How to Make a Living as a Writer

In this excerpt from her book, Look Ma, No Hands, Gabrielle Drolet explains the many different facets of her writing career. The world of a freelancer can be a precarious one. Scared to turn down any work, Drolet collects several bizarre writing gigs, offering an insight into the incredible flexibility required to call yourself a professional writer.

As I’d gotten closer to finishing my undergrad, I kept getting asked what came next. For years, the question “What are you going to do when you grow up?” had been answered the same way: I’m going to be a writer. This was an answer that adults found cute when I was a child and concerning as I got older. A writer, they echoed, mulling the word over slowly. Interesting. By the time I got to university, it was an answer that felt downright unacceptable. Sharing dreams about writing for a living elicited looks of mingled confusion and pity. A writer?

I understood that being a writer was fraught. I understood that it was a hard way to make a living. There were no jobs in the industry, and books didn’t sell for as much as they used to. And so the question of what I wanted to do after graduating was one that made me physically sick, because I didn’t know what being a writer meant either.