It is said that the average person will go through seven careers over the course of a lifetime. Given this, despite being in business for several years now, it’s quite possible that I will be in an entirely different line of work at some point down the line. As it stands, though, here I am as a professional writer. How did this come to be?
Some people experience a magical moment when they figure out what they want to do with their lives. I’m not sure I had a single moment. Instead, the realization that I wanted to be a professional writer was slowly revealed to me in stages… though, you could almost say that I knew all along.
The Beauty of Words
Even if I didn’t really consider it as a career option at the time, I’ve always been enamored by the written word. English literature was one of my favorite courses going through school. While not necessarily a bookworm, I was fascinated by just how much could be achieved by choosing the right words, putting them in the right order, and presenting them in the right context.
It is through this that my writing career got its unofficial start with an e-mail newsletter. I had a relatively small readership, to be sure, but it was richly rewarding to know that my words were being read by someone. It didn’t really matter who that someone was. The very fact that it was being read at all offered a sense of satisfaction.
An Academic Journey
Entering university, I was reasonably certain that I would end up as either an accountant or an architect. As my post-secondary education continued, though, I started to stray away from both of those fields altogether.
Even though I graduated with a Psychology degree, the real power of my academic journey came from my writing outside of the classroom. Yes, research papers and essays helped to develop my research skills. Yes, I became more articulate too, but my activities with the Arts Co-op Program specifically helped to build up my writing career.
I started out as a contributing writer to the Arts Co-op Newsletter, eventually becoming a co-editor in my senior years. I also held a position with the Dean of Arts Office where I produced a newsletter for the 1953 reunion. All the while, the aforementioned email newsletter matured into a Geocities website. I also contributed regularly to The Commentary, mostly with local event coverage.
The Power of the Internet
Upon graduation, while I wasn’t completely certain of what I wanted to do for a living, I was drawn to journalism. I wanted to write. I enjoyed taking ideas and putting them into organized paragraphs, telling stories and informing the public. The power of the Internet helped to lower the barriers to entry and I started blogging for a living, freelancing for Mobile Magazine and other sites.
While it’s not completely fair to say that I stumbled into this career by accident, I may not be where I am had it not been for the growth of the Internet. When I knew it was possible to make a decent living from writing for the web, I knew this is what I wanted to do. Freelance writing isn’t for everyone, but the pros easily outweighed the cons in my mind.
The Future of Writing
The world is in a constant state of flux. What was impossible yesterday is commonplace today. While I don’t foresee me going through seven career changes, I can’t say that it won’t happen. Even so, I do see that writing — in some form or another — will continue to play a prominent role in what I do for a living.
I still can’t say with certainty whether writing is a career or a calling for me, but I am certain that it is what I want to do. Whether the future leads me to fiction writing, more copywriting, script writing, or whatever else, the careful crafting and combination of words will continue to be a part of my story.
What about you? When and how did you know that you wanted to be doing what you’re doing for a living?
I made my first book (handmade and technically never finished) when I was in early grade school. I was going to take pictures of insects and put them in the book and write a description underneath each photo.
I don’t think I understood the concept of mass production or anything back then. I think I just wanted to make a book.
I suppose that was the start of it. But, I’m not sure I fully decided on being a writer until junior high school.
Well my career as a professional writer is secondary to my career as a professional author. I need to pay my bills while writing the fiction that nobody will ever buy.
I didn’t actually know I wanted to write until High School, not because I had different aspirations prior, but because I just hadn’t thought about it.
The idea that you can make money and make a name for yourself by simply writing words is amazing to me. I love that I can make a living, and a successful one, with just a laptop. It’s crazy.
Jobs that require human creativity (and common sense) are the ones that are going to endure, because robots can’t (yet) replicate that. There will always be a need for authors, musicians, and other artists, because that is what makes us human. Or, as Robin Williams said in Dead Poets Society:
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
I think calling it a calling is more accurate in my case. While I didn’t enter university thinking about Journalism as a course of study, that’s the degree with which I emerged. And in high school, I was more enamored with physics and social sciences – even chef’s club – than I was with English class. But the writing seemed to come easier than figuring out shapes (D in geometry); solving math problems (F+ in Trig.); any of the myriad other classes where I was awarded hooks (this is what my father called Cs).
In retrospect, it makes sense. I read 3500 pages one summer as a fifth grader. I wanted to be Encyclopedia Brown because I had read and reread all of those mysteries. I wrote for the school papers at each one of the schools I attended. And upon graduation, I got a job writing 150 sports stories PER NIGHT for what qualified as the first real blog – New England Sports Network’s Sports Report in 1988.
What’s it done for me? It’s given me an outlet, a paycheck and a sense or worth. I can’t think of any way I’d have been able to connect with millions of people to share my feelings. I wouldn’t trade these skills or the role for anything.
My favorite quote is something (ironically) a scientist said. But I think it applies to the craft of writing as much as it does to the sciences.
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” – attributed (depending on your source) to Pickering, Cameron, Ross and most frequently, Einstein.
I choose to think that all writing counts. Nice piece Michael.
Great comment. Thanks Jeff.
“A sense of worth” is really what makes it for me. I feel like I’m doing something worthwhile and, in my own little way, I’m making a difference in people’s lives.
I remember being in kindergarten thinking how cool it would be, if I could be a chef. Strangely enough, twelve years later I haven’t wavered from that and lived it out. Which makes people scratch their heads to see the transition I made from chef to financial advisor.
After 11 years of working FOR people I became depressed. I was and still am way too idealistic to for someone unless we’re on the same page. To find a way out of that I unsuccessfully looked for investors to support me in my plans for my own restaurant. Bundle that with sever back problems and despite my passion I had a number of great reasons to get out of the industry.
3 years before I became a financial advisor myself, I met with mine for the first time. It was a buddy from high school. My first thoughts coming out of that meeting were, why didn’t I know any of this before? How different would my life had been if I had a financial advisor 10 years ago. Ever since then I felt strongly about advocating the importance of it, so what better way to express that and my entrepreneurial personality then by becoming one?
Haven’t looked back since.
It’s June, 1977 and I just dropped all the flyers in the mailbox and yet, I really wasn’t hoping for much. It’s a venture with no real plan, just an idea. A test to see if anything would, or simply could, materialize. The plan was to attract some window graphic work or an opportunity to do a simple wall graphic design that could perhaps steer me out of a filthy dirty steel worker job and into something far more creative, far more fun.
I guess it all started about 6 or 7 years earlier as a young teen when I loved to paint up the walls of my bedroom. I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t mean a train-wreck of crayon marks as a mischievous child, nay nay, I’m talking about the late 60’s here, the psychedelic era of colours, swirls, peace signs and funky text. (Yes you can laugh) I’m only 14 years old but I loved taking a pencil and a brush full of vivid paint to a wall and bring it to life. Rendering something that flowed, something unique, a splash of emotion that actually said something as it reached into the room. That to me was exciting, it was an opportunity to express and it always opened the door to a new idea just as the last stroke of paint finished the wall. That was fun to me, a day, or sometimes a week well wasted. But I can assure you, my parents cursed me after I left home when they tried to paint over those fluorescent colours… they would bleed through the toughest primers and wall sizing compounds known to man! I’m sure those designs are still working their way to the surface today!
The desire to step into a world of “graphics” was not something I ever entertained. In fact, it was the production and printing of the little flyer that I had just mailed that introduced me to the profession of graphics. At that time, I knew nothing of the design or production of everything that needed to be reproduced in print. In fact, after excelling through art in high school, I had never been introduced to graphic design. And quite frankly, the day I witnessed a “graphic designer” creating a brochure, I was livid! THIS was an art form, and why wan’t I introduced to this rather than drawing fruit in a bowl, or reading about the old masters of our times. I know that history is important and the eye for shadows and contrast is vital but c’mon, this art was cool! It was never on our curriculum and that shocked me to no end.
As I pondered the world of graphics, I was, at that time, collecting unemployment while teetering between industrial projects. So I showed up at the print shop for the next couple of days, enthralled with the graphic process and soaked up as much information as I could take in. All the while, waiting for a phone call as the result of the flyers. The internal questioning was, “Could I really land just one little paining job?” “Could I actually pull it off?” “I really don’t have the experience other than my own bedroom walls!” “I must be crazy thinking this might work!” … but I had nothing to loose and everything to gain. Then, about 2 days later, the phone rang. I stood there, stunned, I didn’t move and I let it ring again just to make sure it wasn’t my imagination and then with a sweating palm, I answered.
It was the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Downtown Toronto, Avenue Rd and Yorkville, in the heart of Hazelton Lanes, the trendiest and most affluent area in the entire city. They wanted to see me and could I come down for a meeting………………….. My heart stopped beating. And with the greatest trust in God and the true innocence of a young man, I said, “Certainly”.
To keep this already long post short, I was asked if I could produce lobby posters and brochures for the hotel’s various amenities and exclusive lounges. And I actually landed that work and did their work for years. It instantly propelled me into the world of graphic design as well as silkscreening (another art-form that was never introduced in my school) and it grew over the years into photography, film production, a 5,000 square foot studio, two floors, employees, working with some of the greatest and largest corporate clients in the country. And I am still in the business today. This coming month will be 35 years of self employment. At the age of 21, I starting into a profession that I never knew existed. It all started with a desire for change, the willingness to step forward, a single phone call of opportunity, the courage to try and the unstoppable desire to make it work and the pride to do the very best I could do. This placed me on a path of creative endeavours, building the greatest and most wonderful connections with people, their dreams and the opportunity to help them grow as well.
And as Michael mentioned in his blog, we all tend to move forward in our lives and find ourselves doing different things, moving into areas that best suit us as time passes. Although I’m still very busy in the graphic environment, moving more into video production now, my heart has been leading me to writing and sharing what it takes to step into the shoes of the person you want to be. You can dream and hope for your lucky break but the truth is, you must also step into the shoes of that person you wish to become. When you make a list of that job or career you want, be sure to write a list of who “you” need to become to own that job or wear that hat. This is the most important part of manifesting anything. If you can’t become that person, the dream will never unfold. I was lucky to be energetic and unstoppable, a sponge for information and knowledge and I still stand in those shoes today. I became that graphic person immediately and I had to run full tilt to keep up with it’s unfolding. And today, I have set my sights to recreate that crazy ride all over again but in a new career… I can’t wait! What I do know is… Whatever I don’t know, I can learn!