Yeah. "I was going to be a novelist, but..." doesn't really track. It's an investment of years and (at least) hundreds of thousands of words just to figure out if you're theoretically capable of writing a novel people might want to read, to say nothing of actually doing it and then making a career of it.

It also speaks of misplaced priorities. Writing has to be its own reward from the beginning, or you won't get far with it.