Goodreads asked Emily Devenport:

What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Emily Devenport Well, it certainly isn't the money. I've always needed a day job to survive. It's not the acclaim either, because praise is fairly rare. Even when you're a popular author, you're going to get a lot of guff. Take a look at your favorite books on this website, and you'll notice the reactions from readers are a mixed bag.

But I have to admit, there was a time in my life when being a writer gave me an identity that I previously lacked. And that identity was important to me. I felt very lost in high school, and it didn't get better in my 20s. I had a couple of forays into college, but none of the subjects really grabbed me. That's when the urge to write came on (actually, almost like the onset of a mental illness). Once I had written some stories and gotten some positive feedback, I could tell people I was a writer. That was a wonderful feeling.

The funny thing is, now I have another aspiration. Writing still matters to me a lot, but I want to become a geologist. This is tough at my age, and I still have to maintain a day job. By the time I get my Bachelor's Degree, I probably will be too old to get a job in my field (though not necessarily -- I might be able to work for a national or state park). But I don't care, because I have a passion for it, very much like the passion I feel for writing. If I had realized this back in my 20s, my life could have turned out very differently. I'm pretty sure I still would have started writing -- but who knows? People would have asked me what I did, and I would have replied, "I'm a geologist." I would have been proud of that, too.

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