Is writing a hobby, or are you just telling people it is?

Happy March! I’m taking a break from my Written Word Media blog series on 2020 indie-publishing predictions to give you a blog post full of motivation that will hopefully bolster you through until Spring! I’m sure the New Year, New Me, New Goals enthusiasm has cooled off, but let’s find that spark to keep you going back to your laptop!

So, let’s discuss hobbies! Is your writing a hobby? More than that? It’s probably not a career yet–not if you’re making twenty dollars a month in sales. But maybe you’re hoping your writing is somewhere in between a hobby and full-time profession. I fall into that crack . . . not making a whole lot, I still have a day job, but I put A LOT of time into my writing.

But when I take a little down time, I scroll Twitter, and the other day I came upon this tweet:

All the comments were along the lines of “what a jerk”, or “how insensitive”, or “why would he say something like that”?

My first instinct was to agree, because I know not everyone’s significant other is supportive. But then I thought, wait. And I responded, “That depends. Do you take your writing seriously? Are you writing? Publishing? Querying? He can only see what you let him see.”

He didn’t respond, but he’s not the first person who’s complained people in their lives don’t take their writing seriously. And sometimes I wonder why that is. Oprah says, “You teach people how to treat you.” I believe this 100%. If you don’t take writing seriously for yourself, you have no reason to be offended when others don’t, either.

Do you defend your writing time? Do you respect your writing time once you have it? Meaning, do you actually use the time to write and not play on social media or secretly watch Netflix? Do you turn down friends if you haven’t gotten your words down for the day?

How can you get angry at someone calling your writing a hobby if that’s how you treat it? When someone doesn’t take you seriously because you find reasons you can’t write, or you keep breaking self-imposed deadlines, or that book you say is coming and never does, can you justify being angry when someone calls you out on it?

What can you do to change people’s perceptions?

Change your own perceptions. Treat yourself how you want others to treat you. If you want to be treated as a writer, you have to write.
Be realistic. Sometimes we don’t have a lot of time. Maybe 1000 words is all you can do in a day. That’s fine. You don’t have to put out 12 books a year to be a writer, or six, or three, or even one. You can only do what you have time to do. But if you’re wasting the time you do have, that’s no one’s fault but your own.
Stop breaking deadlines. Or don’t make them in the first place. You announce goal after goal on social media hoping for accountability. And then you break deadline after deadline, promise after promise. What does that do for you? What message does that send to people on social media? You have to be accountable to yourself before others will hold you accountable. Keep deadlines and promises for yourself. Stop letting yourself down and you’ll build up your self-esteem and confidence.
Protect your writing time and respect the time you’ve been given. If you’re not going to write during the time you fight for, why fight for it? Train your friends and family to understand writing is important to you. Then act like it is. And show them results.
Realize you don’t have to be a writer. It’s okay to want to do other things. If you’d rather go out with friends, or be a gamer, or read instead of write. It’s okay to write two hours a week or write 1000 words a month. That’s your choice, it’s your life. But you can’t be upset when someone calls your writing a hobby because that’s what it is.

You show people what and who you are by your actions. Writers write. They produce books to query and publish, and going back to the guy on Twitter, I have no idea if he’s querying, or publishes, or writes short stories for magazines, or nonfiction for Medium or anything in between. I have no idea if his partner is right or wrong. He never replied. In fact, I don’t think I even follow him.

The point is, everyone pointed a finger at his partner, and I wanted to bring attention to the idea that it’s not always the other person. Sometimes it’s you. And if it is, there’s nothing you can say to defend yourself because you taught them to see you that way, and only you can fix it.

This is one of the rare times I didn’t bring up money and writing (okay, maybe I did a little bit). Maybe that’s what his partner’s problem is–he’s not making money at writing, or like in my case and some of my friends’ situations, writing and publishing actually costs money. There’s not a lot you can say to someone who expects you to have overnight success (or any kind of success right out of the gate. Sometimes it takes years to find a foothold in this industry). All you can do is point out that without the work, there’s no success and hope that they accept it.