WRITING — SEPTEMBER 25 WRITING PROMPT
Best Job in the World
But it’s not quite as you imagine it
“If all jobs were paid the same, what would you choose to do?”
I would choose to write. I did choose to write.
If teachers were paid anything near what they’re worth — or if parents and administrators partnered with them in a less dysfunctional manner — I might have chosen to teach writing. If there were such a thing as a “professional student,” I would have burrowed happily into the university stacks like a bookworm, combining my love of learning, reading, and writing into one marvelous life spent in an “ivory tower” of academia.
But that’s just a fantasy.
I was lucky to make a good, steady income as a technical writer. I didn’t even know what that was when I first took the job — just that it had the word “writer” in it and paid what my previous job paid. I’d majored in Rhetoric & Writing; my “dream job” involved writing novels and poetry. But I was well aware, even then, that most novelists and poets will never earn what I was offered as a starting salary, so I jumped at it. I could write fiction and poetry in my spare time.
I also went to law school — while working full time. By the time I graduated, I was exhausted. But my…
