My Rant Against ‘How to Write’ Aricles
By: Jerry Nelson
Tags: Writing, Rip Offs, Starbucks, Amwriting, Freelance

Photo by Michael Longmire on Unsplash

On a balmy spring day in Ashwood, Virginia, I did what boys normally do when the grass outside the windows is neon green and the sky is bluer than blue. I stared and dreamed of baseball.

Then, Mrs. Johnson, broke through my self-hypnosis with a comment as we studied the California Gold Rush.

“It wasn’t the miners who gained the most money, it was the store owners who sold the shovels and pans and supplies,” she said.

That broke through my 7-layers of ennui and rang a bell. Deep down in my psyche, it all came together. It wasn’t the people who did the actual work. The cash flowed to the people who provided the tools.

Same with Online Writing Schools

Freelance writers don’t reach the big money. They make money, yes, but not the ‘big’ money. How much is BIG? There’s no set-in-concrete figure, but trust me, ‘big’ is always more than you are earning now.

When the pandemic first touched down in America, the current administration promised “it’s all under control”. As the pandemic spread, employers started sending people home and ‘work from home’ became the rage.

With no capitalistic boss looking over their shoulder, proactive workers started looking around to see if there was a way to turn idle hours into productive, income-producing hours.

And there was.

Many ways. And most of the ways centered around writing.

Suddenly, people who had never written more than a grocery list started having daydreams of writing the succeeding ‘great American novel’, or exploring ways to create an income creating blog.

Many tried and failed to even make enough money to buy a pack of cigarettes or pay for the coffee while they pounded away on a laptop at the corner green-and-white Starbucks.

And the mercantile owners showed up.

“Sign-up for a whiz-bang, how-to-make-money-writing course,” the ads blared like some type of digital late-night infomercial.

“The cost is normally $1995.00, but if you act NOW, you can create money and impress your friends for merely $19.95,” the ads said as they clogged inboxes.

And the naive and gullible flocked and fought for the chance to hand over equivalent to two Andy Jacksons for the opportunity to be fleeced with promised solutions to real-world problems.

The only people who acquired money are the store owners and not the ones actually in the sifting, a few nuggets of gold from tons of refuse and muck and dirt.

Anyone who cared enough to dig a little deeper found the purveyor’s of promised riches didn’t earn their money by actually writing for a living. No. That would be too honest. No, they earned their money by selling courses, telling the naive, gullible and desperate how THEY could generate money by doing something the store owners never did.

The Medium Guru’s are Just as Bad

Open up Medium on any given day and you see the breath-taking, pearl-clutching headlines:

“How I made $60,000 writing on Medium!”

“What I learned by writing 32-articles on Medium!”

Relax. YOU’RE not going to make $60,000 writing on Medium and there isn’t a damned thing any 20-something learned by writing 32 articles on the platform.

Just another late-night infomercial.

What’s YOUR Dream?

Actually, I don’t give a shit. But unless your name is King, or Rowlings, you’re never going to spend the day at the beach while working on your laptop.

The reality is you probably won’t make enough money pounding the keyboard to cover that precious double-latte-with-mocha crappocino you’re drinking.

But the freedom to shoot for the stars and be your own boss is priceless.

Now that Trump’s reservations in the White House are finite and the end is known, even Melania is thinking about moving on. While Don the Con is trying to figure out what to move to Floriday, Melania is dreaming of her reunion with the hunk from Tiffany’s.

Who the fuck is Jerry Nelson?

Jerry Nelson is an American writer living the expat life in Buenos Aires. Some adventures Jerry has experienced, include:

Jumping into the ocean from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Aden, cutting off a goat’s balls as part of a mating ritual in Indonesia, racing a NASCAR around the oval in Charlotte, creating a small coin purse out of live Tarantulas in Australia’s outback, spending six-weeks with the Sinaloa cartel along the U.S./Mexican border and sailing a 16th century schooner through the sound and into the open Atlantic Ocean.

Never far from his coffee and Marlboro's, Jerry is always glad to discuss future working opportunities. Email him at jandrewnelson2@gmail.com and join the quarter-million who follow him on Twitter.

Active on LinkedIn? Let’s connect!

Jerry is a recognized writing pro on Fiverr.