Pretty much what the title says. However, to put it simply, I'm someone who has been writing and planning stories for more than a year, and plan to write my own series. I've finished school and am self-sufficient with my part-time job, as well as have plenty of money saved up.

But the thing I'm wondering is if there's any point in actually studying at uni/college to become a writer? I've always been interesting in things like anime/manga/light novels, so if I wrote a novel series, I would consider it more of a light novel series, as well as try to get anime style drawings for cover art and such.

The other aspect of this is that I'm not really interested in being rich or popular. My focus for now is to write my series, but I'm not really that interested in changing anything that I do to make it more popular, or successful. I just want it to be done as well as I can, and something unique and different, not just something following the same formula of whatever else gets popular.

I've never really considered officially studying it, because I don't live in Japan, and my approach to this I feel wouldn't really fit with the usual content that they would teach at any uni/college I could go to. Is it to niche a thing that I'm doing, or is there a better way of approaching this? Or is there even some kind of way of studying oversees in a way more relevant to what I'd be doing?

I don't really know much about this kind of thing. I figured it would just be something I could just work on in my own time, but have recently been wondering if there are things I could learn that could help me with some of the problems I'm having.

Any advice would be great.

Take a test run, don't put all your eggs into one basket but you seem to be doing a fine job of that.

I'm not telling you that money is more important than passion, but money sure does help you chase your passion. Consider- do you want it to be a hobby and pursue a different career and maybe revist making light novels as a career sometime in the future, or do you know for sure you want to make light novels?

The light novel market is growing in north america, so there is a good chance that there is a specialized college for what you're looking for somewhere; keep researching. I think if you move to Japan it would be harder since the light novel market there is so much more competitive. Or, you could start publishing online.

I guess you could say that I've never really had any interest in a "career". I have a job at the moment, which is very safe and gives me way more money than I need, but I guess I don't really need a lot. I wouldn't consider it a hobby or a career, because I care too much about it for it to just be a hobby.
I could work just three days a week and have plenty of money, which is why I don't see the point of the whole "career" thing.
If I can release novels and get paid eventually, then sure, it will make it easier, and I might even work less and spend more time writing or doing other hobbies, but I prefer not to have to rely on writing for money.

I guess, the other thing is that I don't really have any kind of "passions" either. Choosing a career just feels too forced and I'm not going to be motivated enough, from what I can see of it. As one of the few things I do have an interest in, I want to do it right.

I don't really know what else to say though, I feel like I'm pretty stubborn so I might just ignore what I'm taught anyway. I also noticed that sometimes they might even have the major project/assignment to actually start a novel, which I don't like the idea of doing in such a forced and open environment. I don't know if that's a common thing, but I'm a very private person when it comes to my stories, and will only ever release my stories officially under an alias.

Am I just being a pain? Is it weird to think this way? I'm honestly very confused, and feel like my way of looking at things might be causing a lot of problems.

Thanks for replying.

Find a list of light novel (maybe graphic novel and manga too) publishing companies in your country and send them your manuscript. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manga_publishers here is a list of the publishing companies by country.
They probably won't accept it instantly; getting a novel published is difficult, but they will at least provide valuable input

Additionally, if there are any online light novels, you could volunteer to help or collaborate on the art, writing, etc. Or if that doesn't appeal to you, get a couple of beta readers for your novel.

And yeah, you should get used to working in a team. It's a very useful way to build experience, and you might need to get additional help along the way.

So try to worry less and put your feelers out. See what you're going up against, how willing publishing companies are, if people think your work is good, etc.