I often see something in people's faces when I say I write and edit for a living. "Wow, how nice that must be," or, "I've always wanted to write," or, "So you can do that from home, right?" My former wife, when I told her I was quitting my teaching job to write full time said, "So, a life-long dream come true."

Other times, I get, "I could never do it. Not enough discipline. I'd be watching soaps and taking long naps if tried it."

Here's the scoop, though. You don't watch soaps (or in my case it would have been syndicated reruns of old sit com's) or take long naps if you're worried about where your next check is coming from. And, yeah, there are times it actually is nice to work at home and working for myself sure beats working at someone else's pleasure. But most of the time, it's isolating and just plain lonely and the hours are long and I actually get a little agoraphobic because I think I'm forgetting how to interact with other people. And the work--the work I do for money--gets monotonous.

But it is a dream come true. I have gotten to write poetry, even published a book. What I do isn't all for money.