What do you do for a living?

Hi, I'm Joe. I'm 29 years old, and I'm a writer. There, I said it. I'm a writer.

I've been trying to say it for a long time. When I was a kid, people would ask, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I thought it was a trick question. Like there were right answers and wrong answers. Possible right answers: cowboy, astronaut, doctor, baseball player, veterinarian, farmer, football coach, fighter pilot, stock broker, lawyer, president, scuba diver, mountain climber, paratrooper, mathematician, marine biologist, physicist, chemist, or any type of mad scientist. Possible wrong answers included, but were not limited to, writer.

So I always said, "I don't know" or chose something off the list.

But I knew I wanted to be a writer.

Later, when I graduated from high school and was off to college, people asked, "What are you going to study?" It was a loaded question again. So I chose "business" because I thought it meant that I would get a degree and make some money, which is what everyone wanted me to do. Business. I'm still not even sure if that's a real major. Busy-ness.

Yes, I'd be a business major, and make money. Maybe I'd still write on the side, but it had to be a secret hobby, as if being a writer was comparable to being a heroin addict.

I hated busy-ness, though, and decided to switch. I'd be a journalism major! I could write--feed my addiction--and still have a respectable job! I could work my way up from a beat writer to a feature writer to an editor to a publisher! Yes, I would make money! I would start my own magazine! It would be a success!

But as it turns out, journalism isn't that much fun either, especially when you spend all night sculpting your words into what you think is a piece of art only to have an editor tell you the next morning that it's too long. Four column inches need to be cut. You'll re-work it, you say, but the deadline is in ten minutes, she says. Here, just give it, I'll do it, she says, and she huffs off, taking your work with her.

The next day, you see it on page 12, next to an ad that touts a popular campus bar's drink specials. You gaze at where it says, "By Your Name." You're proud to see your name in print. It makes you feel important. This article, you think, wouldn't be in here if it weren't for you. Then you read the article. You notice something wrong right away. It's different. It's not what you wrote. Sure, it's your research. It's the quotes that you gathered from your contacts. But it isn't your language. It's crap, pure and simple! And it's attached to your name! Reverse plagiarism! You've been had, and you won't stand for it!

That afternoon, you go into your editor's office. You don't knock. You catch her in the act of hacking away at some other poor soul's hard work. You're disgusted. You yell. You make wild gesticulations with waving arms so people behind the glass can tell what's going on. You storm out before security has a chance to arrive.

And you realize that you're not a journalist.

But how did this get to being about you? Let's get back to me.

Anyway, journalism wasn't my cup of tea, so to speak, so I switched majors to English. Surely, I could write as an English major, I thought.

My advisor, on the other hand, informed me that one cannot make money and write at the same time. She said that with and English degree, I had two options. I could drive a cab or be a teacher.

Seriously, she told me that.

In what seemed like no time, I was four years into an unrewarding teaching career. I did paperwork all day. I lost hair. I lived alone and drank too much. I wrote occasionally. I didn't think about getting published. As a last-ditch effort, I applied to some writing programs, though. I wasn't sure I'd get in. Part of me hoped I wouldn't. I could abandon my dream of being a writer.

After I was accepted, I didn't know how to react. I had a comfortable career. I was a good teacher. Sure, I didn't like it, but that's how life is. You're not supposed to like your job. But I knew I had to try, so I quit to go back to school. I'm learning to write. I'm trying to convince myself that I'm a writer, I've always been a writer, I'll always be a writer, despite what I happen to do for money.

Now, when people ask me what I do for a living, I ignore the fact that it's a loaded question. They mean to ask me what I do for money, but since they don't say so, I answer the question as they actually posed it. I tell them what I do for a living.

I write.

I'm a writer.