Quote 367 of 495

... a while back, I went to a writers' conference. I was making
chitchat with another writer, a critically acclaimed literary novelist
who taught at a university. She had never heard of me. After we'd
exchanged a bit of of small talk, she asked me "And where do you
teach?" just as naturally as one Slashdotter would ask another "And
which distro do you use?" 

I was taken aback. "I don't teach anywhere," I said. 

Her turn to be taken aback. "Then what do you do?" 

"I'm ... a writer," I said. Which admittedly was a stupid thing to
say, since she already knew that. 

"Yes, but what do you do?" 

I couldn't think of how to answer the question---I'd already answered
it! 

"You can't make a living out of being a writer, so how do you make
money?" she tried. 

"From ... being a writer," I stammered. 

At this point she finally got it, and her whole affect changed. She
wasn't snobbish about it. But it was obvious that, in her mind, the
sort of writer who actually made a living from it was an entirely
different creature from the sort she generally associated with.
		-- Neal Stephenson
		   http://interviews.slashdot.org/interviews/04/10/20/1518217.shtml

Tags: money novelist stupidthing nealstephenson writersconference