For the money

October 7, 2014
Day 160

Tell me if this tune sounds familiar.

When I graduated college (and left the religious life), the whole world was out there just waiting for me to conquer it.  I felt a new sense of drive and purpose, a confidence in myself and the dreams I knew I could make come true.

While walking around with this confidence one day at a family party, an older family member stopped me with a handshake and asked, "So what do you want to do with your life?"  I imagine I stuck out my chest just a bit, and raised my chin with joy and announced, "I'd like to be a writer!"  He nodded and smiled, saying, "Well that's great, but what are you going to do about money?"

If the conversation took place in a movie, this is the moment you'd hear the record scratch, and watch as my face sagged ever so briefly, before a fake smile and a determined sense of pride returned to me.  I knew he was right, but I hated him for saying it.

That was 1997.  It ended up taking me until 2011 before I began publishing articles online, and 2013 before I finally published the book I'd been working on for the past decade.  And now, a year and a half after that momentous occasion, the second book now published too and a third in progress, I still don't have any of the "money" I once dreamed I'd receive from this not-so-illustrious work.

Curiously though, the less I care about success, the more I enjoy my craft, and more importantly, the better I seem to write.  Over-thinking (not just about money, but of all matters) turns out to be the writer's enemy.  Instead, you need to tap into the creative energy that breathes without air or money, and lives whether or not there are even any readers!

On Super Soul Sunday this past week, Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, spoke briefly about writing, and her own journey to reach the fame she has now.  Amid some other cool thoughts, she shared a line that made me laugh out loud with delight.  Talking about writers trying to break into the so-called  business, she said, "Here's a line you never hear: 'Oh yeah, that's where the big money is, kid!'"  And it's so, so true! 

You may want to be the next Jo Rowling or Stephen King, but chances are, you won't ever get there.  More importantly, writing's never been about the money some people get paid some of the time to write some books, stories, or articles.  Writing is about expression, an expression of truth and fiction, and it requires no reward for the breaths of purest energy it may choose to release through your humble hands.