No, I’m not done blogging, that’s not what this is about. After a break for a week I return with a lot of excitement for this medium. I guess I could call this blog “what end writing?” but that’s pretty heavy and philosophical and not really what I’m after. I am reconsidering the role writing plays in my life and thought I would let you in on what I’ve decided.
After five years I have too small an audience to sustain the work of writing. Writing is work. Calling writing your job I think entails getting paid for it, but whether or not you get paid it is still work. If the work justifies the expenditure of time and effort with commensurate healing or entertainment as the end result I guess it could be called a volunteer job. If you are writing to no audience, for no money, and accomplishing little healing, I think you have to consider whether you are only in it for the entertainment you get out of it yourself.
I wrote for a long time with the full intention of eventually getting paid for the effort. These dreams have largely faded. Let’s be clear, I’m not after money for money’s sake, but as an indicator that the work is valued. I might give away all the money I make to charities, but I can use dollar amounts to talk about one sense of value of my writing. This career is a tough one to break into, and even when one has some success it is very difficult to pay all your bills as a writer. Serious writers tend to teach or do some other career to make ends meet, and commercial writers can find a lot of success but also a lot of competition in the established genres. It is wonderful hearing about success stories, but long term success requires a lot of luck, talent, and understanding of the writing marketplace; I have learned about the marketplace but I can’t do much about my luck or talent levels, so it looks like I won’t get paid for my efforts.
I don’t think you can make an argument that you are contributing if you have no audience. Writing in a vacuum, to be saved digitally on-line for eternity, might please the writer, but I don’t think it’s much of a contribution. I believe in art for art’s sake, but you can’t call that a job, volunteer or otherwise; art for art’s sake is instead a philosophy to beautify your life and the life of others, and it has to be integrated into a full life, including work.
Writing works better as a clear cut entertainment with me designated as the entertained. As such it is exciting and fun, and I find it more stimulating than the television I don’t watch. But this process of writing, without any audience, is just me entertaining myself; it is not morally or ethically much different than television, comic books, listening to music, or whatever it is one enjoys. That may seem harsh, but I think it’s the truth.
Maybe it could be argued that by occasionally sharing my work, as I do, with friends and family, the art is justified. This is still a type of play however, a part of an incomplete life without making a contribution. Unless I am reaching the numbers of people where my writing could be considered a job or career, I am just enriching other’s experience of my self. Not a bad plan, and I’ll keep at it, but only on a part-part-time basis.
I thought for a brief moment that if I blogged every day about everything important in the universe I could justify this habit as work, but no. This is just me entertaining myself, and as such, blogging is important but not very disciplined.
This is all a very long way of saying that I think I have found a job. I hope I will soon start working as a peer advocate in the mental health profession here in Dover, Delaware. This is a job not in the sense that I will earn money (although I will, and there is a sense of value there), but I consider it a job in that I will be contributing and helping others lead happier healthier lives. If I could say the same about my writing I’d be torn as to whether or not to pursue it, if I thought I could make a contribution, as indicated by having an audience.
For those of the persuasion that one should toil in obscurity for all of one’s life to make great art and never look back, I have to ask if they are over valuing their work or the work of their loved ones. This is not Van Gogh’s time, very few artists can slip through the cracks here in America. We live in an age where there is no shortage of books and written material, mostly a shortage of interested readers when television, movies, video games, music, and all the varied entertainments of modernity compete in the same marketplace. If you compete and are a success, more power to you, you’re probably a lot more talented than I am. If you are one of the many who labor at your art with no audience, like I did, I don’t know what to tell you. This isn’t advice for others, just me hearing myself talk, and that’s my point.
While true persistence is necessary to eventual success and no one makes it without some effort, perhaps a good rule of thumb is five years of trying to be an artist without an audience. Working on your art beyond five years is important too, but doing so full time might be a waste of your potential to create positive change in your world and your community.
I’m dropping the pretension that I work at writing, if you can believe it, I do this kind of stuff for fun...
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