I just received my first ever legitimate royalty payment for Out of Nowhere<\/i>. It wasn\u2019t “Change Your Life, Quit the Day Job” money. More like “Here, Go Buy a Week\u2019s Groceries” money, but still nothing to sneeze at.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I had gotten a few \u201cHere, Go Buy a Cup of Coffee\u201d payments from the cheapskates at Quantum Muse<\/i>, but this was my first payment where calling it three figures didn\u2019t involve counting numbers after the decimal point or converting to Lire.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
This has prompted some soul searching about money and pay and whether or not this makes me a professional. I suppose it does.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, a life spent as a member of the working class has prepared me very badly for a career as a writer.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m no stranger to work. I\u2019ve been working for wages since I was 15, and most of my adult life I\u2019ve worked more than full time. A full time job with overtime plus a part time job is something I\u2019ve come to accept, and not find daunting. So why does the idea of working as a writer seem so challenging?\u00a0 Compared to being a Paramedic or fixing broken water lines in the dead of winter or the Marines it\u2019s not physically demanding, it\u2019s done inside where it\u2019s nice and warm, to be brutally honest the stakes are lower, since I can always rewrite a scene, and there are fewer chances to get fired for threatening a co-worker.<\/p>\n
The daunting aspect for me is the gnawing dread\u00a0 that I might be working for free.<\/p>\n
As a lowly wages slave, the one truth you cling to is that if you show up, dressed to work and put in the effort, they have to pay you. If they keep you late, they have to pay you more. It may be hard work, uncomfortable work, and the pay might be lousy, but they have to pay you for the hours you put in.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve never worked on commission, because I just can\u2019t force myself to face the fact that I might put in a full day, and if the fish aren\u2019t biting, I may go home empty handed. If I\u2019m going to be compensated like a hunter-gatherer, I think I should have the dress code and flexible hours of one.<\/p>\n
So how does this relate to writing, you ask? How did I force myself to write a novel when I wasn\u2019t on the clock? <\/p>\n
Well, writing isn\u2019t work, per se<\/i>. Writing is release, catharsis. It\u2019s the exorcism of the voices in my head.\u00a0 It\u2019s a visceral, vital act of creation that can be painful and difficult and exhilarating and triumphant.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a way to show the universe I\u2019m more than a wage slave.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s less a job than it is like a relationship with a crazy girlfriend. It\u2019s effort, and it has ups and downs, and sometimes you wonder why you stick with it, but the good parts are so good you just can\u2019t leave.<\/p>\n
So the writing part isn\u2019t really like work.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the rest of it. The editing is a little like work, but that till can be rationalized as the \u201cwe need to talk\u201d part of the relationship. It\u2019s hard, but you get through it and don\u2019t expect to be paid.<\/p>\n
No the work is the promotion. The synopsis. The query letters. The submissions. The endless hours hunting agents and publishers. And after the books is out and done and ready to buy, it\u2019s the promotion. Begging for reviews, for links, for the opportunity to hawk and flog and pander to sell the results of your labor of love. To grovel to people to accept this copy of your blood sweat toil and tears made solid and please review it honestly.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s where my working class soul starts wondering what the hourly rate is. And since my soul only speaks working class, terms like \u201cbuilding a following\u201d or \u201cgenerating leads\u201d or \u201creturn on investment\u201d all sound like \u201cNada, bro. You’re getting hosed.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s like digging ditches and being paid in scratch tickets. You could win $100,000.00! But you won\u2019t. You\u2019ll wind up with a pocket full of Try Agains and the occasional win will be $5 or a Free Ticket.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
So now I\u2019m confronting the need to put in effort for no guarantee of remuneration. It\u2019s a struggle, but I\u2019m taking baby steps.<\/p>\n
Like writing blog posts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I just received my first ever legitimate royalty payment for Out of Nowhere. It wasn\u2019t “Change Your Life, Quit the Day Job” money. More like “Here, Go Buy a Week\u2019s Groceries” money, but still nothing to sneeze at.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I had gotten a few \u201cHere, Go Buy a Cup of Coffee\u201d payments from the cheapskates at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,18,17,19,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-living-the-dream","category-middle-class","category-publishing","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}