page. But there’s also the days where words feel like wet socks, and nothing sounds right, and you wonder if your cat could write better dialogue than you.

Still… we keep going.

I think writing is a good career if you are good with it not being simple. If you can love the process more than the product, or at least try to. If you can make peace with the fact that sometimes you’ll write things no one reads, and sometimes people will read things and not get it—and that’s still okay.

It’s not glamorous, and it’s rarely stable. But writing gives you a way to exist louder. To tell the stories that keep you up at night. To maybe, just maybe, nudge someone else forward by sharing your barely-figured-out thoughts, like I’m doing right now.

This isn’t advice. I’m not qualified to give that. This is just me talking to the void (hi, void), hoping someone else out there is asking the same question and feels a little less alone knowing they’re not the only one wondering what the heck they’re doing.

So... is writing a good career?

I don’t know.

But I know I’m still showing up. I know something inside me lights up when I write. And if you’re here, reading this, maybe something lights up in you too.