No, I Don’t Write for Money

Please don’t kill your creativity by demanding it earn you money

When our English teacher stood in front of our class and announced, we were going to be working on an essay for the next couple of weeks; I think I was the only student with a huge grin and a belly full of excitement. An essay to me meant being allowed to pour my heart and soul down onto the page. It meant all that writing I did in secret as a hobby, was being allowed out to play for a little while, and I couldn’t wait.

My favourite kind of writing assignments to be given were the fiction pieces. It could be a finish the ending of this story piece, or an assignment to include various words, it didn’t matter to me. As long as I got to write, I didn’t care.

It must have shone through because my pieces were always selected to be read out to the class., always marked with an A, and a note at the end at how good the work was.

And I would sit at my desk as my teacher read out my story with a mixture of pride because that was my story, embarrassment because the teacher was laying my soul out to the class, and fulfilment, because as she’d read, I would be taken back to those moments spent scribbling those words and all it had felt to me during the process.

Writing was and still is, the food for my soul.

I Have Written for As Long as I Can Remember

I joke that I started witting before I was old enough to write, but in a way, it is true. I was always that chid with the active imagination, the child you could give a box, and I’d make a car and be Michael Knight’s sidekick in Knight Rider.

My favourite toys were cars and Lego bricks. My imagination could run wild with those. Days would be spent playing out stories, scenarios and adventures. I’d build cities, create towns and my cars could talk. I never got bored because there was never time to be bored. I had all these stories I wanted to play out.

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.”― Stephen King

Child’s Play Is Writing

And I mean this in the sense that it is storytelling. Writers, authors, aren’t really writers, they’re storytellers. Writing is the physical activity we do to get what is in our heads onto the page so that it can be uploaded to someone else’s head.

In his book On Writing, Stephen King says, all writers are doing is creating telepathy.

Look- here’s a table covered with red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. […] On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8. […] The most interesting thing here isn’t even the carrot-munching rabbit in the cage, but the number on its back. Not a six, not a four, not nineteen-point-five. It’s an eight.

He wrote that in 1999, and you’re seeing it now, and if you compared notes, chances are, you’d be seeing almost the same image in your mind.

When children play games of make-believe, they are creating stories in their heads and acting them out in the physical world. And it is with this idea, that when someone asks me how long have I been a writer, I tell them, forever.

If they wanted to know when I physically started writing, the answer would be around the age of five.

My mother taught me to read very early on. I suspect it was to keep me quiet and so I could entertain myself, and I did. Teaching me to read, she opened up a whole new world for me, and it was wonderful. I devoured books. C S Lewis, Tolkien, Roald Dhal … they were the voices who kept me entertained, and then, when I discovered I could write my own stories, wow.

It was like someone had handed me magic. I could take my pencil (I wasn’t allowed pens at that age) and I could make, create and bring to life any person, any world I wanted to. Talking dogs? Sure, no problem. Talking dogs with wings who could fly? Even better.

I wrote stories all the time. They were like the very breath in my throat.

Seriously, You Write Because You Have Bills to Pay?

It truly baffles me when writers and authors tell me they write for money. While I like money, and I love that my writing earns me money, I don’t consider them as something to go hand in hand. For me, I consider myself lucky to be able to earn money with my writing, but that’s it. If I didn’t earn money from writing, I would still write.

Writing was my friend during my childhood, and as I grew up, I would steal notebooks from the school storeroom and sit with such a feeling of awe and the love of new possibilities with those empties pages at what worlds I could bring to life on there.

I wrote everything from poems to short stories, to novel-length stories, to making my own comic books and writing in journals to get down what was bothering me.

Writing has always been that comforting friend of mine.

And someone who writes without that same level of passion, I want to ask them why? How?

“Don’t write for money. Write because you love to do something. If you write for money, you won’t write anything worth reading”. — Ray Bradbury

I have worked those jobs I hate, those jobs when you count down the hours until you can go home, why would you do that with writing?

And those writers I see who it does solely for money, I see them come and go. It is harder for me than it is for them. In a way, I feel sorry for them because they are missing all the wonder that comes from just allowing yourself to be a creator, without putting the burden of earning a living on top.

You Can Tell When A Writer Writes for Money

I read a lot of books, and I enjoy a good series, but sometimes you can see when a writer is doing it for money, or fulfilling a contract. The writing becomes the same; the stories become the same. What might have been fun, becomes burdensome, and so stories become formulaic. The writer … author … will churn out the same story. The only thing that will change is the character’s names and a few of the details, but you break it down, it is the same story repeated, and readers know, even if they don’t know they know. There is something that niggles at them.

How many authors used to be marvelled by their fans, but then start getting reviews that say, While I love such and such’s books, they all started to become the same. I bet you there’s a publishing contract there being honoured, or a bank balance needing to be raised.

“But to yell at your creativity, saying, “You must earn money for me!” is sort of like yelling at a cat; it has no idea what you’re talking about, and all you’re doing is scaring it away, because you’re making really loud noises and your face looks weird when you do that.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert

I Wrote A Novel

I wrote my first novel back in 2004. I did it for the love of it, and those two characters who I spent an entire year with, became the central characters of my Society Series (An Urban Fantasy Series).

For years, I wrote in this world I created; I brought friends to life, made worlds and rules and just spent so much time in this imaginary place.

I had been published when I was five, and then again in my teens in a school magazine, and it was around 2005 when I was picked up by Electronic Arts (a gaming company) to have my stories featured on their website. While they were great, nothing was as thrilling as writing the story itself.

There Are Easier Ways to Earn Money

This is what I think when someone tells me they write for money. As much as I love the writing part, everything that comes with the publishing side isn’t what I expected, and I think if I didn’t love writing the way I do, it would be so easy to give up and go and get myself a regular job.

Earning Money with Your Writing Is Dangerous.

It Is A Balancing Act

I first published and earnt some serious money in 2012. My first royalty cheque was little over $800, which I know isn’t millions, and wouldn’t see me buying my villa in Florida and the second home in Canada, but it was a decent amount. I stared, delighted, at that cheque. It wasn’t so much about the money, but more about the fact I had readers — readers who weren’t friends or family and that was all I wanted. To write stories, and have people read them.

But I can see how getting that cheque could be dangerous. I like money as much as the next person. Who doesn’t? And having it come in from the thing I love to do was amazing, but it can cause a problem. A writer may fall in love with the money, and let it take over their passion, and it’s sad when that happens.

How many writers do you see, who say, my books aren’t selling, I feel like giving up?

I would hate my writing and money to become that entangled in each other. I’d rather have a job in the real world and have writing go back to be a hobby than burdening my creativity with financial goals.

How Can You Be Happy When You Write for Money?

I’m not sure. And yes, some people do make a lot of money from their writing, and good for them. But are they happy? Inside, are they? A person can have millions and still be miserable if they are not honouring themselves and the thing that gets them going. A person can be poor and live a happy and fulfilled life if they give themselves the gift of really living their life.

I say it so many times, but time is the biggest currency we all have is not money. Money is a humanmade concept. It is pieces of paper and metal that we use to trade for other things, but time … time well spent, is valuable. Why would you spend your time writing for bits of paper and metal if it wasn’t the thing that fuelled your soul?