Reader Question: Childhood career thoughts

Did you always want to be a writer? When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up?

It’s kind of funny, because I always loved books and stories, and I was writing my own since back before I can remember, but it was a while before I started thinking maybe writing could be a career. Maybe because I loved it so much and found it so fun that it didn’t seem to make sense that it could also be a way of making a living? Maybe because it didn’t occur to me that I might be good enough at it to be a “real” writer? I’m not sure.

Most of my childhood I thought I’d be a vet when I grew up. I love animals and I liked the idea of helping them. When I was around ten years old, teachers and friends started commenting on how much they loved my stories, and I started thinking maybe I could do both. Like James Herriot–be a vet and an author too. But by the time I’d finished junior high, I’d figured out two things. One, that I wasn’t cut out for veterinary practice after all (I realized I’d feel too guilty about any animals I wasn’t able to save to handle the emotional stress), and the other, that if I could make this writing thing work as a career, that’d be the only thing I wanted to do.

And every day I’m thankful that I really can call it a career now (even if it’s not my only one).


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