Would you do it for nothing?

Emily Dickenson made diddly-squat from her poetry. She had one volume published and it had a limited print, I believe. And yet she gave us some very great poems! So she's and example of someone who essentially wrote for nothing. Did that work for her? Maybe; maybe not. But it sure did for us readers ! So don't be down if your not making loot. You are in good company !

No.

Wait, did I answer that too quickly? Okay, let me think about it for a moment.

Still no.

While I don't need the income from my writing, there is too much work involved to not get compensated for it. I enjoy writing, there are therapeutic qualities to it, and even after nine books the thrill of being published hasn't worn off. But I don't like editing, writing synopses, or keeping up with social media promotion. I could easily find other outlets that would fulfill my creative needs, but don't involve the things I don't enjoy. Getting that royalty statement every three months gives me the extra motivation that keeps me from ditching the writing gig and taking up needlepoint.

For as long as I can remember I've loved daydreaming and making up stories in my head. It's like my favourite pastime, staring at nothing and daydreaming. I write because I want to see if anyone else would be interested in my stories and if I could make money off of something I spend 90% of my time thinking about.
If it turns out no one cares for them I'll just leave them in my head and focus on something else.

I do do it for nothing. Have done so for a very long time. Just ask my readers.

. . . ohhhhh . . . . . wait . . . . . . . . . there's a problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

caw

yeah, i would. money's nice, but it's not worth shutting down creatively over it.

Me too. I write because it is what I love to do. I shall create, if not a note a hole (poetry reference). We do what we are (literary reference).

Tough call. I write for money. But I've also written stories because they called out to be written. Still, if there was no hope of money at all? Probably not. Maybe some fan fic or a short story here or there. But not 100K novels. Nope.

Mm. Probably, some, but much more slowly and a lot more fan fic.

Unless we're talking win-the-lottery scenario, in which case I would just start writing stuff for fun and the deadlines could go hang. In which case my productivity might even go up a notch, assuming I wasn't spending my time trying to run a foundation for orphaned wombats or something.

I'd write a lot less if there was no potential for making money, because I'd have to work on whatever did make money. I'd write less if I was rich, as I could do whatever I wanted (and there are lots of things I want to do). Writing is fun in general, but not really on days when I have to force myself to write, because I need to get something finished in the hopes it might sell. It'd be nice if money wasn't a worry.

For the amount of grief the writing process can give a person, I don't see how anyone would be willing to go through it for free.
Dabbling when the odd inspiration hits you, well sure, I'd do that for free. But there is a huge difference between dabbling and tossing your whole person into something when the craft demands.

I guess I am doing it for nothing right now, unless you count hopes and dreams, wishes and fishes. But I do have a goal in mind--to get an agent and at least see--and I've only been writing novel-sized things for four years or so, in and amongst grad school and travelling. So I'm at this strange, nebulous point of it where I think I might've finally gotten the hang of writing a novel-sized plot, but then, I thought that last time, too; I can see myself improving, and so the hope remains alive that 'this time, maybe'. I think that might fade eventually. I can see myself getting tired and worn down if I never get any closer to goal.

I've said that to friends who are in the same position--when I've been querying or waiting to hear back from fulls, have tons of coursework deadlines due, and was on a close-shift at work the previous night--that I could see my motivation for it all not lasting indefinitely if this was all it ever turned out to be. I still could. Said friend usually replies that she could never give up writing, that it's in her bones and under her skin, and I understand that. I've been telling stories for as long as I can remember. I used to dictate them to family members before I could write myself. My brain will work over plot points on its own, offer up random suggestions in the middle of the night. But I also know that I can switch that off. Whenever the other stuff gets really busy--school deadlines, a rush shift at work--my brain will switch off 'writing mode', and there will be bizarre, blissful quiet where the insistence of ideas used to be. It must be what it's like to be in the head of non-writers. I don't particularly like it, but if it went on forever, one day I'd forget that it had ever been anything more.

So...yeah, I could see myself stopping if I never reached any of my writing goals (or didn't reach them within five years, ten years, twenty years, however long my determination lasted), and I could make it so I didn't miss it, if I focused on something else. I'd just probably end up creating Skynet in my spare time instead.

If I ever decide that my chances of getting my YA/MG writing published with agents are 0%, then I would self-publish. A no from the publishing industry is no longer a no from readers. Maybe I'm over-confident, but I know my writing is good enough that some people will enjoy it, or at least it will be after some more work and a beta-read or two. If I have to take a break from writing and work on learning how to market, I'll do that. It's a useful skill that benefits the time I put into learning how to write.

If I knew I would never have more success in writing than I've already had, I wouldn't do it. As it is, I feel like writing is masochistic and possibly bad for my mental health.

William Haskins said:

yeah, i would. money's nice, but it's not worth shutting down creatively over it.

Click to expand...

Except I'm not shutting anything down, I'm just rechanneling it to a hobby that gives me more pleasure without the stress. Besides, daydreaming will continue, stories will still wander through my mind, I'm just no longer putting words to paper and I've eliminated the heartbreak of rejection.

blacbird said:

I do do it for nothing. Have done so for a very long time. Just ask my readers.

. . . ohhhhh . . . . . wait . . . . . . . . . there's a problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Click to expand...

We're birds of a feather.

caw

Maze Runner said:

If so, for how long? Forever? How 'bout for next to nothing?

Do you love it so much that you think you'll do it no matter what?

I enjoy it, at times I do love it. When it's really working and I read back what I've written and...but let's face it, it's a lot of work. Plus, many of us have to do something else. It's an avocation we'd hope to turn into a job, or as I heard E.L. Doctorow say (posthumously) on Charlie Rose the other night, "It's a calling."

Click to expand...

As a reporter, columnist and editor I've worked where writing was my job and I put in the time at 3:00 am trying to lay out a newspaper to prove it. A job I liked more than disliked and I quit a better paying job for it, but any idea I was pursing my heart's desire is something I swiftly got over.

I enjoy journalism and I'm good at it, but there's no money in it so you'd better do because you really, really like it. It's not a calling. That is romanticizing it. It's a job.

I will write until I can't. I only do journalism when I'm (a) being paid or (b) really want to tell a story so much I'll do it for chump change or nothing at all. I blog more and freelance less because I'm tired of the hassle.

I'll do journalism for free, but I won't do it for nothing. I love being a journalist, but I prefer to be a paid one.

Maze Runner said:

Please know that I'm not trying to discourage anyone, and I'm not saying I'm ready to quit (I'm a relative babe in this pursuit) but we're all grownups here. I think it's healthy to know where your bottom is, if only to have something to spring up off of.

Click to expand...

Where my bottom is? Pretty sure I'm sitting on it...

Currently, my basement floor is a mess of old newspapers, magazines and printed pages of 23 years worth of articles, reviews, columns, and other babblings I've written. I'm going to grab some large trash bags and start thinning the herd. I'm sentimental, but only to an extent. Reading over something I wrote in 1999 is a cringe-worthy experience and nobody is going to want to take a trip through my back pages.

Into the recycle bin they go. As if there's much to recycle from decades-old writings.

I currently write for free - and for me. I stopped writing for many years but returned to it because I wanted to tell a particular story. I'm doing that now. Very few people have read my books, and I don't have high expectations for enlarging that audience. I polish and query and recognize as I do so that what I'm writing is in-between. Self-publishing is not an option I'm considering right now.

I want to get this story out, regardless of whether I get paid for it. Beyond that, I can see myself continuing to write for nothing, but not nearly so consistently. There are other things I'd like to pursue, and the time to do that has to come from somewhere.

I currently do it for nothing, and I'm fine with that.

I mean, I got paid for writing short stories as far back as high school, but at some point I realized that while apparently the publishers thought what I was writing was okay, I didn't like it so much. So I stopped writing short stories. Eventually lost the knack, unless it's fanfic. Focused on novels, and haven't really done much public since. Send a query for a novel to one publisher, once, on a whim. Sent one short story to one market because the prompt they supplied sparked the story in the first place. When neither wanted my stuff,I jsut let it lie.

Some of it's that I'm still pretty sure everything I write, including those published pieces, is always crap. But mostly, it's just that subbing never felt like a part of my writing process. If a potential market conveniently presented itself I'd take the opportunity but I didn't go searching for places to sub. Maybe someday I will, and then the lack of success and whatnot will grate on me. Only the future knows

I write fanfic for free, but for several calculated intangible benefits I won't bother to elaborate here. I did 30+ years of fantasy and space opera world-building for free, as a hobby with the eventual goal of publishing. I write blog posts for free.

All those are both enjoyable activities and stepping stones. If they lead somewhere lucrative, fine. I have several manuscripts, a capable agent, and the looming adventure of going on sub to the Big Five. Sure, I'd love to have more money - I'd do a lot more writing and art.

Are you writing a series? I'm new here and to all of this, will you post one of your query letters for a frame of reference to your writing?

Me? Series, yes. Query letter, no. When I need to run something by the ever-alert, razor-toothed filter that is Absolute Write, I toss things up at the Share Your Work section of AW. Mostly, I work with even sharper and pickier beta readers.

Welcome to AW. It's a big but worthwhile place.

I quite often write for nothing.

Let me back that statement up.

I'm also someone who gets paid for writing, so I have that fulfillment of having earned something for the thing I love to do. I don't require that, but it is nice to feel the value of this crazy blissful thing I do. It's validation.

Every year I write a play for a local theatre company for free. Driftwood Theatre in Toronto. They spend the summer gallivanting around in the Bard's Bus, performing Shakespeare in the Park across Ontario. In order to do this, they have a fundraiser called TRAFALGAR 24 PLAY CREATION FESTIVAL. Six playwrights get locked into an 18th Century castle overnight (from 10pm-6am). We each write a 10-minute play. When we go home at 6am, a group of directors and actors converge on the castle. They rehearse for 8 hours and then that night they perform the 6 plays throughout the castle (6 performances per play) to a rotating audience of about 300. The audience all pays a nice chunk to see the 6 plays, to take in the ambiance of the castle, and to eat dessert until they puke.

THAT is ONE example of the many times throughout the year that I write for nothing.

But, seriously, if you can see the nothing in that...you have better eyes than I have.

I believe that you should always write for something. YES...writing for money is filled with awesome. I do it, so I understand that. My novels bring me money. My articles bring me money. My poems bring me money. My memoir brings me money.

BUT write for something. If it's not money, especially at first, it's recognition. Brand building. CHARITY...I write for charity often and enjoy doing so. Just write to write...The feeling it gives you when you actually write it...or the feeling it gives you when you have it published in a non-paying market. There has to be something. NOTHING...that's a word that minimizes to, well, to nothing.

If you can't think of anything to write for, then write for the Fat Lady. "I'll tell you a terrible secret – Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady."

Don't stop writing if you can't find somebody to pay you for doing it. Once you do that, I think you lose touch with the reason you started writing in the first place. I didn't get into writing for the money. That I'm making some is just a bonus...I'm doing this thing that I love to do. That's not for nothing.