One thing nearly every writer or aspiring writer (and really, if you’re writing at all there’s no “aspiring” to it — you’re a writer) dreads is telling people they write. Nine times out of 10, they are met with either ignorance or condescension.
1. "OK, but what’s going to be your real job? How are you going to make money?"
Writing is a real job. We already know there’s hardly any pay in it, we don’t need you condescendingly reminding us!
2. "Can you put me in your book?"
No, I don’t want to write you into my book, Mr. Complete Stranger. Would you ask that of any non-creative field? “Hey, can you put me in your math equation word problem thingy?” (Confession: I don’t know what math people do)
3. "I wish I could have an easy job like writing!"
A common misconception is that writing is easy. Well, it’s not. Creative writing is hard — whether it’s poems or novels — and both emotionally and physically exhausting. There’s a lot of planning and work that goes into writing something, not to mention editing. Writers agonize over every word. Think of all the books you’ve read. At some point that author changed one word in one sentence, like, five times before they came up with the perfect one to make that scene flow — and that’s only one word in a 55,000+ word novel. I repeat — writing is hard.
4. "So hows the book coming along?"
Don't ask. Just...don't ask.
