If Money Was Your Motivation for Writing, You’d Have Quit Long Ago

We don’t make a living from it, but here’s why we keep going

I know that the “cool” thing to admit is that “of course money matters and that’s what keeps me going.” Even the few cents that I make from an article or the $100 that I am paid on Fiverr or Upwork makes it all worth it.

But if you truly sum up all those dollars you made from writing, most of you won’t be earning enough to live off of it. I don’t either. It isn’t my day job, there’s another one that pays for my food and puts a roof over my head.

Yet, in most of my “idle time” I am only thinking about the next article I can write, and the next story that needs to be heard. If money was my real driver, I’d have given up long ago. Yet, 8 months into the rekindled love for writing, and around 250 articles and poems into it, I make it a point to write at least one if not more articles a day.

The real kick is in the thrill of “creation” for me and in the fact that whatever words I put into that piece are completely mine — I take responsibility for all the crap it turns out to be and I take pride in the people it inspires. There are a ton of writers on here who each write for different reasons. They’re kind enough to share their “inspiration” with us — and so I am going to pick five of them and share their “reasons to write” with you.

Sometimes life needs a second wind and a new identity — By Thewriteyard

There’s a lot of young blood on Medium — here to rebel from the world and find their own voice and make it be heard.

Yet, there’s a whole other group of people who are veterans in the game of life. Not just in the years, they’ve been around, but the wisdom they’ve accumulated over those years. They’ve “been there, done that” and achieved more than most of us can imagine in areas ranging from technology, medicine, politics, military, and just about anything you can think of.

Some of them are the Barack Obamas of the world, others — the majority — are lesser-known voices, with probably more diverse experiences and wisdom than Mr. President has to offer. Their wisdom may not be “certified” by degrees or part experiences in all they have to say — because life doesn’t certify or validate your learnings when it teaches you every moment.

As my friend and fellow-editor Thewriteyard beautifully puts it:

It might be the first time that you have ever confronted the fact that you are an important cog in the vast expanse of the universe. Just a generalist, but with the power to make people stop and think through your words.

Your voice could save the life of a person in distress, provide comfort to a harassed mother, bring joy into a dark space, take the insomniac into a fantasy world. There are endless possibilities.

Tap into your “higher self” but don’t try and force “inspiration” — By Alan Lew

Alan writes a lot about spirituality and often helps act as a bridge for his readers to help them tap into their higher self as well.

For those of you not too aware of what true spirituality feels like, channeling may be a new experience. It is essentially an experience when you act as a conduit for a message from the higher powers of the universe. As a website describes it:

The practice of channeling — a person’s body being taken over by a spirit for the purpose of communication — has been around for millennia.

But it isn’t always that you’ll find inspiration to write about the spiritual, and that is when you need to trust the process — and not “force” things.

As Alan says:

“Should” is a word that I associate with the outer ego, which moves me in the opposite direction of my inner ego, inner self, or soul. We do things from the inner self (soul) because we are inspired to do it, and we feel good while doing it. — Knowing this does not stop the “shoulds” from coming up in my mind, but it helps to put them in perspective.

Patience is the name of the game — Noah Nelson

The trouble with being too short-sighted in your goals is that you never really end up achieving anything. You give something a shot for a few days and you’re bored.

The truth is, greatness in anything is almost never achieved overnight. You may come across those lucky one-in-a-million stories who had “overnight” success — but those stories are often not the ones you should base your life on. Noah writes a short and sweet piece about why Medium is a game for the “slow and the steady” and the pay-off needs significant time and effort — and persistence is key.

As he says,

But the more time I spend on Medium, the more I read where writers want to make a certain amount of money a month, be curated, or become a top writer. Again, it won’t happen overnight.

However, we all have one another as writers and editors to help us reach our goals to be successful on Medium. Instead of wanting fast results, we must take Medium day by day.

Writing is a journey, and not a destination — Dhruv Sharma

Let’s face it — for any writer — amateur or professional. There are days and weeks and months when it just doesn’t seem worth all the effort. We all want to quit and just get on with our lives that didn’t have writing as an integral part of it.

What’s all the effort for? I am getting no returns. No one reads me, I don’t get paid enough for all this.

But, wait. Did you write for others and for the money? Or for yourself?

I’ll bet the resounding answer is for yourself. The money and the lure of more readers, followers, and fame came after you got into the game. But remember why you truly started. As Dhruv puts it,

Whenever I ask myself this, I can’t help but think about the defining days of my childhood when I wrote with no expectations. For me, the empty canvas was a mere medium of expression. So I poured my heart and soul into it. Once I was done, I would tuck my notebook under my mattress to make sure no one else (but I) could read it later.

I may not have been the greatest writer back then. But I sure as hell was well-intended. My love for writing — as an artform — was pure.

Writing is like praying — it is therapeutic even if the “results” aren’t obvious — Obinna V. Onyenedum

You don’t need to be religious to understand this beautiful analogy by Obinna. We don’t know there is a god who is listening to us, and we hear no answers when we send out prayers — but we continue to do it, anyway.

We don’t pray to show other people we do; we do it for ourselves. It feels good to let out your wishes and confide in a higher power. That same way, writing is an outlet for our feelings and thoughts — doesn’t matter if anyone reads it or not — or shouldn’t matter. As Obinna explains the analogy:

Writing, perhaps, might be a legitimate source of income for people but for a large number of us, it is more of a therapeutic tool. So, too, is prayer. In both activities, we vent, meditate, cry, and discover what is underneath the mask we put on as we wake up.

I hope you’ve got a renewed reason to write thanks to some of these beautiful stories and you’ve found an inspiration that was missing. So every time you’re thinking of quitting, just read some other writers and understand what inspires them to continue on this journey.

If you’d like to be a part of a network of writers that are here for the right reasons — reach out to one of the editors of Synergy — and contribute your bit.

I’ll tag some of the editors you can reach out to — full list here: Synergy — Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Dew Langrial, Dr. Preeti Singh, Karen Madej, Tree Langdon, Liam Ireland, Georgia Dimitrious, Jennifer Friebely, Chelsea Mandler MAT.