Money

The only free thing about writing is thinking.

Everything else costs. Even just a legal pad and pencil. Let’s assume you have Time. All that’s left is Money.

The time you spent on all those short stories are going to need exposure. That’s tech costs to maintain your own social identity through internet, computer, and phone. It’s become impossible to be seen as anything without the constant warm companion of a smart phone. A tablet is better, but only as a companion, not a replacement for your usual equipment.

So you’ve put the time in, arranged some words together, and now…now you’re ready to be seen by the Global Reader. Now your costs start racking up.

Books on writing, DVD lectures on writing, subscription sites, Plus Memberships; all these costs to help build your knowledge base. Of course it would be so much better, since you have Time, to do field research on your subject, which entails purchasing a service or someone else’s time for information. If you haven’t had the cops called on you.

Remember those conferences, workshops, classes, and webinars you signed up for in advance? They are not free. They may hand out three to five bullet points on the introductory page, giving you a taste to get to you to come in for the hard hit of knowledge. Contest fees suck many dry, and believe it or not, a couple publications still only accept snail mail submissions, a reminder of the good old days of when your expenses were paper, printer ink, envelopes, and postage.

Money can afford you to be seen at these events. Where you make your first impression. It was once described to me as speed dating. Rapid intimacy, but both of you have already made your judgment in the first few seconds anyway. Now they have “open mic,” where you get up on stage, like a tagged cow, and moo for everyone to judge at once.

Now, since you have Money, you’ve been subscribing to the essential magazines of the trade. Plus, putting in an order to the publication your submitting to is *always* recommended. These magazines still tell you to tailor your inquires to agents. Study who they like, what kind of books they are passionate about selling, and for fuck’s sake spell their name right. Copy and Paste has made that brainless.

“Open Mic” cuts through all that bullshit, into a whole new world of bullshit, where you have just paid an entrance fee, and no doubt a reading fee, to get up on stage and show that you are an attractive extrovert who occasionally writes.

Or, just self publish. Cheap enough. Be your own PR Champion. Listings on sites, advertising purchases, social media bumps, and now the Executive Memberships.

It would be a whole lot easier to just buy an all-in-one package of self publishing that includes hardbacks, paperbacks, PR material, and other Oscar Night Swag Assortment.

For twelve thousand dollars. Or thereabouts.

Then there’s the rest of us.

After we scratched the minutes away, sneaking in an Evernote here, jotting before the shift starts there, dodging family, friends, and foes to make that precious ass-in-chair time, we have something. Prospecting here and there, with finally enough gold to take to town, the large hand of Capitalism stops what momentum was built up.

No entry fee? No payment. Exposure!

You can forget all that other shit. Because your next sigh of relief will be when your rent check clears, lunch money has been supplied for the week, and there is a birthday coming up. Deadlines are the dreaded  expensive Christmas shopping of the poor writer.

Chin up! So many authors were discovered when they were down on their worst luck.

I once garnered a little hope from a YouTuber who has surpassed popularity and gone right into firmament. Just an average guy, doing his average thing, for the love of art. Until I looked into his career and saw he already knew people from his work on a popular broadcast, and came from a middle class family who saw him through to a completed college degree.

We can discourse about socio-economic boundaries and inherent wealth, but we all know, those who have money can have whatever they want. And those who want to write, money makes all these things possible.

The only currency the rest of us will be dealing in is love of writing. And because we, as writers, have told the world that the only salve to our soul is the written word, once more, we are encouraged with wisdom:

The only thing standing in the way of you is you.