Goodreads asked Mark Joseph Young:

What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Mark Joseph Young Honestly, my initial reaction to this was, is there anything good about being a writer? I think most of us write not because there's any benefit to it but because we are compelled to do so; we have to write.

But there are benefits, and perhaps the best of these is credibility. It's not undeserved, in the main. After all, most writers do a lot of research, most are very intelligent and reasonably well educated, and most think deeply about a wide range of subjects, so it's not surprising that we are well informed broadly. We also practice expressing ourselves, so we are generally articulate. We thus get a lot of respect for our answers, and people ask us questions expecting something intelligent in response. That might be the best benefit.

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