This is a situation in flux, so if things change, well, fuck it, chalk it up to transparency.
Lots of people, most of whom you can find links to here, have been talking about whether or not one should write for free. Mostly, I agree with Doree, who says--Oh, shit. I guess it wasn't her. Well, whomever said most of the time you shouldn't, but some of the time you should, I agree with that person.
The truth is that writers take assignments for many reasons. Much of the time, one takes a high-paying assignment for money, and the subject is crap. I have done more than a few of these in my time. We like to call these "compromises," but really they are acts of "literary prostitution." The lube is the money. The integrity is nada. The feeling one gets left with afterward is the sensation of having been fucked in the ass without permission.
Other times, writers take assignments because they are awesome, or exciting, or enable the writer to go creepy-crawling into some crevice into which they have not crawled before. Many of these assignments do not pay well. Sometimes, they do not pay at all. Or, they may as well not, because the pay is so shitty. The payoff is that you get to have a really great time, you can tell the story of whatever wild and crazy things happened to you at the next dinner party you attend where everyone will listen to you in a state of rapt attention, and you can eyeball your well-worn copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and tell yourself that you have lived your own Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream.
Over the last few years, I have experimented with the "writing for free" phenomenon. I had a brief affair with the Huffington Post, which ultimately didn't really work for me. There was no money. I didn't really get the point of putting stuff up there I could post to my own blog without having some editor poke a pencil in its eye first. And, I don't know, maybe all those nasty Gawker posts about the redhead turned me off or something.
In another case, not long ago, I did a story for fray for free because I was a) bored, b) feeling hostile and looking for some way to pretend I was really hell-bent on "doing my own thing," c) they were putting together a "sex and death"-themed issue (it's not online yet) that was, you know, up my alley. I wrote about doing The Letters Project. So, you know, it wasn't all that hard. Maybe it took an hour or two. Sometimes having more freedom gives you an ego boost that enables you to slog through the other shit.
Last week, for the first time in some time, I turned down a paying assignment. I was sort of torn about doing so, and I still feel kind of conflicted about having done so. (Who the fuck turns down money in this economy? Assholes. That's who.) The pay was low for the amount of work involved, but it was also about something that I sort of consider to be, uh, precious to me, and I didn't feel like I wanted to "give away" that story for that amount. The story was worth more than that to me. The stories we hold in our heads, as writers, they have a kind of value, or weight, or gravitas that we imbue them with that transcends what the Wu-Tang Clan once so poignantly referred to as the "dolla dolla bill, ya'll."
Cash rules everything around us, and writers are whores or tricks, depending on the day, editors pimps looking to exploit their bottom bitches to the best of their abilities. Let's call a spade a spade, shall we? At least, that's how I see it.
In any case, in April, I did something I have never done before. I paid to do a story. It's possible the pay for this story will change, but I don't know. Whatever. An experienced journalist knows it isn't what it is until the money is in your hand. All told, I shelled out [oh, I cannot bear to say it] to get this piece done. I also delivered it at some 8,000 words over what I had been enlisted to write.
I think somebody told me to do this, to do the story, to foot much of the bill myself, but for the life of me I can't remember who. (If it was you, thank you.) And, you know, it was about the smartest thing I've ever done. (Knock on wood. It's not online yet. And you never know, you know?)
I paid for my experience. I paid for my time. I paid to write what I wanted to write, and I was lucky enough to have an editor who didn't stop me--she let me. Of course, as Stephen Elliott writes, "To only write what you want is a luxury." What I let myself do was a luxury, indeed, a luxury I may one day in the not too distant future be no longer able to afford, a luxury I do not regret spending.
It was the best time I've had in years. It made me feel like I wasn't a whore anymore. It was worth it.
Update: Later, I got a note from a reader, one who has given me permission to reprint his email here.
Interesting post you wrote about writing and money. I made my living as a writer during those wonderful late 1990 and early 2000 days you mentioned in your first post. 45 cents a word for practically anything I wanted to do. Great time to be doing that, free money and easy work. I also made my rent money as a guitar player for a few years of my life. Obviously I didn't get rich, but I know what it's like to get paid for one's 'art' and to compromise it. It got depressing after a while, but the lifestyle was great and there were still the cool, great gigs I could enjoy. Call it turning tricks or whatever, I just used the phrase, 'You take the king's shilling, you play the king's tune.'
I spent the weekend in NYC doing a two day music workshop where I got to meet one of my musical heroes, and not just meet him but play with him. It was amazing, and reminded me of why I started music in the first place. There were probably 75 other people there, all or nearly all of them many years younger than I. They were almost universally talented, optimistic, and hell bent as making it in music on their own terms. They were the antithesis of the stereotype of the lazy musician, they already had indie labels they started, they were gigging anywhere they could get, and they were sure it was just a matter of time until it was their turn to get on the ride. I wanted to tell them, 'Just so ya know, it ain't gonna happen. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try, because you'll hate yourself if you don't, but just because you think you're choosing failure or death doesn't mean you won't wind up with both.' I wanted to tell them about my most accomplished guitar teacher, a guy I took lessons from when I was about twenty. He was a legitimately well-known jazz player who had seen so much failure, including losing two wives mostly because he refused to give up music as his living, that he actually had come to hate music. Not hate drummers who are late and singers who can't come in on cue and staying in awful motels to make $150 at 2 AM. We all hated that shit, but he hated music itself, for what it had done to him and what it had refused to do for him. I vowed that whenever I got close to that I'd find something else to do so I at least would still love music.
And I did. After washing out of both the music and writing rackets I program databases now. I still make my own music, people still seem to like it on the rare occasion it's heard, and I still write. In fact, I write for a blog run by some of my favorite writers in the world and I do it for free, because I know they're broke and need the money and I don't. So by scything my 'art' off from my money I've kept my art pure, and it's still fun when I do it.
On the other hand, my money is what's impure now. It comes from prostituting my brain to do something 8-12 hours per day that I don't care about. Financial reporting does not speak to my heart, I do not pine for more hours in which I can write SQL code. I use a mind capable of producing decent music and better than decent prose for digital greasemonkey work. So, I guess the moral of the story is that you're fucked either way, there just isn't a lot of purity to go around.
Love your blog,
[name redacted]
