What do you mean, writing is not a real job?

 

 See the quarter to the left? This is a real working machine! Photo by Xenonlit

Writing is too a real job! 

If the speaker is trying to bully, to control, or to pick a fight, it will not help to describe the reasons why writing is work. If the speaker means to say that writing is sedentary work, not good, hearty labor, then it's still wrong to insult a person's trade or profession. Writing is as strenuous an activity as it can be. It simply works different parts of the body, especially the brain and the fingers that must grab and handle Cheetos without getting cheese dust in the computer keyboard.

Writing requires certain skills

Writing requires certain skills, practice, experience, discipline, time and training. Most insulting people will suddenly yell "Oooh shiny!" and then run off to torment a doctor. If the person lingers, try to explain how many hours it takes to get the required skills. 

Otherwise, just be glad when the creep leaves to find someone else to irritate. Maybe it will be a doctor or ambulance driver who will, one day, get the rude person's dosage wrong or remove the wrong body part.

Writing does too pay!

Try grossly inflating the salaries for various types of writers. Boast about ridiculous  incomes. This might help to enlighten the money grubbing attacker.  The idea of making money might snap a roomful of idiots out of their negative trance. Maybe they will walk away and pretend that nothing ever happened. Maybe they will cry. The best part is  when the insulting buffoon doesn't know that you are lying!



Writing is too exciting!

Talk about the exciting aspects of writing, such as world travel, meeting celebrities, having plenty of sex, eating gourmet food or getting close to the world's great thinkers. 

If you are any kind of writer, you have read the supermarket tabloid stories about other writers who have these things. Your education and ability to make up fiction will help you to impress a snob, a storage auction expert or a reality TV watcher.



The insulting person is a lizard. Become the other lizard.

The greatest insult is to dismiss an entire career field or profession with juvenile, hostile or negative words. This is lizard brain behavior, not intellectual or social behavior. 

This means you are dealing with a reptile, not a human being. YOu have been played by a lifeform that only cares about getting raw, still warm meat to chew on. Don't be the meat. Be the carnivore.

As writers, we must admit that we are a nerdy, flabby source of just the kind of protein that lizard people seek! However, when we become the lizard, we must show that we can bite back! Suck in the gut and stretch your spine to make yourself appear larger. Hiss and growl in a menacing way. Then you may go to work.

 

 Photo by Xenonlit

Respond with insults, not violence.

We are wordsmiths, for goodness sake! What good are we if we cannot use our words to peel off a person's excess layers of self esteem like we work an orange? You know... the kind with the really thick rinds... not the thin ones? Those are hard to peel.

Words kick ass when properly applied. It can take days for the best words to take effect in the slow or dim mind. Do not worry. Time release insults are the most powerful insults in your arsenal. Make that lizard wake up three days later, with a cold sweat and an epiphany!

In summary, use your words to home-correct those who are congenitally unimpressed with your profession or avocation. As a bonus, here are some great examples, but you must improve and modify them to fit your needs. You can do this because you are what? 

You are a finely honed writing machine! So work it like a Maserati!


 "I'd like to see things from your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my ass.."

 "I don't argue with idiots, they will just lower me to their level then beat me with experience"

 "Please tell me you don't home-school your kids"

 "You have delusions of adequacy." --- Walter Kerr

 "You occasionally stumble over the truth, but you quickly pick yourself up and carry on as if nothing happened."

"Well I could agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong."

 "Some people bring happiness wherever they go; you bring happiness whenever you go."

 "Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you`d had enough oxygen at birth?"

"I could make a monkey out of you, but why should I take all the credit?"

 "I don`t think you are a fool. But then what`s MY opinion against thousands of others?"

 "I know you are nobody`s fool but maybe someone will adopt you."

 "I`m busy now. Can I ignore you some other time?"

 "Cancel my subscriptions ... I'm tired of your issues."

 "I'm sorry, Talking to you seems as appealing as playing leapfrog with unicorns."




Sources: If you don't like any of the above, try this insult laden site.