No Writing Pressure, No Writing Heat

Summary

The author discusses the challenges and motivations of transitioning from part-time English teaching to full-time writing, with a particular desire to focus on creative writing rather than journalism, despite the financial stability the latter provided.

Abstract

The author has been earning more from writing for News Break than from teaching English part-time, yet their passion lies in creative writing. The pressure to produce articles for News Break led to a significant writing output, equivalent to a quarter of a novel each month. However, after losing the News Break gig in July, the author's writing productivity dropped, and they managed to write only about 4000 words in August. The financial security of a steady income from News Break was a strong motivator, contrasting with the minimal earnings from Medium. The author reflects on the need to reignite their passion for writing to complete their historical novel, aiming to finish the first draft by January 2022.

Opinions

The author values creative writing (poetry, short stories, novellas, and novels) over journalistic writing, despite the better pay from journalism.
The financial incentive from News Break was a significant motivator for the author's writing productivity.
The author finds the lack of clear financial results from writing on Medium demotivating.
There is a sense of discouragement due to the loss of a steady income from writing, which has impacted the author's writing output.
The author acknowledges the need to overcome this slump and return to writing their historical novel, recognizing the importance of self-motivation to achieve their goal of completing the first draft by January 2022.

No Writing Pressure, No Writing Heat

Losing the Creative Fire

I talk and whine a lot about how I want to write for a living and flush my day job as a part-time English teacher down the toilet. Funny thing is though, this year, at least from January-July, I was earning about $100 more a month writing for News Break than I was teaching English part-time.

Still, when I talk about writing for a living what I really mean is creative writing, poetry, short stories, novellas, and novels, not 600 word human interest journalism shit like I was writing for News Break. The money was great, but I can’t say I was excited about it.

On the other hand though, knowing I had to pump out at least twenty-five 600 word articles every month to make my $1500 a month base pay pushed me to write at least 15,000 words a month, essentially a quarter of a novel each month. Knowing that I can produce that much even while working part-time is encouraging.

But at the end of July, my fire for writing dropped pretty significantly. I still wrote about twenty things for Medium and two articles for News Break, but my overall word count for August was probably around 4000 words at most.

I know part of it is the loss of income. Several of the last pieces I wrote on Medium and the first I wrote for September were all about that. If nothing else, New Break’s $1500 base pay gave me something to focus on and shoot for.

I still earn about $15 a month on Medium, but the results are a lot less clear, and let's face it, $15 a month, or 3 cups of drip coffee at Starbucks aren’t exactly something to make me roll out of bed every morning and hit the keyboard.

I have a historical novel that I’ve been writing for about two years now. I’m about 15000 words into it, which means I’m roughly 80,000 words short of finishing the first draft. I need to suck it up and start pumping out words again. I can have my first draft done by January 2022 if I can just lite that damn flame again and put my writer’s nose to the grindstone.