Skip to main content

Writing for a Living Vs. Writing for a Passion

Dr. Death: A ghoulish head wearing a top hat
Photo Credit: Openclipart.org


I apologise, but I have to postpone the cover reveal to my horror short story by two weeks. It’s been a total burn-out week, mostly from writing--particularly from writing technical subject matter. So that’s held me back. I was so burned out one day that I hardly even wrote at all. I don’t just write imaginative, high-soaring fiction. I don’t even just write fiction. Many of us freelance writers are “forced” into writing for sources that we would prefer not to. Many of those sources are ones that require technical writing. That’s what I call writing for a living as opposed to writing for a passion.

Generally speaking, there is rarely a job opening for a fiction writer, much less a fiction writer of a particular genre. There are very few ads that read “Science Fiction Writers Wanted” or “Horror Writers Wanted”, “Fantasy Writers Wanted”, “Thriller Writers Wanted”, etc. The establishment controlled by the corporate head honchos and even the head honchos of smaller businesses that are modeled after the big ones can give a shit less about who’s looking for a position as fiction writer, unless you count the many deceiving advertisements out there. They want what’s going to bring them the money. The corporations and wanna-be corporations are most in need of us freelance writers because they don’t have the time to write themselves. So we take the writing jobs we can get. Many of these jobs pay insufficiently, but we take them because if we work enough of them the payment will add up to pay off at least one of our expenses.

So that’s writing for a living, in particular. This is much different from writing for a passion (which may cross over into writing for a living, but it makes up only a small portion of our income for most of us). When you write for a passion, you write your art, not somebody else’s; you write according to your vision, not your client’s. You create your own product instead of your client’s. You create your worlds, not your clients’ whose are, more often than not, basic duplicates of this world.

But no matter what we’re writing for, we still put in our best work. Even if we get paid very little for it. Why do we do that if we’re getting under-paid? Because the very act of writing itself is ours. And when we’re using our time, energy and talent our image will be in our work when we submit that work to the client. So we want to give the best impression possible, regardless of who owns the rights to the work after we sell it. Our basic enthusiasm to write is very primal. It is an energy that is battling to get out of us, after having been locked inside our heads for so long, and put itself in front of the world regardless of subject matter. Harlan Ellison talks about doing your best writing regardless of pay in a video that I mentioned in a post a little over a year ago. He gives really good insight on the subject, so I suggest you check it out.

I apologise again, for the delay in the cover reveal and, yes, this will move the release of “Circa Sixty Years Dead” to a later date as well (probably to the week after the reveal). However, if I happen to complete the cover illustration by next weekend then I’ll definitely post it here and then will be back on schedule. The best way you can receive an update on this is by subscribing to the blog and you can do that in the form below to the right.

So, do you feel that you can write for a passion no matter what the project is or who it’s for? Or is your writing divided into passionate writing and writing for a living? Feel free to leave your answers in the box below.

Until next time . . .




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Book-To-Movie: Stephen King’s 'The Raft'

Credit: Pixabay.com It's the third Saturday of the month and so that means it's time for another Book-To-Movie ! In a Book-To-Movie we review a book and its movie adaptation. One of the reasons I as a horror fan don’t read a lot of Stephen King’s work is because most of it consists of novels that go more than 400 pages. I have a short attention span when it comes to reading, ironically since I consider myself an avid reader, and so I normally won’t read a work that is much more than the equivalent to a 350-page mass market paperback. The other reason why I don’t read a lot of King’s work is that, as literary scholars will tell you, a lot of his writing is poor. However, he does have some good writing in his works, especially his earlier stuff, including his short horror tales. So if I read anything by Stephen King it’s usually his short stories or novellas. One of his collections I’ve read is Skeleton Crew which includes some of his good, or at least

Book-To-Movie: ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’

Credit: Wikimedia Commons I apologise for posting outside our regular post-day which is late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. However, I got behind on several things last week and so had to postpone the post to today.  I’ve been a reader of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books ever since I was 11. What I’ve always liked so much about the series is that, like a good horror story, the stories often take place in dark settings and involve bizarre cases. Conan Doyle’s novel, “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, definitely contains these elements. It’s a detective story that crosses over into the gothic horror genre. Several movie adaptations of the novel have been made that go as far back as a 1915 German silent film. In 1959 Hammer Studios released a version starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. As much as I’m a fan of the Hammer horror films, I have not seen that one yet. The only one that I’ve seen so far is the 1939 adaptation starring that other big name in classic Bri

Book-To-Movie: Guest Blogger Alex Cavanaugh Reviews 'Relic'

Credit: Tor Books The fourth weekend of the month, when we normally have our Book-To-Movie review has passed us again. However, the review is still on! This month I have a guest blogger for our Book-To-Movie review. The two of us agreed to trade our book-to-movie reviews and present them to you today, this last Monday of the month. In a Book-To-Movie, we review a work of prose fiction and its movie adaptation.  And my guest blogger and reviewer is Alex Cavanaugh. Alex is the author of the Cassa series  of novels and founder of the Insecure Writers' Support Group ! Here at the Fantastic Site, he’s reviewing a best-selling novel of detective horror, "Relic", and its movie adaptation. In turn, at his site, I have the pleasure of reviewing "The Black Phone" short story by Joe Hill and its movie adaptation. So, after you're finished reading Alex’s awesome review, please leave a comment for him in the box below and then head on over to his website to check out my