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I read somewhere that ‘One of the easiest ways to hate something you love is to turn it into your job’ (Do check out Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon by the way, if you need some inspiration.)

But if that’s really the case then all the people in the world who are doing something even remotely similar what they love must hate their job, right? Writing as a career, then, must be impossible, just like painting or singing or dancing, or playing sports or…the list goes on.

While I have many arguments to obliterate this kind of reasoning, unfortunately, I might also be able to trudge up some of the opposite, coming out of a small, scared part of head that lives in constant existential dread.

Let’s deal with the second one first. There was a point, or maybe there is still, some days, when I agree with Austin Kleen. It is really easy to believe, and be afraid of a future where the one thing that gives you solace would end up being that thing that you can’t stand. There is a certain kind of horror to it, of becoming so averse to things you love. And there have been cases where people’s passion became so entangled with the idea of fame and money and success that they lost all their fire, and fizzled away into a dull sort of skill.

It happens when we attach a value to our passion, when it becomes a means to something else. When you begin to want to do it not because you want to do it, but because you want something else that you will achieve by means of it. Money. Fame. Perfection. 

Then you’ve ruined it. Because now you remember, and you remember bitterly, the time you did it for fun, like children often do. And that is only way to do something you love. For fun.

For a while, I was scared too of professionalizing my passions, in an attempt to preserve their innocence. But there is a difference between professionalizing and monetising. 

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I’ve realised that if this really was the fate of every passionate employee, then all the artists right now would be hating their jobs. Then there is no scope for art as a profession. And I refuse to accept that. 

Even though there might be hard days and restless nights, hands itching to work but not enough motivation, even though it might all look a bit too much sometimes, we have to believe that it’s all worth the utter bliss of doing something you love. 

Art is something we’ve always been doing, both as a hobby and as a profession. There have, for a very long period of time, been painters, poets, bards, weavers, jewellery makers, singers. There still are. And it can’t just be a hollow ball they’re chasing in the dark. There’s got to be some light inside of this ball, some sunshine that leads the way something bigger and deeper and entirely more profound than anything we can hope to achieve.

We get only bits and pieces of the bigger picture and it can’t be an incomplete frame that we’re looking at, blank at some patches. There’s got to be the bigger picture, bigger and more vibrant than we can perhaps see all at once. 

So, the point is, that we are made for art, for painting  and singing and writing. We are made to conquer our fears and create history. We are made, in a way, to pour life and soul into 

Can you make your passion into a career? Can you become a professional author? A painter? A guitarist? Poet? 

My answer is yes. Here’s how. 

Ways to make your passion your profession

Do It Better

When you do something, over the course of time, you will eventually become better at it. Even if you do something you don’t like, you’re bound to become more and more proficient at it with each passing day. Practice does make perfect, despite the cliche of the statement that has been said countless times. Consider something you actually like, and how practicing that will become as easy as breathing, one day. And probably it will become as necessary as breathing too, but that’s for later. 

Do what you do best and do it better everyday. Try to improve, try to hold yourself to a standard you set for yourself. If you write, try to write more each day, then write more profoundly, more deeply. Make your words hit closer to the metaphorical mark every time you knock an arrow. Make your words flow easier. Try first, and try hard, because later, it will become easy, like a river flowing towards the ocean, aware of its fate and its purpose. 

Do it not just because you can and because you want to, but because you were made to do this, and this is what path you chose for yourself. Before destiny and fate, this is your choice and that makes it even more inescapable. 

Believe in your soul that you were meant to chose it and if now that you have, you might as well do it right. 

Commitment Is The Key

The most important thing to doing anything seriously is commitment. Commitment here is not to be mistaken for a death sentence, something that is set is stone and can never be changed. It is not a life long promise, because to live is to grow and to grow is to change. Committing to anything activity or hobby is not making it your fate. Because our interests change as we grow and it is entirely acceptable to adapt to your own changing self. 

But there does need to be a certain promise you make to yourself, of giving your best to something and not giving up on it as long as you still want it. Commitment is rising above the distractions of daily life and not letting your low span of attention or your hundreds of tasks get in the way of giving time to your passion. 

It is not something that can be done by the simple virtue of planning to do it, but it needs practice and will power. If you want to become a professional writer, write regularly, write every day and if you can’t sometimes, don’t let it dishearten you. Write today, and if today was a bit too much to cram in 500 words, write tomorrow.

There will be days when the words won’t come to you, or when you won’t be able to get the time. Everyone has holidays and sick leaves. The key is not letting these little breaks get in the way of the goal. 

Motivation is something that is extremely easy to lose. There comes a phase or three in every artists life where they lose the will, perhaps even the capacity to create. Writer blocks, art blocks, a stressful week or two, exams. The thing to remember during this time is to wait for it to go away, because it will go away eventually. 

After a week or a month or a year, it will go away, because you will chase it away. The work has to be done to get back on track and start the flow of words again. But the key is not giving up. 

Start Thinking Big

It’s no bad thing to dream big and want more and expect the best. There’s nothing wrong with working towards the destination you can see in your head—the future that you will eventually manifest for yourself. Thinking big, in fact, is the first step toward achieving your full potential, the ultimate purpose of human existence, destiny. Thinking big is almost as fundamental to humanity as being, as long as you remember how to think small too, sometimes in quiet laughter and simple chit chat and comfort foods. 

We contain multitudes. It is easy to forget, but there is potential in us that can be actualised to unimaginable heights, and there is simplicity in us the size of which can be carried in the heart. 

Think big. Dream on. Write. Write. Write. 

Believe that you’ll eventually get there. 

Make Writing Your Career

It’s not easy—atleast not as easy as you might think at first—to make a career out of writing. The art in itself is complex and intricate and combines almost all of human characteristics and human tendencies knitted together into a tight little ball of emotion and thought that can be tasted and swallowed and internalised. 

People read, have been reading for millennia, because it is something fundamental to us too. We write about thing we can’t explain easily, trying anyway. We read about things we’ve never heard of before. We know. We want to know more. We want to feel and understand and witness everything. 

There’s something very human in a set of words arranged together on a piece of paper—a poem, a letter, a story. 

It is so intrinsic to us that it’s easy to imagine a life that revolves around words and drowns itself in the revolution of thought presented in the dance of alphabets. 

Here’s how to start the journey towards this ocean of words. 

Be Resilient

Don’t, under any circumstances whatsoever, give up. Once you’ve committed to something, it becomes your self chosen duty to see it through. No one has ever become great by giving up. Sure, you may have some second thoughts. You might even have some pretty great third thoughts or fourth ones, thinking that this would maybe not work out. 

The thing is, everything works out if you’re patient enough to stay till the end. If you give up, stop walking when the first few roadblocks arrive, you’ll never reach the destination. Eventually, you might take another way, or you might stop walking altogether, but the end of the first path is lost. 

Every path has a destination. Every journey leads to something. You will reach there if you are determined enough to keep moving. Writing as a career is not something that grows overnight. It needs to be nurtured and nourished over time. Constantly, consistently, and resiliently

Find a Beta Reader 

A writer always needs a reader, preferably one who is honest and doesn’t shy away from giving harsh, but much needed criticism. Take a family member or a friend or the really blunt neighbour or the eager cousin, and make them read your work. Then ask them about the stuff they don’t like, and ask them why they don’t like it. Ask them also about the stuff they do like and why they do so. 

It is important to know your strengths and weaknesses, whether you write characters well or if you forget to make their emotions visible to the audience, or if you are good at describing people and places or if you need to give more attention to how you make your characters talk to each other. 

The answers to most of these questions, unfortunately, can on,y be given by someone else. Another perspective gives a lot of depth to any piece of work, and it can be achieved only when you regularly get feedback. 

Ask for Criticism

Don’t be afraid of criticism. Writing as a career rests on honest, unbiased constructive criticism and how you can use it to the best of your advantage. 

It is what makes a writer self aware, and makes their writing as close to perfection as any thing can be. So ask for a lot of criticism, the ask for more, then work on it. Work on it until the only criticism you get is from the people who were never going to be satisfied in the first place, or the people who judge anything without getting past the second page. 

Remember that you can never get rid of criticism, but you can only reach a point where that criticism is not constructive anymore. This is the point where you need to stop listening, because you never really please everyone. 

Learn from Your Mistakes 

There will be books that will be better than others, just as there will be pages that will be far worse than others. There will be times you will forget to show how a character should realistically behave while getting shot, and times where you will not see that typo until someone points it out. 

When you chose writing as a career, you chose a complex web of plot, characterisation, tone, point of view, internal psychology of the characters, underlying messages, metaphors, worldbuilding, and dozens more of small but significant intricacies. 

It is a given that you will make mistakes. You will take time to learn, but as long as you try not to make the same mistake twice, you’ll be fine. This works in almost every other thing you do in life. Writing is, after all, a form of living and creating another life. Make mistakes. Learn from them. Make different mistakes.

Observe and Analyse

The most important elements of a good book I are its characters. To write good, believable characters, a writer first needs to know how people act, what motivates them, how different people are from each other, and how there are some similarities that always shine through despite the diversity. 

Observe people and analyse their behaviour. Every writer needs to be a bit of a thinker, maybe a pseudo psychologist. As someone who needs to put human emotions down on paper in a way that they can impact and influence the audience, you need to understand those emotions first. 

Read. Read. Read.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.  Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. 

Then read some more. 

If you liked this post, feel free to check out How To Write A Best Selling Book.