Can This Toxic Question Please Just Go Away?
By: Shaunta Grimes
Tags: Creativity, Art, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Writing

There’s a debate that anyone who has spent any amount of time thinking about being a writer has come across. (I’m going to go out on a ledge an say anyone who has thought about being any sort of artist has come up against this debate.)

Should we write because we must or should we write for money?

The must side is so earnest. Writers who insist that they write because they have no choice. It’s write or perish. And having readers is incidental. Money actually diminishes their must-ness.

The write for money side can be cold. They never write for free. They only write to their market. They hustle out work with shocking speed. They have the bottom line in mind at all times and being paid what they’re worth is the most important thing.

It’s enough to make me scream.

Look. You don’t have to choose.

You can be an earnest writer who feels honestly moved to be a storyteller — and still want to be paid for your work.

And you can want to earn money and still fully believe that you must write or die.

I’ve been writing pretty much every day since the sixth grade. I’m 47, so we’re talking about a habit stretching back more than thirty-five years.

I went to battle with my high school so that they’d let me take a creative writing class my senior year instead of AP world literature. My undergraduate work was in creative writing and I have a MFA.

The only thing I’ve ever wanted to be when I grow up is a writer.

Would I write, even if I wasn’t being paid?

Yeah. I would.

In fact, I have. I sure wrote a lot before I was ever paid for it. And I paid a lot for the privilege of learning how to do it better.

But guess what? I like being paid for my work. And I’m so sick of the insinuation that there’s something wrong with learning how to treat writing like what it is: a business.

It isn’t leveled at me very often —or at least, not that I notice. I’ll admit to being not super sensitive to the accusation when it’s thrown my way. It doesn’t matter to me any more than if someone screamed hey, you’re really tall at me or omg, your hair is so brown.

Okay. So I am. So it is. And yeah, I’m a professional writer who gets paid for her work. Readers matter to me. I get excited about them. So, the accusation, when it does come, rolls off.

But I see so many newer, less experienced writers gutted by the idea that if they aspire to a career as a writer they’re some how not real writers.

So, in case you need it . . .

You have permission to get excited about the business side of writing.

You have permission to celebrate earning a pay check for your writing. (Here’s a hint for you — almost all of the time, the must-ers aren’t getting a pay check. The must argument makes them feel better about themselves. And whatever, okay. But you don’t have to let it bring you down.)

You have permission to build an email list and learn about running a small business and conduct yourself like a professional.

Will I feel sorry for you if you professionalize writing to the point that there’s no room left for art or generosity? I really will.

Will you look like a tool if you take a public stance against ever writing something you’re not paid for? Yep.

But those are your choices.

And on the flip side . . .

You have permission to write for free. You even have permission to never once, in your whole life, give a thought to being paid for your work.

You have permission to write something just because it feels good, without any thought at all toward how you’ll monetize it.

You have permission to treat your writing like art and never think about it as a business.

Will I feel sorry for you if you’re never able to let yourself turn your art into your career? I will, if you’re miserable in your actual career and I think you could be a professional writer, sure.

Will you look like a tool if you get up on your high horse about not caring about being paid for writing? Oh, yes.

But, those are your choices.

What you don’t have permission to do is tear someone else down.

You do you. Try to give other people the space and grace to do them.

Even if what they do isn’t the way you do things.