Why writers write, even when they can’t make a living out of it

Patti Miller’s article in last weekend’s The Sydney Morning Herald is depressing. Although nothing she says is new, most writers are already painfully aware that they can’t make a living from their writing and hence they need to look at other means in order to survive, she fails to give hope to new writers.

In her article, The writer’s life: belly dancing to make a living, Patti lists the paid jobs she did since she left school in order to support herself while writing. The list is exhaustive – nanny/ house slave, waitress, housemaid, nurse-aide, artist model, women’s center organizer, arts event organizer, university lecturer, TAFE teacher, writing workshop tutor, manuscript mentor, and editor.

She surveyed more than 50 well-known published writers and found that all of them, at various times, had to supplement their income from other sources.

She then raises the obvious question.

If writers cannot earn a living from writing then why they are doing it.

A fair question. An important one too.

But she fails to satisfactorily answer it. At least not to my satisfaction.

Earning money is not the sole purpose of choosing a profession. There are many professions other than writing where the money is not good but people still choose them. All the artists and academics fall into this category, so do the people working in the emergency and health services.

There are many reasons, why writers write.

I am reading a book by Meredith Maran, Why We Write, where the author has interviewed twenty writers, a mix of genders, genres, ethnicities, and ages, and asked them the same question.

Their responses are impressive at the least and touching at the most.

Terry Tempest William gives his reasons as “I write to make peace with the things I cannot control. I write to create fabric in a world that often appears black and white. I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change.”

Armistead Maupin wrote, “I write to explain myself to myself. It’s a way of processing my disasters, sorting out the messiness of life to land symmetry and meaning to it… Sometimes I write to explain myself to others. Thirty-forty years ago I told my folks I was a gay through the Tales of the City character Michael Molliver.”

Mary Kerr writes, to connect with other human beings; to record; to clarify; to visit dead. “I have a primitive need to leave a mark on the world.”

Kathryn Harrison said, “I write because it’s the only thing I know that offers the hope of proving myself worthy of love… I write, also, because it’s the apparatus I have for explaining the world around me, seemingly the only method that works.”

David Baldacci goes to the extreme, “If writing were illegal, I’d be in prison. I can’t write. It is a compulsion.”

Writing is a compulsion too for Gish Jen. She goes on to say, “Writing is part and parcel of how I am in the world. Eating, sleeping, writing: they all go together. I don’t think about why I am writing any more than I think about why I’m breathing. Its absence is bad, just as not breathing would be bad.”

George Orwell wrote a whole book “Why I Write” to explain why he writes. He gave four reasons which pretty much encapsulates everyone else’s reasons too:

  1. Sheer egoism. “To be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups, etc.”
  2. Aesthetic enthusiasm. “To take pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story.”
  3. Historical impulse. “The desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.”
  4. Political purposes. “The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself is a political attitude.”

But I think for many of us writing is a vocation, a calling, a life’s work.

And when you start pursuing your calling, it is not easy. It is rich and fulfilling but not easy.

Your life’s work causes you more pain than ease, but it is worth it.

It provides you with a purpose, an opportunity to make a difference, a legacy to leave behind.

We write because every one of us is searching for a purpose in our lives. A purpose that is beyond material success. A purpose that could justify our existence in this world. Writing provides that purpose.

It allows us to make a difference, a real difference in our lives and in the lives of other people.

Think about it, how much other people’s writing has helped you understand life, show you the way, guide you out of misery and help you become a better person. This is what you are trying to do with your writing – help others.

Your words can make things easier for someone else is big enough a reason to continue to write.

That is the reason the writers will continue to write even if they are not able to make a living out of it.

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

Learn by teaching

Do you know who is the best teacher? The one who is master at his craft or the one who is a beginner.

The answer might surprise you.

Sometimes when someone is too good or too experienced, they turn out to be the worst teachers. They can’t teach because they’ve lost touch with the learning challenges at the beginner level. Anything that you become good, you tend to forget that you have mastered and internalized a number of things.

Take the internet for instance. Most of us have mastered a number of things and don’t even remember how we struggled when we just started. Now try teaching internet surfing and email writing to a senior citizen who has never used the internet before and watches your frustration with their lack of knowledge.

Now let an eight-year-old teach the same old person. Watch their patience and technique.

Their own learning is fresh in their mind. They can use different techniques, one they used themselves to learn, to teach their pupil (an old person in this case).

The problems faced by someone just starting out are very different to the problems of someone who is already making progress. The people on the mediocre-to-good spectrum are much different from people who are just starting. Who you decide to learn from and who you look up to should vary as you make your way through your learning journey.

C.S. Lewis wrote a great introduction to his Reflections on the Psalms 

It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than a teacher can… the Fellow-Pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has only recently met. The expert met it so long ago he has forgotten… I write as one amateur to another, talking about difficulties I have met, or lights I have gained…

First cited at To be a teacher and remain a student

Often, rather than turning to a master or a guru or already made the slog through to the other side, the better person to learn from is the person who is next to you in the trenches.

The world is changing at such an amazing rate that we can’t be satisfied with knowing what we know now. If you become complacent, the world will leave you behind. You need to have the humility to become a student again.

But if you want to fast track your learning, start teaching what you want to learn.

In 1980, Jean-Pol Martin developed a teaching and learning approach in German school which led to a psychological phenomenon that was appropriately named protégé effect

He got second-year students of German at the University of Nottingham plan, design and deliver a teaching session for first-year beginners’ students.

The result was:

The result was:

– The second-year students reported increased metacognitive processing, which made them more actively aware of their own learning process.

– Expecting to teach and teaching can led toincreased use of effective learning strategies, such as organizing the material and seeking out key pieces of information.

– It led to increased motivation to learn, since they make a greater effort to learn for those that they will teach than they do for themselves.

– They felt increased feelings of competence and autonomy, by viewing themselves as playing the role of a teacher, rather than that of the student.

Source: The Protégé Effect: How You Can Learn by Teaching Others

We learn a skill better as a result of several psychological mechanisms, all of which revolve around the differences between how we learn information when we’re learning for ourselves, compared to how we learn it when we expect to teach others, as well as when we teach them in practice. 

Teaching not only improves our own learning of the skill but also improves our soft skills such as – communication, confidence level, and leadership ability.

When preparing to teach not only our quality of learning improves but our retention also increases. The same is true of the increased feelings of competence and autonomy that we experience as a result of playing the role of the teacher.

Another study attributed the benefits of the learning-by-teaching strategy to retrieval practice.

Most of us already have some knowledge in our area of interest, why not start teaching those to someone else and in the process improve our own learning.

This is what I am doing through this site. Learning and improving my writing skills by teaching others.

Whether you have skills or don’t have any skills in your area of interest, your teaching ability is about 60 hours away.

How?

I will write about that next week.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Three kinds of mentors for writers and why you should have them all

In the 12th century BC, when Odysseus, the legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey, left for the Trojan War, he left his son Telemachus in charge of his friend named Mentōr.

Since then, the Greek word Mentor became synonymous with someone who teaches, gives help, and advice to a less experienced and often younger person.

All beginning writers need mentors. Mentors are those kind souls who say to you, “I believe in you,” even when you don’t; especially when you don’t.

Writing is said to be a solitary profession. We are expected to tread in isolation and toil quietly. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Your writing journey can become a joyful walk if you can find a good mentor. The right mentor can instruct, guide, support, and encourage you and help you realize your full potential.

Who is the right mentor?

According to Patrick Boland, a right mentor has three main characteristics:

  1. Good mentors are open as a person. They see the world as an exciting, curious place, and he is open to ideas and possibilities. He is comfortable in his skin and wants you to be comfortable in his skin and wants you to be comfortable in yours.
  2. They are more interested in what is going on internally than externally.
  3. They celebrate your rise and sit with you during your falls, through all the disappointments, heartbreak, and hurt.

The right mentor will bring you through the whole learning cycle of trying failing and getting better.

A right mentor is someone who meets you where you are.

A right mentor is someone you admire and want to be like.

Finding the right mentor is not easy. Fortunately, mentoring can happen in many shapes and forms. It can be formal or informal and may change and evolve with changes in your needs.

The three kinds of mentors you should look at are:

Dead mentors

The dead mentors are those who have died a long time ago. But they have left their advice behind in the form of books. They are the best kind of mentors because their advice is time-tested. Besides, they can’t say ‘no’ to mentor you. 

You can pick and choose which was you want to follow. You can also pick the advice that appeals to you and applies to your circumstances. 

But, of course, not every piece of advice applies to everyone. 

And it is quite possible the time is not right for certain counsel. In those scenarios, you can use your own judgment to decide what to take and what to leave.

“The best mentors can help us define and express our inner calling,” says Anthony Tjan, CEO of Boston firm Cue Ball Group and author of Good People. “But rarely can one person give you everything you need to grow.”

Dead mentors with their books can easily cover that gap.

Alive mentors

Alive mentors could be hard to get because you need their permission to be your mentors.

Sometimes, your agents, your editors, your writing coach, or even your writing-group-buddies can fit the bill.

As your mentor, their job is not to solve your problems (writing or otherwise) than to help you see them clearly. 

They do that by observing, listening, challenging, asking focused questions, and making you reflect. 

They can suggest strategies for solving problems you might not have considered and can help you think “bigger picture.” 

Your mentors can be your cheerleaders. Having the positive support of a cheerleader can give you the necessary motivation to keep going. 

Our parents, spouses, and good friends can fill this role for us in many ways. Professionally, having a person in your field saying, “you can do this,” can be a tremendous asset. 

As your cheerleader, they will be genuinely happy for you when you succeed and will cheer you out of the hole when you can find no way out.

In his TED talk, Anthony Tjan identifies five kinds of people you should have in your corner

  • Master of the craft
  • Champion of your cause
  • Copilot
  • Anchor
  • Reverse mentor. 

Listen to his talk below to find out how they can help you grow. 

One person can’t cover more than one category so use this list as a guide to identify them deepen your bond with them. You probably already know all of them.

Find writers you admire. Writers who are living their life in a way you aspire to. Get to know their routines, their resources, how they go about their days. While their way is not the only way, you can gain valuable insight into steps you might want to take to get you closer to your goals.

Online mentors

Online mentors are the educators. 

An educator is a person who takes the time to share their expertise with those who want to learn. They love to help others by sharing their wisdom. They want to see everyone succeed.

Many writers are sharing their craft online. They are willing to teach what they have learned through their blogs and courses. They are imparting information for free. You can subscribe to your ideals which are doing things you want to be able to do. Search for any topic online, and you will find a lot of free information. These are your online mentors.

Here is a list of some I follow:

You can choose a more suitable one from this extensive list.

Don’t follow too many at a time. Otherwise, there will be too much advice, and you won’t be able to act on it.

The best way is, to follow one or two for a while, learn from them, and then move on. If you stick around too long you will start seeing things their way which will hinder your growth.

When their well dries, or you think you are learning no more from them, stop following them and find someone else you can learn from.

Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash

A writer’s graduation

If you are on a journey to become a professional writer, you need to understand one thing. Like any other profession, you need to graduate from the school of writing.

Professional qualifications can take anywhere from three to seven years. A bachelor’s degree in science typically takes four years; a law degree can take three years on top of that, and medicine up to seven years. 

Graduation in writing can take many years, but four to five years if you are working on the craft full time.

But most of us are writing on the side.

That takes a long time to learn the skills of the trade.

Indeed, you don’t have to go to university to get the qualifications. You can learn the craft through self-study, but you become a writer by writing, and that, my dear, takes years. 

You got to be writing a lot, and for many years, before your work gets anywhere close to publishable quality.

The major drawback of the self-study writing degree is that we don’t automatically advance one level per year. We can be a freshman for years. I know that because I have been a freshman for twenty years.

Randy Ingermanson, the writer who invented the Snowflake method of outlining, has devised a method to figure out where you are on the road to graduation as a writer.

Following his method, you can self-judge whether you are a Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, or Senior. Here are the criteria:

Freshmen are novice writers. They often have very fine content, but their craft is unpolished and they usually don’t have any contacts at all. Most Freshmen are convinced that they will never sell anything and they might as well give up. It’s fair to say that all Freshmen are very confused. That’s OK!

Sophomores have a bit of writing under their belts. They’ve improved their craft and probably also their content and they’re starting to get restless. Just how long does it take to get published, anyway? Why can’t those editors see that my book is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius and just publish the thing?

Juniors have gone even further. They’ve become strong writers. They’ve submitted some actual proposals at conferences. They’ve had an editor say those magic words — “Send me that proposal.” Their friends can’t understand why they’re not published. There is a reason, of course — they’re not Seniors yet. But they soon will be.

Seniors are those few who are ripe to graduate. A Senior is writing excellent stuff. Explosive. Powerful. Moving. But still unpublished. Seniors are worried sick that those mean editors are never going to notice them, that they’ll be submitting proposals forever. And then one day the phone rings. It’s one of those cranky editors you sent that proposal to last year and she wants to buy your book!

Source: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Author

How to move from one level to the next

Randy advises not to jump levels. It is hard enough already. If you try to jump from Sophomores to the Senior level, you will frustrate yourself and eventually give up writing altogether.

His tip is to take your time to move from Freshman to Sophomore and work on the craft. This means writing a lot and writing for readers. Write in your journal daily. Start a blog. Participate in November Novel Writing Month. Join a critique group.

Once all that becomes a habit, you can work towards becoming Juniors. Start attending writer’s conferences and learn to write book proposals. Writing proposals is an art in itself, and you will need a lot of practice to hone it. And guess what, you will need to get critiques on your proposals too.

As a Junior, you strive for excellence. Both in your work and your proposals. You will need to build your contacts and broaden your horizons. This will mean meeting lots of people. Not just editors but writers too, as Randy says, ” knowing lots of writers is better than knowing lots of editors, and it’s a whole lot easier.”

And finally, when you have made yourself known in the writing circle, you become a senior writer. Then just like any university, you win the bragging rights to intimidate the freshmen. 

But even at this stage, you need to continue to strive for perfection in your craft. 

But your main job is to wait for the right idea. 

And as soon as it strikes, you are to grab it with both hands and turn it into the book by using all that you have been learning so far.

Then my dear, an editor, who is a lifelong friend of a lifelong friend, will offer you a contract, and you will be an author. 

If you have already checked and your lifelong friend doesn’t have an editor friend, not to worry, you can build a writer’s page on Amazon and self-publish your book.

Then will start the real journey of being an authorpreneure. 

To know more about those, read my previous articles on the Authopreneur series.

Letters for a project

In 2013, novelist Jon McGregor invited strangers to send him a letter in the post.

He was taking up a creative writing teaching job at the University of Nottingham and he wanted to encourage the students to think about writing in ways that didn’t involve blank sheets of paper or screens.

He wanted them to think about other people’s writing before they started to think about their own, and decided that a good way of doing this would be to set up a literary journal and have the students produce it; reading the submissions, making selections, putting each issue together.

The Guardian reported that the scribbled notes and love letters are still landing on his doormat.

From all those letters, he started the Letters Page, loose-leaf reproductions of the original handwritten letters, alongside an illustrated booklet of transcriptions. And several more later on.

Here is one such anthology of letters.

https://youtu.be/AikT0eb7bHE

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Future Library

In the north of Oslo, a forest is being planted which will supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in 100 years in 2114.

Planted in 2014, this forest is the brainchild of a Scottish artist Katie Paterson, who wanted to create an original library of 100 manuscripts from established authors, to be printed 100 years in the future.

In an interview to CNN she said:

I was on a train doodling and drawing tree rings and I just made a very fast connection between the rings and chapters in a book, and the idea of trees becoming books in the future and growing over time.

[…]

And so I imagined this forest, that embodied time and the authors’ words, growing over a century. And each author’s voice became like a chapter inside the growing rings of the trees. That was many years ago, but I never thought that it was actually going to happen.

Between 2014 and 2114, one writer every year will contribute a text, which will be held in trust, unread and unpublished, until the year 2114. The manuscripts will be stored in a specially designed room in the new public library, Oslo.

Five years ago, Margaret Atwood, became the first writer to participate in the project. Her book is titled ‘Scribbler moon,’ and she believes that readers in 2114 may require a ‘paleo-anthropologist’ to decode some of it, because of how the language would have evolved over the course of a century.

Atwood was not allowed to show her book to anyone. She flew with it to Norway and tied it with a blue ribbon, hoping that she wouldn’t be arrested if a Customs Officer asked her to open the box and she refused.

The Wall Street Journal

Other contributing writers to date include David Mitchell (2015), Sjón (2016), Elif Shafak (2017), and Han Kang (2018).

For the full story go to CNN.

To me, the whole project is a tribute to the written words. Written words are the only thing that stays long beyond its creator.

That is one reason to make art.

Another thought; aren’t forests like libraries, and each tree a book.