Am I Too Proud To Successfully Earn A Reliable Living Writing?

Instead of rehashing what has been done to death, try something new and experience the real joy of writing.

It’s Sunday once again and like every Sunday I alternate between anxiety, apathy and closing my eyes against the day. Friday night, I begin thinking about Sunday and how to maximize my potential to earn by the time it’s over. Every Saturday I wake up with the intention of writing multiple pieces and promote them while reading everything I can to connect with other writers and help me come up with new ideas. Having started two publications, I now also plan to add to both and try to up their views and follows, and in the case of Promposity and the PROMPTAPALOOZA! Contest, add prompts and encourage new writers to submit.

Typically, at best I publish, one maybe two new pieces, often later than I want given that it seems early publishing goes along with significantly more views and engagement. By late Saturday afternoon, I feel discouraged for once more not producing what I wanted to. By late Saturday night, I have redoubled my intentions and am convinced that Sunday I’ll wake up, write up a storm, publish like crazy and up my views and engagement significantly as we come to the close of another earnings week.

Invariably, I don’t manage this. It seems like the pressure I put on myself to increase my numbers and associated earnings contribute to my inability to generate new topics that seem like they have the potential to really take off. As this has happened so many times, I have begun to question whether I can turn this writing gig into a job that will provide me with a livable salary. Even writing that now, makes me cringe as it sounds arrogant. And yes, I know that’s the whole impostor syndrome thing rearing its ugly head.

Sundays used to be enjoyable. I’d go to my writing group, interact with other writers, drink a latte made with high quality, rich, dark roasted, Italian espresso and eat a homemade Asiago bagel with soft, buttery cream cheese. I’d explore my fiction, worked on a novel or other long term project, dreaming about what might result in the future and generally having a grand time.

Then my finances took a tumble. Well, tumble is too tame a word for what occurred. I began to panic and looked to ways to make writing pay enough to be able to support myself. And as my earnings kept growing each month, I felt like maybe in a year or so I’d earn enough to get by.

But then my numbers started dropping off. While I’ve still been earning more each month, this month will be a struggle to earn what I did last month. This drop has concerned me and I’ve tried to come up with new topics and ideas for stories that might get me more views.

Unfortunately, coming up with relatively unique ideas doesn’t happen quickly. It takes research on trending topics, analytics, reviewing the latest news stories, examining different fields of interest and what new studies may have come out and lots and lots of reading. I manage to come up with a few articles on these types of topics each week and fill the other days with fiction or poetry. But it isn’t resulting in the engagement and associated earnings I’d like to see.

I’ve also been finding that the more I read the more frustrated I get. A good percentage of stories I see now a days are just rehashing things that have been discussed ad nauseum. Yet these stories still result in engagement. Maybe not always as high as other articles but they still are clearly earning.

I have made a point of not just publishing anything to hike my views and earn more income. Yet there are so many topics I know about which I could write off the top of my head. They would just be things that have been written about over and over.

I have wrestled with this, wondering if it would be worth it, at least in the short run, to rehash things that can be readily produced. But when I started on my writing journey I wanted it to be meaningful and for my writing to have integrity. As I’ve struggled with financial problems and the earnings question though, this has been harder to justify.

Would it be the end of the world to quickly write up articles that could boost my earnings at least a bit even if there’s nothing particularly new about them? I’m sure some people won’t have read the information before. I could rehash psychology stuff, and even if it’s old news, some people won’t be familiar with it. It really wouldn’t be the worst thing.

But as I’ve thought more about it, I’ve realized that this isn’t my nature. For me, writing does have to be meaningful in some way. Maybe it’s a personal revelation, processing something that I’m struggling with which may resonate with others, exploring different forms of writing that I don’t have much experience with, or learning something about myself. But there has to be some degree of, if not joy, at least interest in what I write.

I’ve found that writing something that is old hat just to have something to publish that day, is completely uninteresting to me and makes me angry at myself for taking the easy way out. The few times I’ve tried this, I failed to finish the piece, shoving the computer away from me, and not writing until the next day. So ultimately, not only am I unable to do it, attempting it shuts me down for the better part of a day.

So I will continue to write the way I think I should. This means that at the end of the day, it’s not about money, and trying to make it about this prevents me from producing anything other than useless drivel. What I’ll do about money, I have no idea as of yet. But I can’t ruin the one thing that makes me feel fulfilled.

I would challenge everyone out there to hold themselves up to higher standards. Find the meaning in your writing, however you choose to define that. Explore topics you might not be as familiar with and see where they take you. Try new genres like fiction or poetry, and examine what this does for your other writing. If you feel comfortable doing it, share personal experiences that might help others.

I’m not saying to never write what’s easy or familiar. Obviously, that a writer’s bread and butter. But don’t just write what thousands of other people have already covered for decades. Take risks, explore, expand and grow towards a meaningful and satisfying writing life, that you can reflect on with pride.

Natalie Frank (Taye Carrol) has had work featured in Haunted Waters Press, Weirdbook Magazine, Siren’s Call Publications, Lycan Valley Press and Zero Fiction among others. Her poetry has been featured in several anthologies. She is Editor for 1-One-Infinity and One Table, One World and Editor in Chief for Promposity and Mental Gecko. She is also the Managing Editor for Novellas and Serials at LVP Publications.

If you enjoyed reading this story, you might also like these:

You can find links to my other work on Medium and follow me here. Thanks for reading and for your support!