Writing is a waste of time.

It's now been six months since I quit my former full time job in education. Though I don't miss the dizzying heights of Bloomsbury - the endless tedium of stuffing envelopes, telling cold sales callers to go away, or pretending to get excited about a new project that could send a woodlouse back into its crevice with a chronic depressive disorder - my former job did grant me one thing. A title. And, come to think about it, a secure and steady monthly income. But it's the title that I always think of first.

If you're meeting someone for the first time they generally ask "what do you do?" My response is now "I'm a writer." "Oh", they often reply. "I didn't realise you were published." "I'm not yet." "Oh, they say again." Then they look at the ground, slightly embarrassed, like a child who's asked what suppositories are. Then comes that God awful inevitable question. "What do you write about?"

This question exasperates me more than people who say "you've gone quiet" when you've gone quiet. Recruitment Consultants recruit a demographic of society to a particular job in the industry. Anyone in Sales isn't going to last very long if they can't say exactly and immediately what it is they're selling. Even a hairdresser can have a particular focus or preference for the styles and hair they cut. But unless you earn your writing keep only ever through short children's stories about a dog called Jeremy who overcomes his personal troubles with his secret life as a super hero, a novelist can rarely tell someone what they write about. Only what they last wrote. Respond with "pain, loss, alienation and suffering" and people will look at you as if you collect something weird. Say, much more succinctly and indeed accurately, "life" and they give you that look your mother would give you as a petulant child. The one that says "that's nice, dear."

We live in a society that defines who you are by what you do - by how you earn your keep. Even on game shows we hear people say "hello, my name's Ted, I'm from Burnley, and I'm a recycled carpet salesman" by way of introduction to rapturous applause. I remember when I quit my job, having told my coworkers I was leaving to concentrate on my writing. A lot of them were very supportive. In fact all of them were. Apart from one. She asked where I was going to, and I glibly replied "home." After having to then immediately explain my glibness and that I was in fact focusing on writing funded by what I'd

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about Essays: Why we write?
We want to hear your view. Write now!