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Jan. 21st, 2014 01:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerI see one every day. A post from one or other published writer, pointing out that most writers make basically no money at it ever, and proceeding from that to the conclusion that all writers have got to be business people as well.
There are so many ways this doesn't sit well with me. Quite apart from the fact that they lost me at "got to"--I already do a lot of stuff I don't enjoy, and writing is what I do to remind myself that that isn't all there is to life--there's the fact that business as a concept scares and repels me. Not because I think I'm too good for it--I'm not, and I don't--but because I know I wouldn't be good enough at it. The one thing I know about being a good business person is that if I were I would never waste time writing for money; and if I had to be a business person at all, I don't think being a lousy one would help.
And then there's the depression, and the anxiety, and the CFS. I actually sold a story last year, but in order to get anything for it I'd have to register as self-employed (which would lose me a very important fifty pounds a week carer's allowance) and fill in an American tax form that I can't even face reading, not to mention UK tax returns for the rest of my life, on an income of basically zero. And I'm supposed to be a business person.
And there's also the point that even were I the best business person in the world, I'd never be able to sell what I write, because I write what I love, and what I love is...well, put it this way, when I attempted an unsuccessful collaboration with a professional writer, he ran out of synonyms for 'old hat' to describe my contributions. Nobody would pay for it; it's too slow, too wordy, too white, too me. Almost nobody dies, nobody seriously suffers, there's no grit, no grime, no bleakness. Back when Agatha Christie was still writing,forty fifty years ago, I could have been moderately successful, maybe, doing what I'm doing, if I hadn't been eight at the time. Now...not a hope. Forget it.
Fortunately, it turns out I don't have to be. I have another option; poverty. I write because I like to write. I'd write if nobody read a word. I'll be writing for as long as I can form words. If I ever get back to a level of energy and stability that allows me to hold down a day job, I can write and do that. And in the meantime, if I put my stuff up on a website, and every now and then somebody drops something into the hat, I can kid myself that I'm not just indulging a hobby.
And I don't, after all, have to find out, ever, just how abysmally badly I would fail at being a business person.
Someone--the same someone, actually--once said I had all the talents except one. He was wrong. I have just one. And it may be tiny, but it's mine, and I'm going to use it whether it pays or not.
This has been an exercise in realism. Thanks for listening.
There are so many ways this doesn't sit well with me. Quite apart from the fact that they lost me at "got to"--I already do a lot of stuff I don't enjoy, and writing is what I do to remind myself that that isn't all there is to life--there's the fact that business as a concept scares and repels me. Not because I think I'm too good for it--I'm not, and I don't--but because I know I wouldn't be good enough at it. The one thing I know about being a good business person is that if I were I would never waste time writing for money; and if I had to be a business person at all, I don't think being a lousy one would help.
And then there's the depression, and the anxiety, and the CFS. I actually sold a story last year, but in order to get anything for it I'd have to register as self-employed (which would lose me a very important fifty pounds a week carer's allowance) and fill in an American tax form that I can't even face reading, not to mention UK tax returns for the rest of my life, on an income of basically zero. And I'm supposed to be a business person.
And there's also the point that even were I the best business person in the world, I'd never be able to sell what I write, because I write what I love, and what I love is...well, put it this way, when I attempted an unsuccessful collaboration with a professional writer, he ran out of synonyms for 'old hat' to describe my contributions. Nobody would pay for it; it's too slow, too wordy, too white, too me. Almost nobody dies, nobody seriously suffers, there's no grit, no grime, no bleakness. Back when Agatha Christie was still writing,
Fortunately, it turns out I don't have to be. I have another option; poverty. I write because I like to write. I'd write if nobody read a word. I'll be writing for as long as I can form words. If I ever get back to a level of energy and stability that allows me to hold down a day job, I can write and do that. And in the meantime, if I put my stuff up on a website, and every now and then somebody drops something into the hat, I can kid myself that I'm not just indulging a hobby.
And I don't, after all, have to find out, ever, just how abysmally badly I would fail at being a business person.
Someone--the same someone, actually--once said I had all the talents except one. He was wrong. I have just one. And it may be tiny, but it's mine, and I'm going to use it whether it pays or not.
This has been an exercise in realism. Thanks for listening.
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no subject
Date: 2014-01-21 02:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-21 07:37 am (UTC)But - just thinking of the weekend's TV, what's the thing everyone's talking about? The Musketeers. Essentially a happy, light-hearted programme that leaves the viewer feeling happier at the end.
Your writing is intelligent and lovely. That 'professional writer' doesn't write for, or read for, everybody.
I, too, don't appreciate having to view writing as a business. The tax forms are ridiculous. And I don't blame you At. All. for not wanting to threaten what you have for the sake of jam tomorrow. *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2014-01-21 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-21 01:41 pm (UTC)And I wish I were rich and could pay you for writing!