Living The Writer's Dream

What is a writer's dream?

I for one have always dreamed about writing full-time. Ernest Hemingway, when asked "What do writers do?" replied with a writer's version of the biblical "Jesus wept." Hemingway simply replied: "Writers write." And he wasn't trying to be funny either. Writers enjoy writing, and they want to improve, do a better job of writing what they mean, create a clearer image from their writing, say what needs to be said and do it in a way that the reader gets the message, even sometimes deal with a serious subject in an entertaining way.

Come to think of it, there are endless challenges for any serious writer, just to do all those things and more. Poets may struggle over syllable counts, rhymes, meter, the right word for the right nuance, and tens of unspoken considerations concerned with painting pictures and feelings with words.

Novelists wrestle to create believable characters readers can see in their minds from the words on a page in front of them. Short story writers do their best to craft a whole book into something like a single chapter. Article writers stress over word counts, illustrations, photos, and (oh, yes!) editors.

Newpaper reporters stress over accuracy, names, facts, deadlines, and, of course, good writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and that editor who is waiting for "some copy."

Cartoonists are writers, too. With the advantage of drawings worth a thousand words, they still seize upon an idea, picture it, and add the captions which make the whole thing work to bring about the end product they had in mind.

Technical writers are a breed apart, for they need the technical knowledge to understand the concepts and details of what they must write about, while understanding how to convey that in words even a non-technical reader can understand and grasp. So far at least, I know of no book entitled "Technical Writing for Dummies." There probably never wil be one.

You are probably reading this on HubPages, if you are even reading this.

HubPages, as well as several other publishing services, is a dream come true. Write it and you can publish it on HubPages. If the writing is any good, someone will read it, and perhaps even comment. If it is not good, and repeatedly is not good, someone will let you know that, too. No more, rejection letters that start out "Thank you..." and end with words gentler, but synonymous to "...but no thanks." If you feel the written piece says something to you that you want to convey to someone else, you cast your bread upon the waters and hope it may come back "an hundred fold."

"Living the writer's dream" will likely mean something different to each individual writer, but it will always include realizing the dream of writing part or full-time on a flexible schedule (in the sense that the writer determines the parameters of the who, what, when, where, how, and why of their own writing efforts) and finds satisfaction in having written.

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Note: The Author is the former president of Fastbreak Syndicate, a nonprofit association of American and Canadian freelance writers, photographers, and cartoonists which was formerly active in working to evaluate, edit, place, and otherwise support, encourage, and promote the freelance profession. He now writes full-time, including articles for HubPages.com.