Writers have so much money baggage.
Hi and happy Friday,
Have you ever started reading something, and barely a paragraph in you’re already shaking your head in disagreement?
I don’t mean hate reading. I don’t mean the kind of article that makes you want to tear a strip off someone but you don’t because manners.
Let me tell you what happened.
I stumbled across this article that drew a big fat circle around a problem that is way too pervasive. Writers and money baggage.
This lady wrote a confessional saying she’d been on a roll. Discovered what was really working for her. So she started watching the numbers and the stats and doing more of what was working. It was so fun. She was so pumped.
Omg, this is working!! People are reading and clapping and she’s getting PAID!!
That’s when it hit her, she said. She was being greedy.
She liked the money so much she forgot her “why.”
So she did the only thing that made her feel less greedy. She stopped looking at stats and dollars entirely. Stopped looking at what people were responding to. Stopped looking at what paid well. Because she didn’t want to feel greedy anymore.
She had to go back to the drawing board and remember her “why.”
Her words, not mine.
As I was reading, I kept shaking my head and wishing I could grab her by the shoulders and give her a shake two.
Here’s the 3 things I’d like to tell her.
Wanting money isn’t greedy…
Not in a world that requires it to survive. Look, if we all got a universal basic income and could pay our bills and eat no matter what — maybe it would be different. But that’s not the world we live in. We all have bills to pay. Wanting money is basically wanting safety. A roof over our heads and food in our bellies. That is not greed.
Wanting more than “just enough” isn’t greed either. It’s peace of mind. A safety net. Knowing we have a little savings in case we lose a job or get sick or need dental work or some random emergency comes up. That not greed, either.
It’s just being an adult. When you’re a kid, paying the bills isn’t something you think about. When you’re an adult, it is. Fun becomes optional. A perk. A bonus.
Having a “why” is fine, but that alone doesn’t pay the bills.
The whole “why” thing started with a book. Simon Sinek, Start With Why.
Couple of decades ago, I used to get up in the morning and go to a job. Like, outside of my house. Gah. I hated that job. The manager was a micromanager. Know what my “why” was? Bills. I went to that job to pay the bills. Like a lot of adults.
Today I don’t go out of my house to work, but I still have bills to pay. When I started writing on Medium, writers didn’t get paid. That affected how much time I could spend there. Hell, it still does. Because, bills.
It’s all fine and well to say your “why” is inspiring women to be all they can be. It a world made of angry, we could use more people who inspire us. But it’s real hard to be inspiring when the cupboards are empty and the landlord is standing there with an eviction notice for rent unpaid. You know?
Is there something wrong with having an objective — a “why” — and also making sure you’re stuffing a few extra dollars in the piggy bank each month? No.
Writers have so much money baggage…
It’s like we’ve been brainwashed into thinking we have to choose love or money. Like the Victorian artists and poets who starved for their art because no one was paying them. Only the creatives with rich sponsors made money.
The rest of them did it for the “love” of it.
Well, there was no internet back then. The internet changed the rules of play. Now we don’t have to go hungry to do what we love. So why do we still think wanting to get paid well for something we love doing is somehow greedy?
Maybe it’s years of hating our jobs? lol. I don’t know. So many writers say they’re just grateful they earn anything at all, because they love to write. What’s wrong with loving what you do and wanting to get paid well for it?
Most of us hate our jobs. Over 90% of us. To me, that’s the saddest thing. Knowing how many of us literally spend the hours of our life doing something we hate to make sure the bills are paid. We pay the bills and then we die. God, that’s awful.
I want to enjoy my life, and pay the bills. Is there something wrong with that?
Personally, that’s my goal. I’d love to figure out how to do something I truly enjoy and know the bills are taken care of because of that thing I do. To me, that doesn’t sound like greed. It sounds like a life worth striving for.
Your turn...
Do you believe you have to choose between loving to write and getting paid well for it? Why do you think so many writers equate financial success with greed?
More reading…
P.S. If you’re reading this in email, click the title to get to the online version where you can leave a comment. Click the heart if you’re feeling kindly today. :)
xo,
Linda
Today I saw my tenure on Medium come full circle. In June, I made less than any other month, but my first, since I started on Medium over two years ago. This does not worry me since I’ve published almost nothing there in the past few months. All things considered, averaging a dollar a day isn’t so bad. I’ve decided, just for yucks, to see how much I can improve on that in one month, this one. Wish me luck! It’s hard to keep ginning up the old motivation. If getting paid helps, so much the better.
Linda. This essay is …well, I don’t want to say it’s THE BEST, because you write tons of pieces that speak to your readers.
Yet this one…omg. It speaks volumes of truth. Practical and accurate. Yeah, THE BEST.
I hope this goes viral and that you write more about it. It’s a message requiring repetition.
Same with other writers, let’s speak up more and more on these useful points, these reasons why we can and need to do BOTH: what we love while getting paid for it.
I come from significant experience owning a business that involved discussions around the money topic. Working with women, among other groups, was a main focus of mine.
Other articles and a lot of research support what I observed.
Of course it doesn’t apply to all situations, to all women. But I must say, I saw and heard a lot of women speak this way.
Historically, society does not like it when women discuss money. Since this fact has been so ingrained both directly and indirectly in our culture, it still persists today. Maybe it’s a bit more subtle in 2022, but that depends. I mean, look at the piece you just referenced about “greedy”.
I observed so much of this.
*Women apologizing for being concerned about “making money”.
*Women beginning a discussion using phrases like “ I don’t want to sound greedy but…”.
*Women beginning a discussion saying “ I hope you know I’m a good mother but…” or “ I hope you know I love my children but…” The “but” was almost 100% followed by something like “I want to earn good money for my outside-the home-job.”
* Women, when referring to their daughters, stressing the money earned by a husband or boyfriend. Usually, no mention of the daughter’s contribution to external household income.
* Women looking me in the eye when I bring up their successful careers and announcing something like “ You know my husband is very successful and I don’t HAVE to work.”
* I will never forget an older and long term client, very representative of women in her generation saying, “ You know Kathy X, she has a successful law practice but you need to know, her husband tells her to keep any money she makes just for her own needs, that he will take care of her.” That statement was said with admiration and an acceptance of this as how things should be.
* A meeting at a conference with two extremely successful dermatologists, sisters, actually. They bragged about hiding anything they purchased in the attic for a week or two because their husbands (both successful medical specialists too, orthopedics, I think) didn’t want them to spend their money (the money earned by the sisters) without the husbands’ approval. The sisters described it as just the way it was, the way they got new purchases of dresses or stuff for the kids into the house. “ Oh, that isn’t new, honey, I have had it for ages.”
* ( one more and I will stop, I could go on and on. Yes, I will write about it elsewhere👍) Once, shortly after graduation from college, I was reprimanded by a senior person for (professionally and based on my early accomplishments ) asking for a promotion and raise. His words were, “ I don’t tolerate little girls like you coming in my office to talk about promotions and money, it isn’t a nice thing for you girls to be doing.” He didn’t speak, he yelled , he was that put out.
So yes, Linda. More please. We like your brain!⭐️⭐️⭐️👍😍