The life of a writer, the life of an artist, is full of creative risk, sure.
But more than that, it is full of every type of risk.
It is likely that nobody cares what you have to say. The quality of everything you do is completely subjective. And success at any level – whatever that muse looks like – is not assured.
How should one act who has picked the life of a bum?
And yeah, there are simple things adults have to worry about, like health insurance and retirement plans and broken cars.
But understand this: Everyone lives with profound uncertainty.
The writing life is full of risk. There is the creative risk—the willingness to fall flat on our face again and again—but there is also
practical risk. As in, it may not work out. We don’t get brownie points for trying really hard. When we set our hopes on this life, we are staking our future on the contents of our own minds. On our ability to create and continue to create. We have nothing but this. No 401( k), no pension plan, often no IRA, no plans—god knows—for retirement. We have to accept living with profound uncertainty.
-Dani Shapiro, Still Writing