My economics teacher told me once: “Joey, you should look into journalism, you should write articles. You obviously have a knack for catching people’s eye in just a few words, and the ones that follow always seem to matter. Not a huge part of the population can do that.”

Well, let’s take a look at the Big Questions and how they’re answered through the different types of writing:

• Journalism and Reporting: the What and the Where.
• Creative Writing: the Who, the How, the Why.

This is probably why I never really considered it. I like telling people’s stories, but it’s a different kind of work. To her credit though, my economics teacher also commented on how I always had books with me (the ones not for class) and wondered if I would ever write one. She said it was such a struggle to get her own sons to do anything like read on their own time and I just told her, “I don’t know, it’s not really discipline at all. I wouldn’t force it on them.” I’m not so sure I would say the same thing to her now, however.