Your writing is a service that will improve the world

This is good one to tell to people who view your writing as a hobby, or as something that will never make you money, or who diminish it in some other, unreasonable and inappropriate way (because anyone condemning any art-making is totally unreasonable and inappropriate):

Tell them: “I do the service that will improve the world.”

You don’t have to explain your choice to write, to justify it, or to reason with those people who will attempt to tell you they know better and try to drag you into an...