Getting Paid to Write is Awesome
5 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Friday, February 13 at Friday, February 13, 2009.
Rob Long, in The National today:
"Years ago, I used to write occasionally for a marginal London literary rag, and the editor would always say something like: “Gosh, I wish we could pay you properly. Anything we’d offer would be terribly insulting, I’m afraid.”I think journalists are at the white-collar working end of the writer spectrum - certainly compared to novelist or scriptwriters - but I'm still amazed every day that someone pays me a good sum of money to do what I love doing. I feel like one day they will be onto my little secret and cut my salary by 95 per cent, make me live in a dormitory and eat rice porridge three times a day. I will still thank them and write my ass off....
What the editor didn’t know, apparently, is that it’s almost impossible to insult a writer and offer him money at the same time. You can offer him too little, of course – if you do, he’ll probably act like he’s been insulted, but he’ll be lying. Writers, if they’re any good at all, will do it for almost free. But not entirely for free. And writers are so lazy and easily distracted – if they’re any good at all – that without even the most threadbare financial reward system in place – in my case, my English editor paid me 50 pounds per column – we simply wouldn’t get out of our bathrobes. We wouldn’t stop watching reality television during the day. We wouldn’t stop surfing the web. We wouldn’t not spend six hours at lunch."
You're probably right. I'm not a trained or educated writer but I really like writing and I write a lot and have done for about as long as I can remember.
For about 18 months before Shufflegazine got started and I actually got paid some to write, I published Shuffle for free, wrote it pretty much all, did design, and paid to get it printed :-)
so true. but i only enjoy doing it for free!
forsooth - the things i enjoy writing are not always the things i get paid to write. but i sure enjoy not having to "work" for my salary....
magnus - yup, i'd probably pay to be allowed to write if thats how the economics worked out....
Dude, not related to this post but in your backyard, thought you would like to know this made the news over in AU: http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-world-was-at-his-feet-20090217-8a9g.html
Nothing compares to getting paid for doing what you love.. :D I can't agree more..