Today’s a great day to do an uplifting post. The last one I wrote was a rant, which actually felt really good and cathartic. But I thought it might be a good idea to remind myself why we would crawl through glass rather than give up this very hard profession.

So, for your reading amusement:

My Top Ten Reasons Why Writing Fiction Rocks

10. The only numbers you have to worry about are page numbers and word count – and MS Word takes care of that for you.

9. When one of your characters pisses you off, you can get even with him in all sorts of diabolical ways – try that with your coworkers.

8. Seriously, when else will you get to plot a bank heist and not wind up arrested?

7. In normal society, when you sit around talking to yourself, they call you crazy. When you tell them you’re a writer, you become, ‘creative’.

6. You can strike fear in the hearts of friends and acquaintances by hinting that they’ll be included in your novel. (They all think they’ll be included either way, of course).

5. A writer’s daily adventure is only limited by his or her imagination. Pirate play, anyone?

4. You can wade waist deep in books and information on any topic that catches your passion – and it’s called research!!! Come on, how much cooler does it get?

3. You can populate your story with the most colorful, loyal, witty, amazing people you’ll ever meet – and then you get to hang out with them and call it work!

2. There is no dress code for writing fiction.

1. Writing gives you a chance to make sense of the story. It doesn’t replace life, but it makes the experience of living more powerful.

What reasons make your list? And have you done any writing today?