August 1, 2005
Over on the "Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind" blog there were 68 responses to Sara's blog entry about happy endings, numerous writers taking a tangent into the "write for yourself or write for the audience" realm of writing metaphysics. Several successful novelists like Tess Gerritsen and JA Konrath vote for money, while others got up on a soap box about artistic integrity and accused the successful writers of being hacks because they would change their endings if their editor asked them to.

My post was along the lines of: if you're going to write strictly for money, why don't you go find a more lucrative, financially stable way to make a living.

Which is a complicated thing, ultimately. I remember reading a column by Lawrence Block at one time in which he said that if he accidently discovered oil in his backyard he wasn't sure he'd write another word. I got rather irritated by that, thinking, if it means so damned little to you, why DON'T you retire and open up at least one publishing spot for somebody else.

Now that I write fulltime and it is my livelihood, I do want to suggest that when you make that transition, your attitude about writing will change. I was warned of this, with the author saying he would leave it to the writer to find out exactly what that change is. I'm inclined to agree, but I'll share a few of my thoughts with you here.

1. I still love writing. I revel in the pleasure of words, even if I'm writing about Medicare reform or devices to control bladder function. Granted, not as much as I do when I'm working on my fiction.

2. Selling and marketing becomes such a large portion of the writer's life that it can sometimes take a lot of the fun out of writing. Especially in the fiction arena for "midlist" and "genre" novelists. I'd pretty happily take the "midlist" title around now. And I mean "genre" in the "numbers sold" sense, not the "mystery, romance, thriller" sense. If you aren't familiar with this, the publishing industry has a range of books sold that they ascribe to "midlist" and "genre" and "bestseller" and, presumably, "mainstream" or "literary." Genre is often described as less than 15,000 copies and more than, say, 5,000, give or take.

3. It's a treadmill. All jobs tend to be, but this one tends to be more so, I think. One thing after another, after another, after another, after another, and if you're depending on your livelihood for it, vacations can be a bit worrisome because you're not getting paid to take them. At the same time, it's less of a treadmill because each day tends to be different. I don't know whether I'll spend a day writing, interviewing, marketing, editing or on what subjects I might be writing, editing or interviewing about.

4. You can surprise yourself by what you can interest yourself in. I have no inherent interest in Medicare reform, bladder control devices and background checks, but I've written about all of them. I get interested in them while I'm writing about them. But that interest doesn't necessarily carry with me after I turn in the article. I DO have an interest in biological and chemical terrorism, health, medicine, biotechnology, books and authors, about which I have also written extensively.

5. I don't leap out of bed enthused to write like I first did. I'd rather sleep. At the same time, my thoughts typically turn quite enthusiastically to what I'm going to be writing each day. It's just that "leaping out of bed" thing that can cause a problem.

There are others, but everybody probably has their own. I love writing. I love making my living as a writer. My sister recently asked me, on a scale of 1 to 10, how do I like self-employment. I said without hesitation, a 9. She asked what the 10% was, and I said the unpredictability of the money. June's income would put me in the $100,000 range if every month was like that. July's income would put me in the $15,000 a year range if every month was like that. It wasn't lack of work or high-paying work, either, it was the publishers paying when they felt like it--yes, accountants go on vacation in July, too, or as I often describe it, "solving their cash flow problems at my expense." But 90%--and often higher--is far higher than on my previous employment on its best day. I'm lucky. Very. I get to write for both love and money.

Best,
Mark Terry