One of the things I learnt over the years is that there is a craft to writing, like there is a craft to acting. I hadn't done my apprenticeship as a writer. I did try to be a writer for hire but I'm not any good at it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Most people won't realize that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else.
I had many different careers early on. I knew I wanted to be a writer. But, like so many people, I didn't know how to be one - other than just do it. I didn't know what form it would take.
I always loved writing, but never considered that I could do it professionally.
I always treated writing as a profession, never as a hobby. If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will.
The craft of writing is all the stuff that you can learn through school; go to workshops and read books. Learn characterization, plot and dialogue and pacing and word choice and point of view. Then there's also the art of it which is sort of the unknown, the inspiration, the stuff that is noncerebral.
I consider myself a writer. I always wanted to act, and as a teen, I studied acting devotedly. Eventually, I got writing work, but very little acting work.
I was not going to use writing for advertising or journalism. I would tend bar, load trucks, chauffeur - do whatever it took. But from the moment I took my first writing workshop, I was a writer.
I never considered writing as a career - it was always a creative outlet for me and something I just loved to do.
I really wasn't equipped to be a writer when I left Oxford. But then I set out to learn. I've always had the highest regard for the craft. I've always felt it was work.
I didn't think being a writer was a fancy thing. It was a job like any other job, except apparently you could do it at home.