Bartholomew -- No, I don't mean I can't do anything else -- I've done a lot, including senior management for a fairly large concern -- but there's never been a time when I could pass something happening on the roadside, or see someone sitting on a park bench and not start writing the story in my head. I thought everyone had characters and plots and article outlines swirling around in their heads all the time. I didn't know that it's WRITERS who have that stuff and that there are people who never, ever think to themselves, "God, that'd be a GREAT story ..." or song, or whatever.

And yes I think the skills and creativity that make us writers and musicians and artists give us a very special edge over other people -- particularly in a world that is going through so many changes so quickly as ours is these days. BUT ... my point is that sometimes the money associated with writing and music and art is frighteningly scarce or slow in arriving. And now that I'm making my living strictly from writing, I remember what a constant hustle it is -- I've got to be writing proposals every week, even when I have daily deadlines on other articles and projects, just so I can keep projects coming in when these are finished and going out. It's rewarding and I'm happier than I've ever been. BUT ... if security is a greater need for you than creative satisfaction, you should do something other than try to write or make music or art for a living.

Which is what I meant by you should only do this if you can't do anything else. I'm competent as hell and can DO just about anything, but if I want to fulfill on the deepest and best in me -- and i do -- writing is what I HAVE to do, and, to a lesser degree, singing as well. (And in the best of all possible worlds, I think I would have been a singer, but ... my experience with that world was that it was even farther from the best of all possible worlds than the writing world is ...) I'm not a cynic, but I'm trying really hard to be a realist.

WW