anghara

If you can divorce yourself from the need for others to validate you, writing is very rewarding (though usually not financially!). Problem is, people play this desperate game of "please love me" with agents, editors, and publishers who can't return the love. In fact, based on my experiences, I rather think that some of their policies and methods inadvertently feed this sickness.

There are people who spend countless hours building model trains in their basements, losing money on their hobby but being happy at the same time. As a group, modern (all?) writers seem unable to do this. There are a lot of wonderfully rewarding occupations that don't pay good wages, and some that don't really pay at all. You do them for the actual rewards, not the imagined ones. And most of those don't suffer from the writer's mystique trap.

Ever since I got over the validation thing, I've been a much happier person, and my writing has improved. And the kicker is, I inherited depression. Most of my family suffers from it naturally. So it's not like I don't have an excuse to be yet another depressed writer...

I just wish more people would ask themselves what their goal is in writing, because being published is really a bad answer to that question.