Writers: multimillionaires...but not really.

I've been looking this up...just cause I am planning on going to Graduate School for a degree in Library Science and Information Technology, but also, I want to be a writer. The safe plan is to have a backup plan just in case your novel isn't 'New York Times Bestseller Material'.

Well, let's just say, that's been on my list of goals for a while....right underneath getting published. Which hasn't happened.

I'm still hopeful though. And sadly enough, many will very nearly try and dissuade you from writing because it doesn't 'bring in the money'...although, that's not why we write, is it? If we were out to make money off writing, well...we'd definitely find something else.

First and foremost, you should know that contrary to popular belief, all authors are notmultimillionaires! In fact, the percentage of authors who earn their livings solely from their writing careers --- much less make huge amounts of money at it --- is exceedingly small. --Rebecca Brandewyne

We're self-employed. Isn't that insane? I think it's insane since I've never actually thought about the difficulties involved in being a writer, but I have thought of the difficulties involved in being self-employed. I've always thought that was crazy. We don't have benefits...or anything, we have...well, we have writing.

I have never thought of writers being multimillionaires, although I knew J.K. Rowling was...but the point is, they didn't set out to be millionaires, they just had a story in their head and when the public liked it, they were thrown into a surreal world where writers really are millionaires.

I've had to learn a lot about my writing along the way, the most important of those was why I was writing. I learned that it was a passion, something that when absent in my life, is heartbreaking...it's a void. I have to write to escape a world that gives me stress daily. Then I had to learn money was not everything. Having to work, work, work....and go to school...and be stress, and mentally and physically exhausted and then not be able to write, and attempt to balance everything...Yeah...learned it really wasn't the root of happiness. No happiness came from all the stress I had from working for money that merely....disappeared.

Writing gave me that happiness.

So, when people tell me I shouldn't be a writer because there is no money in it...Well, I'm not writing for  money.