On Writing for Money

Yesterday, again, someone asked me when I’m going to start writing seriously. I told them I’ve been writing quite seriously, professionally even, to which they replied, “No, I mean, not for money.”

It’s not their fault, honestly. I’ve fallen into the same trap, and I’m a writer myself. It’s the way of the world, in a society where anything that makes you happy couldn’t possibly be free let alone rewarding. For writers, rewards are measured in body counts, or even retweets, and less often in money or livelihood.

How could I, then, be content in the writing I do? Could I even call it real writing when it’s for someone else’s benefit, on someone else’s clock? When I’m not torturing myself for hours in an effort to pen down one appetising sentence that could fill my stomach more thoroughly than food?

Scratch that last part, actually. I may not fit into the tortured artist trope but the agonising hunger of just the right words is ever-present.

Sure, I want to write for myself; a story of my own that I want people to remember me by. I want my name on a published book, if I’m ever so fortunate to slip out of the loop of write, scrub, write, delete. I want to squeeze out my stories on a blank page, see if it resonates with anyone at all, and find meaning in that connection.

But I wouldn’t go so far to say that I’m not doing any meaningful writing at all. Ideas, wishes, dreams have meaning, and that meaning could never be actualised without the written word, after all. The people who pay me do it because they find reward in my writing. It’d be a terrible slight if I were to disregard their satisfaction and the hours I put in to ensure that satisfaction as “not real”.

It’s a novel idea I’m proposing, perhaps, even in the 21st century, that maybe — just maybe — writers don’t have to heave out chunks of their selves 24/7, or become mysterious beings beyond reason or saving in face of passion, for their work to have worth. Sometimes (most of the times) writing is just that: Writing.

It’s not a “great calling” or a “gift from the gods” or any such romantic notions. Writing is simply the will to tell a story. A skill and talent like any other.

Have you ever thought of it like that?