Are you a professional?

An article recently came out on the HWA website with ten questions to determine whether you are a professional writer or not. Whether it meant to or not, the article ended up sounding snide and elitist. It was probably meant to express frustration with “I’ve always wanted to write a book” types that we inevitably run into.

The unmovable force that is Brian Keene responded. So have many other authors.

I always thought that being a professional in any industry meant you conduct yourself in a professional manner. You show up to meetings or interviews (or events) clean, well groomed (in whatever manner that means to you). You are honest with your expectations of the work and your ability to do it. You are honest with others about your ability to do the work. You show up on time, meet deadlines. You do your best to give every project your best effort.

In writing this means you read and follow guidelines. You send out work as polished and error-free as you can, whether it is to editors or work you’re self publishing. You respect your readers (at least as an entity, if not individually) and treat them decent face-to-face or by giving them the best story you can. You don’t expect them to be your beta readers or pay for trash.

I got a day job for a number of reasons. But one of the big reasons I keep it is because writing can easily become insanely stressful. You can’t control what the market wants to buy. You can’t control how talented the other authors in the slush pile are, or who gets their story in first. You can’t read every market or every book and be at every con to be perfectly prepared. The stress of turning writing into getting paid to write was killing my desire to write.

Enter the day job, which I really enjoy. It gets me out with other people, it gets me up on my feet and moving. It feeds one of my many interests. Because I do have many. People are a garden of interests and desires and gardens cannot thrive when only one beastly plant lives. Furthermore it takes a huge amount of the pressure off. Each rejection is finally just that, a rejection, rather than one more failure to provide for my family.

I have some entangling issues, you see, with depression and anxiety. It’s not really anyone else’s business, and not what I meant to talk about here. But the truth is the day job allows me to untangle those emotions and that anxiety enough that I can maintain an enjoyment of writing. I write less these days. But I’m much much happier, and I write BETTER. And additionally I’ve been more fiscally successful in the time since I made that life change. If, you know, that is how you want to define a professional.

If you want to say splitting my attention makes me a hobbyist and not a professional, or working with small presses or self publishing…well, honestly your opinion matters not a lick to me. But I would find it curious because isn’t making the choices that are best for your career a trademark of a professional?

Anyway, like Brian I thought I’d give those questions a crack for amusement, even though the article says you lose automatically if you scoff (and frankly I scoffed at the title.)

1. Is your home/work place messy because that time you’d put into cleaning it is better spent writing?

No, it’s messy because three dogs, a cat, two kids (including a teenager!), an insomniac and a scattered, interest-eclectic artist live here. It’s messy because I’d rather play Final Fantasy 7 or watch seasons of TV shows instead of clean. Because I’m always growing, canning, baking, gluing or organizing something. Because sometimes I come home from work and can barely think straight and the kids have used my bed to bounce on, have been making movies with my craft/sewing supplies, the dogs have cuddled with my sleep pants and my darling husband (who works 3rd shift) is just getting up and moving since it’s his day off. Also, if it’s a matter of my kids eating off clean dishes or me writing…I can write on my lunch break or before bed. Washing dishes takes all of 15 minutes.

2. Do you routinely turn down evenings out with friends because you need to be home writing instead?

What are evenings out with friends? I’m unfamiliar with this concept seeing as I’m often broke and am a parent. Are evenings out like when you go to dinner and a movie and maybe Walmart for some school supplies on payday? In that case I make my husband drive and I write a long the way.

Joking, somewhat anyway. But weekends out are never an every weekend thing. At the very least because working in a retail environment means I work weekends. Jason is part of a wrestling company so I get the fun opportunity to support him by going to his shows. I also have a few friends that celebrate holidays occasionally with a feast-type get together. Writing is wonderful, but a support network can mean the difference between thriving and wilting.

3. Do you turn off the television in order to write?

No, but I do annoy my family by putting CSI and documentaries and seasons of whatever as background noise and totally not paying attention to them while writing.

4. Would you rather receive useful criticism than praise?

It depends on who they are from. Ideally I’d like to receive both. I also think my idea of useful criticism is different than other people’s. I do need criticism. I need encouragement sometimes too.

5. Do you plan vacations around writing opportunities (either research or networking potential)?

No. I plan vacations around what I want to do. I do tend to use a lot of vacation stuff in my books. I read a lot on vacation and want to go places and experience things. I love zoos, parks, caves, craft shops, bookstores…Vacations are also family time. Because it’s easy to forget how important family is when you’re focused entirely on getting stuff done.

6. Would you rather be chatting about the business of writing with another writer than exchanging small talk with a good friend?

No. I love talking writing and hearing other people’s experiences and market tips. But I also want to know how my friends are. If their life is going well, or if they need some kind of support I can give them. And many of us have the same hobbies, so talking about their gardens, their kids, or what books they’re loving. Generally people who can’t talk about anything but business are the nervous-to-be-accepted fanboys that make conversations uncomfortable.

7. Have you ever taken a day job that paid less money because it would give you more time/energy/material to write?

No. I like to eat. I like my kids to eat. And I’m lucky enough to have a partner who does 80% of the bread-winning. My money usually goes to the dash of butter that makes our lives flavorful.

8. Are you willing to give up the nice home you know you could have if you devoted that time you spend writing to a more lucrative career?

I never wanted that “lucrative” career. I always wanted to chase my dreams and make them real.  nice home is one where people are loved and warmly welcomed. Anything else is just a showplace.

9. Have you done all these things for at least five years?

I’ve been writing for…erm , since 7th grade? I’ve been studying the craft for longer. I used to copy down books by hand hoping to figure how they hit all those emotional notes in me. I won a few writing awards in high school (nothing lucrative). I wrote two plays that were performed. I went into college determined to be an author only to be told that genre writing was trash. Then I thought I wasn’t good enough. Then I said fuck that I had to start somewhere and wrote the book that would sell as Wolf Heart over ten years later. It’s all been downhill from there.

10. Are you willing to live knowing that you will likely never meet your ambitions, but you hold to those ambitions nonetheless?

As I said before, Fuck that shit. My ambitions are always changing, many times because I’ve met them. I reevaluate their likeliness and I work toward them. Maybe not every moment, but I try to advance a little every week, every year. It took me ten years to sell Wolf Heart, but not because the book, or myself, are crap. Sales prove that. I wanted to be a vet in high school and a counselor told me there was no way I could do that. It would cost too much. But now I’m working daily with animals and loving it. I’m not a vet, but I have reached that aspiration to work to better the health of animals.

So your aspirations, your career and your life are what you make of it. Don’t give up because someone gives you a character sheet of a “successful writer” and you don’t have the right dots filled in.