Goodreads asked Tomas K.L. Martin:

What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Tomas K.L. Martin There is never a best thing about any career. However, for me, the best thing about being a writer is not that you work on your own schedule, or work for yourself as everybody would like to believe; It's that you work against yourself. You compete with yourself. In writing, there are no absolute measurements or scores - unless of course you count James Patterson's financial success as a gauge of literary quality. And if you are gunning for that kind of result as a writer, perhaps you shouldn't be one. Writers must work at their art, push themselves to constantly improve at what they are trying to achieve artistically (we all have a unique concept) and even then, financial security and fame are not "givens" at all. The best thing about being a writer, is that you work at something that may go nowhere and yet you wake every morning with conviction. You have to impress yourself every day. If somebody eventually loves your work, great, but you measure yourself up against yourself. What better challenge in life. It's that type of challenge that makes being a writer so great! I have heard, in person, Junot Diaz tell an audience that while he is deemed a great writer (a Pulitzer Prize is not too shabby), the fact of the matter is that he "won the lottery" as he calls it. Certainly he is a great writer, but what if he didn't find an agent? It's all subjective, right? What if a publisher didn't think they "could make any money off of him?" If the right person had not liked his manuscript, he'd be another artist living in obscurity. Pushing yourself to achieve a great work of art without the promise of such recognition - money and a pulitzer prize - that's fortitude and belief in yourself. I love that about being a writer.

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