Being ashamed of facts

Nathaniel Branden has some revolutionary ideas in his book, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. Like, for example, that people with high self-esteem aren't ashamed of facts or reality. Facts are facts; reality is reality; there's nothing to be embarrassed about.

Unless you have low self-esteem.

I've met a lot of new people in the past three days, and I probably should have expected this and rehearsed it in advance, but every time one of these new people ask me what I do, I freeze up.

I don't want to tell them I'm a writer, but the truth is that I write, and once I tell them I'm a writer, I become ashamed, and this shame becomes so apparent in my manner of speaking that it leads to all kinds of new problems, like strangers giving me lectures on how I should live my life.

They mean well, but it's awkward as hell, and I'm not disagreeable enough to tell them to fuck off.

As I see it, there are three solutions:

Achieve a high self-esteem. Become proud of being a writer. Stop feeling ashamed of facts.
Omit the whole writer thing from my answer and just tell everyone I'm in publishing.
Switch professions to something about which I can talk with pride instead of shame.

But what are the odds of any of those happening?