Writing - A job or a hobby?

Hobby: leisure activity or pastime engaged in for interest or recreation.












Job:to carry on public business for private gain/remuneration




I once posed the question at a creative writing workshop.

Should writing be considered a hobby or a job?







The response was unequivocal.
There is no chance that writing can be a hobby.
To achieve anything worthwhile, writing must be treated with the same discipline as a job.

What then for those who (a) want to achieve something worthwhile, but who can't ascribe the word 'job' to writing, because what we produce doesn't pay enough, and/or we don't give it enough priority or time to call it our 'job'
and (b) want to have a hobby that engages, relaxes and transports us away from the humdrum of our daily lives?


What category do those of us in that twilight zone fall?













Maybe the answer is that for some of us, writing is both a hobby and a job. Writing does not produce enough to feed my family but yet it's something I treat, as much as possible, as a muscle that must be exercised. It might not be truly relaxing enough to be termed a hobby and not profitable enough to be termed a job, but it is something I keep going back to, no matter what.

It occurs to me that because merged words are everywhere these days from "Sceptimist" - a sceptic and optimist, to "Jeggings" - jeans and leggings (or even "Jedward" - John and Edward Grimes)that "Jobby" might fit as a word to describe those of us in the twilight zone.

Is writing your hobby or your job?