You might ask what it means to be a full-time writer.

It means you write all the time. You wrote, initially, perhaps, to express yourself, or for the art of it, or because it was part of your job, if you're, for example, in marketing or P.R.

Then, one day, you realize it's all you do. You do it to express yourself. You do it for the art. You do it for money. You do it because, after years of doing other things, it's all you really want to do, or know how to do well, or because it's become as much a part of you as your own blood, to paraphrase something I wrote in THE YEAR THAT TREMBLED.

One day � you don't know which day � you were a full-time writer, writing for all those reasons, writing for your life.

That's how you know. It's no longer a choice. It just is.