The Creative Type's Dilemma

“If you work you ass off on something that doesn’t earn you a fucking dime have you really done any work?” (Borrowed/Ripped off From George Berkeley)

Why the hell do I do it? Creative types ask themselves this all the time I think. Or maybe I should say those of us who aren’t earning a living from our creative pursuits. Which is around 98% of us from what I’ve read. I know, I know the millions of purists are screaming their little throats raw right now that “They’d do it for free!” Well, maybe, but pretty much every time I’ve heard a creative type make this statement they were usually sitting in their Bentley, Lear Jet, or on a $50,000 couch in their mansion somewhere tropical.

For me though, the money would be more like an ointment for the disease. The disease being of course the endless deluge of ideas screaming through my brain every hour that I’m awake. Some of these ideas jump up and down for a while until a squirrel distracts me long enough for it to fade away into the misty fog of forgotten memories. Others bitch slap me hard enough into at least jotting down some notes that later may as well be alien hieroglyphics for all the sense I can make out of them. And then there are the ones that burst up, take center stage and don’t leave and won’t take “fuck you, go away,” for an answer. These ones stick around, sometimes for years, until I get them out of my head and down on the page or screen.

If I just look at my longer projects, several novels, a novella, and a fictionalized memoir there have been five times since 2001 that these ideas stuck hard enough in my brain that they led to at least a completed first draft. And seven other times where they ended up as 25–80 page incomplete(s).

Of the five that crossed the finish line one of them, the novella, PLUGGGGY PLUG PLUG (The Adamantine River Passage), is the only one that has been published. Very little money from it so far, but as a boost to my self-esteem this is huge. Knowing that I’m one of the only 3% of novelists who ever traditionally publish their book is major for me. In many ways whether or not I ever earn a dime from it is secondary. The fact that I can say I did it is my big “fuck you” to all the doubters and haters out there. And in many ways it has be an underwhelming disappointment that will probably end up as another bitchy rant similar to this one at some point.

Now I imagine for writers five completed works in sixteen years might be fairly impressive considering I’ve taught either full time or part time during the entire time I’ve been writing and publishing them. But, for non-writers and non-creative types most of the time it is pretty much “show me the money”. Not having a huge payday to them means you may as well have not done anything. All the time and effort you put into your writing isn’t considered “real work” because you haven’t cracked that elusive “2%” that constitutes the percentage of novelists that actually make a living solely from their writing. Ditto for the stand up comedy I write and perform every month.

I had a debate with a friend about this one time. He was trying to convince me that if you are inspired to do something, but it doesn’t earn you any money it’s a hobby, but not real work. “Really?” I thought to myself. The “writing” part of writing a novel isn’t the part that inspires me, it’s not the part that gets me out of bed in the morning, but it is absolutely a fuck of a lot of very hard work.The ideas flashing through my head that make my heart sing are what inspires me. Banging away at the keyboard often times for years, in the hopes of somehow capturing even a tiny spark of the original story is the worst kind of drudgery most of the time for me. Same for the editing and submitting that come after the first draft is done. Sometimes I feel like non-writers think we just generate the ideas and then pull ready made novels out of our asses.

So the point of this whole little essay then I guess is, yeah a living wage for my writing would be nice, but what I really want, since money seems to be the measure of everything, is to earn enough to at least justify one of the main things I live for.