You write, but not for money?

Discussion in 'General Writing' started by domenic.p, Mar 28, 2015.

  1. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2013
    Messages:
    17,674
    Likes Received:
    19,889
    Location:
    Scotland
    Yes, I'd love for people to read it—and I'm confident quite a few people will, because they've been pestering me for it. I just had one sitting in my living room today, saying WHEN am I going to get to read it? And another old classmate whom I've not seen for about 48 years PM'd me on Facebook yesterday to ask me about it, and to tell me she wants to read it when it's on Kindle. Etc. But I'm not the kind of person who tries to sell myself—and this is definitely part of myself. I'll put it out there and let it be generally known that it's there ...and wait and see what happens. I'd rather spend my time getting stuck into my second book, rather than scurrying around trying to make money off this one. I know it doesn't make sense in some ways, but this is something I am doing for fun, for pleasure. Trying to sell it is neither fun nor pleasurable. At least not for me.
     
  2. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2013
    Messages:
    18,385
    Likes Received:
    7,080
    Location:
    Ralph's side of the island.
    I have three books in me, then I'll see. Hopefully book two will be faster than four years book one is taking. Book three is non-fiction and will require a lot of research so the timeframe is unknowable at this time.
     
  3. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2013
    Messages:
    17,674
    Likes Received:
    19,889
    Location:
    Scotland
    Yes, I just read this myself ...probably in the latest issue of Writers' Digest, which I just got a few days ago. Probably why it's still fresh in my mind.
     
  4. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2013
    Messages:
    18,385
    Likes Received:
    7,080
    Location:
    Ralph's side of the island.
    I don't look at it that way. I've been fascinated by marketing science for years wanting to understand how people are so easily led to believe unsupportable things. When I got my first degree in nursing some sales guy gave the class money if we sat through his infomercial. I was stunned when a couple classmates bought $400+ worth of china on the spot. The sales guy was so obvious: "you have to buy it now or I can't give you this deal." OMG, what college grad would not know that was a scam? And yet there they were, right there in the room.

    Ever since, I've self-educated myself about marketing products and politicians. So for me, this is just another challenge. It's not about promoting me, it's about marketing the story I want people to read.
     
    jannert likes this.
  5. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2013
    Messages:
    17,674
    Likes Received:
    19,889
    Location:
    Scotland
    Well, more power to your arm! I hope you're successful. It's certainly a challenge, and if it pays off that will be so cool!
     
  6. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2012
    Messages:
    6,631
    Likes Received:
    10,135
    Location:
    Yorkshire
    I wish @domenic.p would write me a story about the Thirties, the Forties. I like all that Jazz, 2000 words, narrative, broads, the speakeasies of Hawaii, Dick Dale, Abraham Lincoln and his slave boy, Mississippi, the Hiawatha mountains. You'll be on the school curriculum, Daddio, twenty years after I have gone. You write it, we crit, do it, hit me, slap this keen new student of hot American literature.
     
    AASmith likes this.
  7. bluehouse

    bluehouse New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2015
    Messages:
    25
    Likes Received:
    10
    Nor is it my job to spoon-feed anyone upon request. I've shown I can build a case concerning my point of view with concrete details in my first post here. These aren't compositions that will be officially assessed for plagiarism or fabrication that effects any user on here in a tangible way, so take these posts however you, the reader, will. Bless dearly the soul that expects this to be one's verified source of their knowledge.

    Furthermore, if one writes with the predominant motivator of money AND restricts your area of success strictly to creative fiction instead of writing at large, then he/she is far too narrow minded to wisely consider writing as something for which he/she will even be tossed a quarter on the street.

    Where credit is due, however, you have unearthed details with regards to the topic at hand that do refine the fact, at large. I'm thankful for it, but what you have posted only further solidifies my stance, which will now be put as succinctly as I can to spare those who have had to trudge through my incessant verbosity already:

    For 99% (or 95%, as stated earlier) of those reading this, writing will not freaking pay your bills. It won't feed you. It won't quench you. It won't board you. It won't mend you. If you are paid for any piece, good for you. One way or another, you earned it. But understand it as something different that what can be called a salary, which is indeed a term that can apply to writing as a steady flow of commissions that lead to a consistent income perfectly akin to a salary in any other industry. So why in the world would you even pay a penny's worth of attention to money when you're writing? It contributes precisely nothing to the creative process that works toward producing content that is valued on it's intrinsic merits first and foremost. If you want money from your writing, the worst thing you can do is cater to those who will decide whether or not to pay you for it. What they will eventually pay you for is the piece on which the writer will compromise, but they have to have the original that has said intrinsic values to bring to the table in the first place. Anything else is destined to be soulless, whimsical, naive crap that, however prosperous it ends up being, will erode to nothing in time.
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2015
  8. domenic.p

    domenic.p Banned

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2011
    Messages:
    322
    Likes Received:
    63
    Mat, you are the one spot of sunlight on this forum. The Forties I could do. The Thirties I only have one spot I remember. I was three at the fair on Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco bay. I was standing alongside a two seater-airplane.
    I had my hand on the top of one of the wheels. It was above my head. You might say touching an airplane was the high point of my life at that time...big deals come, and go. The secret is to remember the big deals, and build them into characters of your stories. Hell writing is all vanity anyway, as are all the other little things we do in this life.
     
    matwoolf likes this.
  9. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    Is this just a really verbose way of admitting that you were talking out of your ass?

    What? If some writes fiction for profit, no one will pay that person? Is that what you're saying? That makes no sense. Lots of people make money from writing fiction. Not a lot, maybe, but certainly more than a quarter on the street.

    You've got two different goals, here. Making money vs creating something valued on its intrinsic merits. I'm not sure why you think they're not both valid goals.

    Nope.
     
  10. bluehouse

    bluehouse New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2015
    Messages:
    25
    Likes Received:
    10
    You've misconstrued everything I've said to clearly satisfy whatever adversarial whims you carry, which appears to be pushing the refresh button on your browser at the earliest possible instance to see what someone thinks of you. I hope you walk away from this thinking you've bested me in some contest because it appears you need that.
     
    GingerCoffee likes this.
  11. domenic.p

    domenic.p Banned

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2011
    Messages:
    322
    Likes Received:
    63
    It would seem the tares are attaching their self to this thread like flies to tar paper. Since your post paint a picture of hurt , do you have anything positive about anything in life that may help what was posted on the OP?
     
  12. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    I'm sorry if I'm misunderstood something. Can you clarify?

    (In as few words as possible, if that's okay. I think I may be having trouble extracting your points from your rhetoric)
     
  13. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2013
    Messages:
    3,545
    Likes Received:
    2,083
    Location:
    Denver
    The only way you could get more passive aggressive is if you somehow congratulated her on her funeral attire while she rested in her coffin.
     
    BayView likes this.
  14. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    I am a good lookin' corpse!
     
    matwoolf likes this.
  15. Megalith

    Megalith Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2015
    Messages:
    979
    Likes Received:
    476
    Location:
    New Mexico
    I think it is important to note that fiction writers are taking much more risk than a journalist, or script writer for screenplays, movies, and TV shows. They are all essential creative writers but they probably have different methods into the industry and they definitely make more money more consistently. If you were trying to make money and decided you would do it through writing, these other avenues would be much more lucrative than fiction writing.

    I guess the only point I would try and make with that bit of info is something I've touched on multiple times. We didn't go those routes because either, those standards didn't suit us or they intimidated us. But if it is the latter why choose fiction writing, the most intimidating of all? I'd say it was more a matter of principle. So when you are talking about profit and it's relation to us writers, It's easy to forget that we are the types to forgo that line of thinking for our principles.

    I think that generalizes all of us to some degree, but points out the passion we have for our beliefs. That draws a line, a point, where we our okay to start thinking about the secondary motive of money.
     
    AASmith and jannert like this.
  16. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    I've always assumed it would be really difficult to get a job as a script writer... like, way harder than getting a novel published.

    If I've been wrong about that, clear the tracks and say goodbye - I'm going to Hollywood!
     
  17. kfmiller

    kfmiller Active Member

    Joined:
    Jan 8, 2015
    Messages:
    186
    Likes Received:
    108
    Location:
    Cincinnati, OH
    [​IMG]

    But seriously, I think it's fairly naive to think just because you wrote an amazingly well-written and engaging masterpiece automatically means it's going to be published by a major publishing house with a 6-figure advance. That's assuming your work is even as good as you think it is. (you a general you not anyone specific).

    For some- just having people pay a couple bucks and read their story is enough. Whether you want to make it a career or become published by a publishing house, you want to publish your stories online in a serialized format, or you want to self-pub on Amazon and make a few bucks it's all gravy with me- and I support each and every one of you.
     
    matwoolf, jannert and BayView like this.
  18. Megalith

    Megalith Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2015
    Messages:
    979
    Likes Received:
    476
    Location:
    New Mexico
    Well if your good at formula writing it shouldn't be difficult. I mean... are you are seriously proud of those high budget movies and their sub par scripts that get carried by CG, Samuel Jackson, and Morgan Freeman? The director gets most of the credit, and the script takes a back seat to the rest of the process, meaning it only has to satisfy the formula and everything else takes priority. Is that really where you want to be?
     
  19. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    I was thinking more TV. There's some good TV out there!

    And there are good movies, too, with good scripts. (I don't know who CG is).
     
  20. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2013
    Messages:
    18,385
    Likes Received:
    7,080
    Location:
    Ralph's side of the island.
    [​IMG]
     
  21. Megalith

    Megalith Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2015
    Messages:
    979
    Likes Received:
    476
    Location:
    New Mexico
    Computer Graphix. But my point is that in that setting you have no creative liberty as an artist. Your job is to fulfill the needs of the movie or TV show, and sure that results in some good things occasionally, but the end product isn't something you can exclusively or even remotely call yours.
     
    jannert likes this.
  22. Chinspinner

    Chinspinner Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Oct 15, 2011
    Messages:
    1,901
    Likes Received:
    1,023
    Location:
    London, now Auckland
    And for every good TV series there are hundreds of very mediocre ones. Writing for some third rate low budget soap opera must be soul destroying.
     
    Megalith likes this.
  23. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2013
    Messages:
    3,545
    Likes Received:
    2,083
    Location:
    Denver
    Not really. Everyone in the movie business knows that Tarantino wrote Natural Born Killers. Or that Whedon wrote Alien: Resurrection. But those are the big names. On the other hand, I know very well who wrote Donnie Darko, Little Miss Sunshine, Prometheus, and Office Space, and I'm not even in the movie industry.
     
  24. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    Those aren't my goals, though. I'm not looking for something I can call mine. I just think it'd be fun to see my words coming out of actors' mouths!
     
  25. Megalith

    Megalith Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2015
    Messages:
    979
    Likes Received:
    476
    Location:
    New Mexico
    Well sure, a good writer to tie the vision together is extremely valuable.(They are well paid) And depending on the director, the artistic liberty can be loosened, and if the writer is the director, well then, all bets are off. But still, most of the time, a script has to adhere to very specific rules to even get the attention of a director. And not just formatting rules, but plot and character trope rules. It takes a near miracle to have full artistic liberty on a script and have everyone else work for that unformulaic vision. It is incredible how much a story changes from the original script compared to the final version.
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice