I'm sure curious what the spread of interests is on this site. Some of you I kinda know by now, but lots are total mysteries. Professional Author: 9-5 job writing or full time author. Professional Adjacent: In the writing field but not necessarily a writer as a primary function. Editor, professor, agent... Amateur hopeful: you work an unrelated field and write part time. You hope to eventually become a full time writer. Hobbyist: Your work is unrelated and write part time, but have no interest in writing full time. English student: anything related to writing and hopeful to be a writer Other student: you are probably here to help you write better papers for various classes. Other: then what are you, a cat? I'm a hobbyist. Unless I hit the jackpot and write a bestseller or something, I don't plan on doing anything than software and science. I paint and play guitar too, so I just like being creative and I get a thrill out of scaring people with my stories. It's something that I can do anywhere without any equipment.
I'm a cat. I picked amateur hopeful for lack of a better option - I used to freelance but it wasn't really a 9-5, and since I've lost the ability to do that I'm trying to get a job in a different field. I don't really hope to write fiction full time, though. My expectations aren't that high.
I chose amateur. I have made money writing in the past and plan to again in the future, would love to do it full time, but working 24/7/365 makes me tired and my brain shuts down from time to time.
I chose amateur because I haven't been seriously writing for that long and I have yet to finish a single project that I've started. It's something I'm currently trying to overcome though. I've been working on a novel on and off for over a year though and I'm planning to devote more time to it in the coming months, with the hope that I may be able to finish it one day.
Amateur hopeful for me too. Working on writing short stories, and if all goes well then maybe transition to something a bit longer. But it's also a hobby for me, like working out in a way. Sure it can be hard at times to start, but I never regret spending an entire day writing out my ideas and seeing how I can bring them to life through a fictitious world.
I chose professional author because I best fit your description there, although I'm a full-time writer rather than author. I think of an author as someone publishing stories or books, whereas I write bids for my employer. I'm not sure I'd ever want to be a full-time author. Writing fiction is much harder than my day job and I'm not sure it's sustainable for many people... even really successful full-time authors rarely put out more than one book a year.
I'm not sure where I fit. I'm an English major, but am working on other majors, have written both for money and for fun, I used to proofread for a small newspaper, I occasionally tutor kids on English, but I also have a day job. I also don't want to write full time. It's hard and too many hours in front of a screen makes me fell like a fat turd and hurts my vertebrae.
I write because I enjoy writing--not sure "hobby" exactly describes it, though. Yet if I had to write to live I'm not sure I'd enjoy it. I wouldn't want the pressure to produce.
To me this is a hobby, I am 63 have a full time job. (software) I have another hobby, portrait photography that steals a lot of my free time. I always loved reading, I have read too many books. So I don't want to be an author, but I want to learn how to write fiction. I am giving myself two years (I started 4 months ago) to produce a novella. I will give it a year before i decide what genre. It will not be epic fantasy or horror, but most other stuff will do. I have great fun!
Hobbyist. I enjoy writing, but have no desire nor the discipline to write full time. I enjoy the field I'm entering, I make art when I'm not writing, play games when I'm not arting, practice piano when I'm not gaming, and sometimes I just like to blaze and zone out for a while. Writing to me is a lot like my living room outlet -- it doesn't get used much, but when it does, it's usually pretty fun because I'm probably putting up a Christmas tree. Not sure if that analogy works, but then again, I'm not a writer. I just write sometimes.
I chose professional writer because it's the closest thing to me, though it's not necessarily accurate. I write as much as I want because I do not have a day job, so I've made this my day job. I have to do something with my time besides just being a mom (not that that's not awesome, because it is). I hope to eventually make enough money to have it be the same as a full-time job. I also co-own a small online retailer, which does okay, but it doesn't take up much of my time anymore, and was never my dream job or anything. It was the other person's dream job, and they needed me to help make it happen for them (my writing skills specifically, as well as knowledge of managing/running a site/blogging/retail), so I did.
i'm annoyed that i have to put "Amateur," not because it's true (it definitely is), but because it's my safety zone that i've been unwilling to leave. i could be taking major steps to break out of the Amateur rank, but it's easier to say i'm "hopeful" rather than try and feel like a cad. ahhhh imposter syndrome. @Tenderiser i'm curious how you got in to your career of writing full time. i've seen a handful of web pages that an aspiring writer may use to find work, but i've been hesitant to try, mostly because of the above-mentioned imposter syndrome. i'd love to be writing more often and achieve a new level of confidence in myself.
I stumbled into it - I don't think anybody says, "I want to be a bid writer when I grow up." I started at a company in another role, and they asked me to help with bids because my SPAG was good. I enjoyed it, so when a position in the bid team came up I applied and started bid writing full time. I discovered a few years later that it's an excellent career to get into: good technical writers are rare and every company in certain industries needs us for their business to survive. We never struggle to find work and we're paid very well for it. Bid writing is very different from fiction writing, and not everybody on this forum would enjoy it. But if it (or general technical writing) is something you can see yourself doing for a day job, then look for entry-level positions in bid teams in an industry that interests you. Construction and IT are probably the biggest--I'm in construction--but there are plenty of others.
I chose amateur hopeful, but I feel that I belong somewhere between that and hobbyist. I think it would be real neat to be published someday, but I'm not really striving towards it. I write because I'm passionate about it, and any financial aspirations are secondary to that. Again, it would be nice to be able to do this for a living, but I don't know if I could ever be that prolific.
I'm a hobbyist, as I don't expect my work to become best-sellers. That and my career choice is in the medical field - I doubt that I will have a career in the writing field.
I guess I'm closest to being a hobbyist. I don't realistically expect to make money out of writing, even though I submit short stories every now and then. I write for two main reasons: first, to create something I think is beautiful, and second, to teach me about myself. For me, writing is, to a large degree, about self-discovery.
I'm a hobbyist, and content to remain that way. I'm throughly un-creative and take a long time coming up with words, so trying to write full-time as a career would be a disaster. It'd just lead to crappy writing, and no one—least of all me—wants that. But the real reason is, that I love the world and the characters I'm writing now and don't want anything else.
Amateur hopeful. A career in writing would be a huge challenge, but were any of my work successful enough to allow me to go full-time, I'd have to go for it. I'll still be happy if my stories never take off, though. Being creative is fantastic and has so many benefits even if it's 'only' a hobby.
I think that you're missing a category. I hope to someday be traditionally published, but writing full-time is a goal that exceeds what I see as realistic.