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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40708
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

## (Nearly) Everyone needs to be a writer

Research mathematicians write papers. Corporate workers draft emails and reports. Software engineers write documentation. Basically any educated worker needs to be able to write clearly and proficiently. Very few people write as well as they should, regardless of their occupation.

Obviously, you were talking about something else.

## The world has a glut of writers

There are professional fields which have trouble finding enough people interested in the work to get all the work done. Database Admins are in short supply, I hear. On the other hand, there are already more books than anyone can read, and more people who want to write new books than the market could possibly bear. Writing for other's entertainment is more like professional sports than like being a classroom teacher - 20,000,000 people can read the same Harry Potter book, just like 20,000,000 people can watch the same World Series.

Only a few can be the stars. Very few people will ever make a living either writing novels or playing baseball. The brutal truth is that the world doesn't need you to write (said the bitter unpublished novelist).

## If writing is good for you, then write

> I have been writing on and off, without really paying attention to it, almost impulsively, since I was sixteen. It's been mostly therapeutic, for me.

The single most important thing to get better at writing is writing. And if you are already writing - you're ahead of many of the people who imagine they are writers.

In my own bitterness, I would discourage others from dreaming big. But you don't have to have unrealistic dreams to work at writing and become better at it. (Those epic poems I'm writing on the train ride to work will likely never get published, but I keep writing them...)

Don't quit your day job, though. Even if you could afford to, well... I've always seemed to be a better writer when I had things to do and problems to solve that were unrelated to just working out the next plot twist. If you want to write, let your other life be your fuel.

Still, don't quit your day job.

Original score: 7