I mean, I do okay. My monthly online writing income varies between coffee money and designer shoe money, with a few spectacular bumps and some fairly pitiful dips.
I got half of a book advance this year, which paid off a car, so that’s nice. But it’s a good thing I don’t have to depend on writing to keep body and soul together.
And for a long time I’ve felt kind of — I don’t know, guilty? Feeble? Half-assed? — about that. Like a poseur rather than a pro. In Western culture, especially American culture, money is the single inarguable measure of success. Therefore it is to be sweated after and hustled for. If I’m not, am I just farting around?
It’s not that there aren’t opportunities. According to the missives that land in my inbox, I could be writing white papers, ad copy, corporate blog posts, and/or copyediting for THIS much money (especially if I sign up for the course that’s a surefire path to success).
I could write more freelance pieces and pitch them to magazines and other outlets. I actually do that from time to time — when the impetus hits me and I think I have something saleable. And my success rate has been pretty good.
So why don’t I do more of that? What am I, lazy?
A recent aha moment cleared this up for me
It’s one of those realizations that feels like an epiphany at the time, although when you look back, it’s a truth that is so obvious and omnipresent that it’s amazing I couldn’t see it.
Here’s why I don’t do more of that.
Because it takes a boatload of time, that’s why. Way beyond the time to write, there’s the time it takes to research publications, cultivate contacts with editors, pitch work, write queries, track submissions, and on and on.
I’m far from wealthy, but I am unlikely to run out of money. On the other hand, the odds are 100% certain that I will one day run out of time. Like any good story, in mine, the clock is ticking.
And no amount of cash or stock options will buy me one extra tick.
I came to writing — serious writing, that is, meaning writing for publication — fairly late in life. That hardly makes me unique, I know. I’m like a bajillion others who always wanted to write, who perhaps journaled or penned a few stories and poems from time to time that they were way too shy to show anyone because thanks to the obligations of midlife adulting, there simply wasn’t enough focus, bandwidth, and time to give the effort its due.
Sometimes I’m a little sad I couldn’t have gotten my writing vocation off the ground earlier. Who knows what I might have accomplished with a few more decades and an MFA?
But would I be happier than I am today? I doubt it.
Because I did do all that adulting first — all that clock-punching and paycheck-earning, all that parenting and mortgage-paying and investing, before I launched into writing. Now I am granted a gift that young writers don’t have, at least not in the way I do.
Freedom.
I am damn lucky that way
The human world is arbitrary and unjust. Other people have worked harder than me, under harsher conditions and against steeper odds, and deserve financial security every bit as much as I do or more, yet they struggle for basic survival.
That’s not right, and I agitate and vote for policies that give us a chance to do better. Which is always a tough sell when it means that the folks who have more money than they or their descendants several generations running could hope to spend might have to dig into their portfolios and pony up.
Because some of us seem unable to understand when we have enough.
I’m a dunderhead about a lot of things, but not this: I have enough. More would be nice, because more travel, more support for important causes, more those shoes just because.
But I have enough, and I don’t want more at all costs. Not at the cost of my freedom, which I equate with being able to choose how I spend my time.
Like a lot of writers, if I amortized my writing time against my income, the hourly ROI would be arguable. But that’s not the point; that’s not why I write.
It’s not not why I write: I’m all about being paid what I’m worth when I do sell a book or an article. The point is that I have the freedom to write what I want, when I want, for whom I want.
So no, I’m not lazy because I refuse to hustle. I simply place too high a value on my freedom.
That’s another gift of aging: the certain knowledge that time is finite.
Well said. Thanks for sharing your insights about work, time, freedom and so much else. Social media has created many avenues in which we could be (should be?!) hustling, marketing, working, netowrking, etc. Much of that is the opposite of what my quiet, reflective writer self seeks, espectially at this stage in my life. I try to prioritize time for creativity and renewal. That sounds idyllic and easy but it can be really challenging. Thanks for the reminder that time is finite.
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Guest
Oct 07, 2024
I am so glad you said this. I agree. If i were younger i might spend more time at it but at this point I cant afford the time to write and try to sell stuff i dont care about.
Well said. Thanks for sharing your insights about work, time, freedom and so much else. Social media has created many avenues in which we could be (should be?!) hustling, marketing, working, netowrking, etc. Much of that is the opposite of what my quiet, reflective writer self seeks, espectially at this stage in my life. I try to prioritize time for creativity and renewal. That sounds idyllic and easy but it can be really challenging. Thanks for the reminder that time is finite.
I am so glad you said this. I agree. If i were younger i might spend more time at it but at this point I cant afford the time to write and try to sell stuff i dont care about.