Writing For A Living Is Harder Than Anyone Will Tell You

Here’s what I can promise you after 20 years making a living off words in one way or another.

We’re sitting in some chain restaurant that’s long since closed their doors due to lack of profit when mama puts her fork down and looks me in the eyes. Tells me I have more internal fortitude than all the rest of her children put together.

Puts a lump in my throat. Compliments from mama are not something I’m used to. She loved me, I know. But we were oil and water. Told her thank you and pinned those words to my heart to pull out when I feel a little beat up by the world.

I think if there is one thing writers need more than anything else, it’s someone to believe in us. Something to hang on to when the waves get rough.

Because if you’re trying to make a living as a writer, you’re going to feel that way a lot. A little beat up. Maybe you won’t, but I know I do, sometimes. I’m not full of myself enough to think it’s only me that feels a little beat up sometimes.

Writing is a roller coaster career and the killer is it’s not even by choice. More of a compulsion. I can’t not write. And when you’re writing to pay the bills, seems like one minute you’re on top of the world, reaching for the sky or some golden ring and the next minute you’re plunging down at a breakneck speed and can’t stop the freefall to save your own damn life. Just wait it out. Wait for the up to come back around.

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First time I wrote for pay was in print magazines because there was no internet yet. Sent them in a big yellow envelope with a cover letter. And waited. Fingers crossed.

You know why we say fingers crossed, yeah?

Because hope is the thing with feathers.

Hand hovering the phone like a hummingbird, heart racing two hundred beats a minute when I see their number on call display. Pick up, try not to cry when they offer enough to pay all the bills at once. Yes, yes of course I will make edits. No problem.

Fall on the floor and weep because twenty one years ago, five hundred dollars went a lot farther than it does today. For one piece of writing? I’ll take it. As many times as they’ll say yes. And thank my lucky stars. Until it ends. Because it always does.

I was a ghost writer, for a while. When the internet was shiny and new. One of those gigs that snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking. Some man who read my writing reached out, asked if I’d ghost write for him. The money he offered was too good for a single mom with variable income to turn down. So I shrugged, said sure.

Broke me into a million pieces when he won accolades and an award for my writing. Today we’re more likely to give credit to ghost writers. Everyone knows Mark Manson wrote Will Smith’s book. That Prince Harry didn’t write his own book. But New York Literary agent Madeleine Morel says most ghost writers don’t get credit, even today. It’s a real battle, she says. Only a few get credit, maybe a tiny line that says “written with” and even that’s hard pressed to get.

Back when the internet was shiny and new? No one cared about the ghost writer. Except maybe the ghost writer. Ended a man’s pseudo-career and I’m not sorry. Maybe I should be. But I’m not.

Worked in publishing, too. Two years reading submissions for an indie publishing company. Being the one to say yes, or send a rejection letter. Was the rejections that got me in the end. Couldn’t break hearts for one more day. So that was me, done.

I do have a point. From the vantage of twenty odd years slinging words for cash.

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Here’s my point. I started writing for pay before there was an internet. And I can promise you the internet opened doors for writers that were never open before.
Doesn’t matter what you want to do. Find an agent, build an audience, find writing opportunities. It’s all out there, whether you know it or believe it—or not.

Truth never much cared whether you believe in it or not.

But there are downsides, too. And they’re bigger than you know.

Here’s an example…

There are publications that pay $500 to $2K for a piece of good writing. Good luck finding them, though. Fifteen years ago they were crazy easy to find. Today, less so. Because “writers” submit without bothering to read the submission guide. Because, you know — throw shit at the wall, see what sticks. Those places had to become less public. By necessity. Now you need someone to tell you where to go submit. If they trust you not to be a schmuck. It’s become an insiders game. It had to.

Here’s another one. Writing tips. God, it’s so easy to get sucked into those, isn’t it? A few years ago I wrote a post that debunked every stupid Medium tip I’d read and tried when I was trying to get some traction there. Proved them all wrong. With screenshots. What an epic waste of time. Not for the people writing those tips, of course. But for the poor schmucks following them just hoping for a leg up.

Also? How to make money writing courses. Funny how often those people wouldn’t make any money writing if they weren’t writing about making money. Not for me to judge how other writers pay their bills, but choose whose steps you follow with care. Because you’re going to end up sounding like them. That’s a promise.

You think you won’t. Nah, I can just read what this person says. Apply the “tips” to poetry or essays. And then one day you sound just like them. I see it over and over.

Here’s one most people don’t think about. Complainers.

Vocal sucks because they don’t drive enough views. Substack sucks because they don’t censor the Nazis or the right wings. Newsbreak sucks, I forget why. Medium sucks because the boost sucks or they don’t deliver the traffic they used to several years ago when there was less than half the number of writers. But no, it’s not that, swear to god, it’s that Medium is getting it wrong. Again. Like always.

It gets tiring, hearing the complaining.

Hear stuff like that, I always want to tell those writers to try sending stuff out in an manila envelope, wait three months to get a reply.

Or even better. Send a pitch by snail mail because they say no finished pieces, pitches only. Mail it out, wait for yes or no. Then write the piece and mail that out. Juggle dozens of those because god knows when the checks are arriving. By snail mail.

People actually did that. Amazingly. And why? Because words called them. Because sending words in an envelope beat the crap out of going to an office and doing some job that eats their soul one day at a time. Because they can’t not write.

Writing for a living is harder than anyone will tell you.

And the reason it’s hard is that no one owes me an audience. Or you.

Doesn’t matter if you wrote the best piece of your life if it’s not what they want to feature today. Doesn’t matter if you wrote the stupidest piece of your life but it made an editor laugh so they featured you, made you a crap ton of money.

Happened at another writing site once. Wrote the stupidest piece of my life, they laughed and featured it. Wrote a killer piece, didn’t do crap. Go figure. It’s a crapshoot every time. And I’ll still take it. Because it beats sending writing off in an envelope. Waiting months to hear back. Getting paid months later. Like I used to.

Here’s what I can promise you after 20 years making a living off words in one way or another. Once your attitude is tainted, forget it. Not happening.

Seems to me success is some combination of skill, luck, perseverance and attitude and you get to control three of those. And I’m not entirely sure on the luck part. It might just be the other three combined. But I’m not sure.

P.S. If you enjoyed this post, I also write on Medium.

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