Why does the phrase "I want to do ____ for a living" cause such controversy?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Basically, there is no way to separate people who are just playing from people who are in earnest. If someone is just sharing daydreams, it’s often a little boring.

Also, there exists a type of dilettante who is ever so slightly . . . smug . . .about his pseudo-ambitions. There is this tone of “I’m going to be an artist, I’m not meant to work in a cubicle like you shmucks. I’m an artist. I FEEL more. I am special.” This is frustrating because we all have creative inclinations, we all have rich and complicated emotional lives. We all have found some sort of compromise between that and the need to support ourselves–and that compromise does not always mean “selling out”.

I used to get this a lot at graduate student mixers I went to with my husband. I got a lot of pity and scorn when I mentioned I taught high school–the ultimate in selling out. But all these people were planning on going to NY, planning on going to LA, planning, planning, planning but in practical terms they were piling up debt and patting each other on the back. I didn’t mind that, but I minded that they pretty openly (at times) looked down at my choice, when I’d argue teaching is as creative and emotional and artistic a vocation as any they had ambitions towards, and more so than anything they were currently engaged in.

22

After hearing nine people talk about how once they get their unwritten bestseller published–which has to be be super-easy because look at all crap on the shelves!!–they’ll retire to their very own tropical island, people are going to be a bit cynical of the tenth one, even if they’re perfectly sincere about putting in the grunt work.

23

Also, as Mando JO implies, there is a huge gap between planning to become a writer, and becoming a writer. A whole lot of arts careers aren’t something you need a lot of prep for (and at the same time - need ENDLESS prep for). If you want to be a musician and you haven’t bothered to form a band by the time you are out of high school (assuming you want to be that kind of musician) - what are you waiting for? You want to write, but haven’t ever sent anything in for submission and you are older than 25? Really? Not a short story? Not a poem? Is this desire to write a recent thing? Most of the writers I know had submitted work before they were in their mid-20s. Most of them got published once or twice - maybe they didn’t get paid, or paid just a token, but they were already busy collecting rejection notices. Or maybe you don’t really desire to write, just to ‘be a writer?’ You want to be a photographer, but you haven’t even started trying to sell your landscapes at craft fairs? You want to be an actress and you don’t even bother to try out for the community theatre productions?

24

I think this is a large part of it.

The guy who shot my wedding is a professional photographer - he’s not a wedding photographer, he’s a glamour photographer (a completely different thing) - he’s also my brother’s best friend which is why this came about.

My best girl friend’s husband is an hobby photographer. Sometimes his wife will print his pictures on cards and sell them at craft fairs.

Flash to my wedding - the equipment of the ‘hobby’ photographer was newer, flashier, more expensive, bigger lenses, more posh than that of the professional. In fact, the professional was drooling over a particular lens and asked if he could try it out for a frame or two.

Now, who’s pictures do you think turned out better? Mr. Expensive Gadget Hobby Guy, or Mr. I Went to Ryerson and studied photography for years and have been working as a grunt for many years more? Well, lets just say that when I looked at Mr. Hobby Guy’s pics they were ok - I looked kind of pretty. When I looked at Mr. Ryerson’s pics - DUH-AHM - in the unretouched pics both hubby and I both look like models. Seriously - I look FABULOUS - WAAAAAY better than I do in real life.

So, my point is that Mr. Hobby can go ahead and blow as much money buying cameras as he wants to the point where his bills aren’t getting paid, and his wife needs to take second jobs to support them and it’s not going to make him a professional photographer.

I think it’s a bit of the ‘American Idol’ thing - his friends and family are being nice saying things like ‘Ooo - your pics are so good you could be a professional!!!’ It’s just not true - it’s something that friends and family members say to each other to make them feel better about being a corporate drone.

25

Because none of those are real jobs.

26

Right. To be really successful in any field requires a lot of hard work. More than most people realize, and definitely more than most people are willing to put in.

In fact, it’s been sort of quantified. I read somewhere that to become an expert in any kind of work, you have to put in 10,000 hours of actually doing it.

27

Or maybe these people are hearing “I want to do ____ for a living. And by that I mean I don’t want to work a real job or support myself. I’ll expect other people to provide me with the necessities of life while I feel superior to them.”

28

It’s absolutely true that nothing compares to doing something all day, everyday for years to build up skill. The example I always use is professional movers. It doesn’t seem like loading a truck is a fine art, but watching pros at work is amazing: they fit in about 25% more stuff and they never have to reload anything. It’s 3d tetris at an Olympic level.

29

It’s possible.

I have an older cousin who is a “writer/director/producer”. He has like one book published. That’s only one more than me and I don’t write. To me, he seems like a trust fund kid who basically bums around acting the cool NYC artist guy.

I also have an older uncle who actually is a very talented artist. Unfortunately he is also a total flake and has spent his entire life living at home with Grandma while he runs his “art business”.

I don’t blame people for not wanting to do the workaday cubicle world stuff, however you can’t just not work and do bullshit hobby stuff while someone else supports you and think you’re better than everyone.

Probably Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers’.

30

Here’s what I think it comes down to:

If I were to ask you, "are you a loser because you aren’t the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a professional athlete or an academy award winning actor you would probably say “no”. And the reason you would say no is because those jobs are the peak of their professions and require extraordinary talent, a lifetime of hard work and not just a little bit of luck. They are out of the realistic realm of posibility of normal people like…well…you and me and everyone you’ve ever met.

But now say a person says that they aspire to such a thing. Most people would think they are being unreasonable and indulging in fantasy. But what if they start actually acheiving that goal? Well, that’s a whole 'nother story. Then it’s not that those jobs are for “special” people anymore. There’s someone from the same place you or I are from all of a sudden achieving their dreams. Sort of makes you think that maybe if you tried harder or studied more or made better choices, maybe that could of been you. It brings up a lot of feelings of resentment and jealousy.

31

I have no problem with somebody saying “I’d like to be a professional football player” or “I aspire to be a professional football player” - reach for the stars.

But “I want to play professional football for a living”? No, playing professional football is not a plan you make for how you’re going to earn a living.

You need to make a Plan A on how you’re going to make a living and a Plan B of how you’re going to achieve your dream and not get the two confused.

32

Heh - my gf is a licensed psychologist in the US - she has a PhD, 7 years of paid professional experience such as you have before her terminal degree, a year as an intern, a year of post-doc hours, then another year at the series of licensing exams - she passed the first time for each one, others keep going beyond that.

She thinks folks like you are just piker hobbyists :slight_smile:

33

I think there is two sides to this coin.

The first side is the “crabs in a bucket” mentality - that’s what you are referencing.

The second side is an attitude which I could summerize as ‘I’m too good for this shit - unlike you losers’. It’s having the attitude without the achievements.

Perhaps an example would illustrate this second side. My mother was a working artist, had her own pottery studeo with several employees. She hired 'em from the local arts collage (in Toronto, the Ontario Academy of Art or OCA). These OCA students occasionally had this 'tude of thinking that artists were special people, rather than that it was a difficult, competitive and demanding career choice that few could effectively make pay.

I worked in the studeo as well as a teen, in summers, and I witnessed what has to be the paradigm example of this. A clay studeo gets very dirty and dusty, and near constant clean-up is necessary to make it workable. One of these OCA specials, very young - who probably never had a paying job before - was set to work mopping the floor. She mopped half-heartedly for a bit, then threw the mop down in a fit of temper and yelled “I’m not a janitor! I’m going to be an artist, goddamit!” and stormed out.

The bitter joke of it is that, of course, if you are an artist in clay, mopping floors is not the half of what you are going to have to do, if you expect to actually earn a living at it - there is also hauling your heavy, breakable art to craft shows and galleries, dealing with suppliers, agents and customers (and employees!), doing your books, etc. etc. It’s all of these unglamourous things which are absolutely necessary … but your person who has the “gonna be an _____” attitude sometimes has the sort that does not consider that fact, which makes your real ______ somewhat sceptical of their chances of success. (My mom’s response to said employee could be summed up as : ‘if you too proud to be a good janitor, you have no real hope of being a good artist’).

34

Let me clarify my point a bit more. If you mostly associate with non-exceptional workaday folk, the idea of running off to become an actor, graphic artist or something like that is as realistic as aspiring to be a professional football player.

You see that “not my job” attitude in all professions. Everyone wants the glamorous part of the job but no one wants to put in the time and pay their dues.

35

Yup. Some of those reacting unfavourably to the “I wanna be an ______” issue, are doing so because they suspect that the sort of person who proclaims this, is the sort who may not even know there are dues to pay (let alone want to pay them).

In part, I suppose it depends on the relative ages of the people involved - a lot more starry-eyed enthusiasm can be expected from the young, and the trick then is to encourage their ambition while instilling some realism about the likely efforts which will be involved.

36

I think that sums it up perfectly with regard to writers. I stopped saying that I was going to publish a book someday because I realized… I wasn’t writing on a daily basis. I get an idea once in a while, work on it for a while, and then I see a shiny ball and wander off to do something that pays the bills, right. So I decided it was stupid to continue playing that illusion game with myself (maybe it’s a delusion) that I can write the Great American Novel and retire on my Newberry book award or something.

It’s not ever gonna happen because I am not willing to put in the work and effort to be that writer. I’m perfectly happy with my boring mundane corporate editor job. It pays the bills, it’s creative, I’m using my degree, and I like the gig.

If I had a dollar for every time some writer wannabe approached me at a party and asked me to read the book their working on… I wouldn’t have to ask them to pay me to do the work. So.

  1. Hobby writers do not want to pay an editor for editing. They do not want to spend any money crafting this product that they wish to take to market. Ooohkay.

  2. Most hobby writers are really crap writers and cannot edit themselves. They do not understand that the product they are trying to create would be much much better if they enlisted the assistance of a professional who *isn’t *personally emotionally invested in the writing. But they worked so haaaaaaard on it; there can’t possibly be anything in there to edit. It’s perfect, first draft, right outta the box. The only feedback that hobby writers really want to hear from me is, “This is awesome. You are going to get rich with this Great American Novel! I couldn’t even find a typo.” Anything else represents going back to the drawing board and working a little harder on something you’ve already poured blood, sweat, and tears into. Most people simply do not want to put in the effort and perserverate.

  3. Even if you can convince a writer to pay you to just look at one chapter, they don’t want to hear or use the feedback. Once in a great while, I will look over a few pages for a friend and explain that, if he or she wants me to read the entire book and do the work of commenting and correcting, then I expect to be paid. I stopped even looking at samples of people’s work. They don’t want to implement the suggestions, they want to argue with the edits. Look, I really don’t give a damn if you accept my suggestions or not, your subject and verb still don’t agree and you will never sell a product with mistakes in it like that.

  4. And nevermind all that, most people have no idea how ridiculously difficult it is to get published in the first place. I blame people like Sarah Palin who have enormous amounts of money to pay people to do the writing and editing work so they can slap their own names on a product and call themselves writers. They make it look deceivingly easy and simple to start with an idea, write a whole friggin book, and then bring it to market and sell it to a publisher. Most writers spend years trying to get off the slush pile and are fortunate to have a few magazine article clips (for which they got paid) to show for their efforts.

So when I hear “I’m going to be a writer and become the next J.K. Rowling,” I tend to hurt myself while rolling my eyes that hard. Rowling was a FLUKE and that kind of success may never happen again in publishing. She also put in hours and hours and hours and hours (years’ worth of hours) developing her plot and characters and yes… working with editors.

37

The phrase causes controversy because with few exceptions, the person saying it doesn’t know what they’re actually saying, and the person hearing it doesn’t know what they’re actually hearing.

I want to be a writer for a living.

I have no social life, I often worry about how I’m going to pay my bills, I’m in a serious amount of pain right now because 5 years of typing 8-10 hours a day, every day apparently really takes its toll on your body, I don’t get vacations or breaks, and every day is open season on my writing (and consequentially who I am as a person). When I’m not writing, or fixing my writing, or thinking about my writing, or plotting, or collaborating, or talking to my editor, I’m fretting over the fact that I’m not working. And of course, there are no benefits to this. It’s not like I can take paid leave even though my hands and wrists and forearms are so sensitive to the touch that it feels like I’m bruised and sometimes my hands cramp up so badly I cry. No insurance, no unemployment, no sick leave, no paid holidays.

But it’s 11:00 on a Wednesday morning, and there’s nowhere I’ve got to be. I don’t have to sit in a cubicle all day doing something I hate, nobody is the boss of me, and I can take off for California tomorrow without any problems.

The people who say it don’t realize how difficult their life is going to be and may not choose that path if they realized it really is all work, work, work. The people who hear it only see how wonderful it looks–I’ve no doubt there are plenty of people who want to chill out around the house all day–and don’t realize that many of the people who say, who mean it, and who are doing it are probably working more, longer hours than a 40-hour-a-week-drone.

As with most things in life, it’s a trade-off.

38

Hey–it’s the plot of Rent!