I just had my business cards made. For the first time in my history of possessing business cards, they say that I am a writer. This is not because I only started writing yesterday, but, for the first time, I am finally acknowledging that I am a writer and I want others to know me as one, too.
If you are a ridiculously funny writer you will say you knew you wanted to write from the first time you held a pencil. Others will say that the urge or need to tell stories bubbled inside them from when they were little, but unlike wanting to be a doctor or engineer, wanting to be a writer was never that dream you said out loud.
And so you turned to diaries and wrote your little heart out and got lost in other worlds that those who had been braver had created for you, but still, it was not that dream that you said out loud.
And if you were born in Uganda like I was, there was no school to go to to perfect this storytelling skill of yours. There were medical schools, law schools, institutes of technology, schools of education, and fortunately a mass communication class that came close to what you wanted to do, but writing remained that dream you could not quite say out loud. And if your President, like mine, believes that the arts are useless, writing remains that dream you cannot say out loud.
Then there was life, common sense, duty and obligations that convinced you that you had to get a real job in order to make it. And life, common sense, duty and obligations are all right! This is why wiser fulltime writers invest in passive income projects so that they can concentrate on writing without worrying about what they will have for dinner.
So, it remains that thing you do on the side like a hobby, never thinking of it as the passion that could pay your bills and it certainly could never be the dream you speak of while mentioning money in the same breath. So you take on low-paying jobs “to promote your name and your brand” and even though you know that you have invested time and sweated blood to get half a page filled with words, you tell yourself that at least now, finally, you can say it out loud, even though you are not paid for it well.
Writing is still not taken seriously in Uganda because most of us writers do not think of it as serious work. We stay up late into the night, we invest in books to get better at our craft, we become vulnerable by putting out what is in our heads for everyone to see, and yet we do not consider it serious work. We are PR people, copy writers, communication specialists, etc. but never just writers. As long as writing remains “just a thing I do on the side” it will never be taken seriously.
So, for starters, own it. Shut out that voice that says you do not count because you have no book to speak of. Doing it on the side might actually not be an issue, as long as you own it and deliberately work towards building the income it brings in to a point that that income offsets (or equals) what you currently make. Shut out that voice that says you are not a real writer because you have no book to speak of.
You are a writer. It is a real thing.
What then after owning it, you ask? Invest in yourself. Read. Research. Observe what is around you. Keep writing, because as clichéd as it may sound, practice does make perfect. Find honest critics. Stop being your only audience. Want more. Write even when your muse takes off and leaves you hanging. Life isn’t always inspiring, so do not sit around and wait for inspiring moments. Make it good that writing of yours, so good people will want to reward you for it.
The fact that you should not do it for the money is true wisdom, but it is only half the truth. You shouldn’t do it just for the money, but it should and can earn you money; if not directly, then indirectly. It should be able to sustain you.
After all the investing you will have done, a time will come when you will realise that paying you is not a favour to you but something that you deserve.
How then do you make the money? Newspapers are still hiring. You can be a content creator/manager for blogs, you can write for broadcast media (TV and radio), you can further hone your skill to become an editor, you can submit your work for competitions that have prize money attached to them and of course, start working on that book that you have been dreaming of writing since you were little. Do not limit yourself to fiction. There are so many topics and interesting lives out there that could make for great non-fiction. Explore them. If you are lucky, your book could earn you money long after you have written it. Do whatever else you can do as long it will also give you some time to do the writing you need to do. If you cannot lose that job to devote all your time to writing, set aside time to write and stick to it.
Look out for people that can partner with you and people that just want to use you in the name of “giving you exposure”. Before you leap at the chance of getting your work out there, ask yourself what this organisation that is asking you to write for them can do for you. Can they promote your projects? Would that promotion be more useful than money in the long run? What kind of organisation are they? Are they the kind of organisation you would like to work with? Are they large or run by a few individuals?
I haven’t figured all these issues out for myself either, yet. In fact, one of my biggest questions at the moment is setting the price for your work seeing as there is no standard payment structure.
Are you making money from your writing? How do you do it and how do you charge for your work?
Deo Wasswa Mulema
Anonymous
Honestly, Hellen, I cannot say that much. You just made a man pull up his sleeves.
“If you cannot lose that job to devote all your time to writing, set aside time to write and stick to it.” resonates with me…
I am still teaching myself the discipline of sitting and writing. and not procrastinating under the guise of research and looking for inspiration. I hope one day I get it.
Nyana, your input specifies a question which has already been discussed in a subtle kind of way in this Blog, I think. Or not the question, but the topic of writing and earning money. It appears to me as a searching for a core of writing or a core of being a writer. Apart from the question ‘what can a writer/writing be?’ (which I also perceive as discussed in this Blog) you open the question ‘waht is a writer/writing?’ or ‘what has to be given to claim yourself credibly as a writer, or to claim your doing credibly as writing?’. The minimum requirements for that…
I read your input as an encouragement for writers, not to underestimate themselves by putting away their inner needs in a hobby-drawer, but rather to solidify these needs (for writing) as a main subject of everyday life. Therefore you state, that the best objective to be achieved is to earn money through writing in a fully sustainable way, so that you don’t need to be disparaged through an other job.
On the other hand there is this repeatedly showing up myth/narrative about writing/writers that/who has to be situated in the middle of life, in experiencing life, in the happing of life, which usually means somehow perceiving the world, people, rituals, habits, etc., through preferably many different experiences.
I’m very much with Richard Schechner, the founder (or one of the founders) of performance studies, who neither claims the reality having a second and/or third job not to be seen as a disadvantage, nor as an advantage (because of multiple inputs), but as a necessity, inevitability. In order not to get lost in an art-ghetto, and in order to enrich every other area of life, private and (more important) public.
I like this way of thinking, because with it, the duality of writing as an isolated core-matter (or making/doing art in general) on the one side, and writing banged up as a hobby on the other side, is collapsing.
… (is it?) ?
Thanks so much for this, Tom. I would have to meet people who have successfully done it to decide if it is collapsing or isn’t. My concern is really the practicality of it. Say you’re a banker with an 8-5, Monday to Saturday. With a family sometimes. How then do you find time between banking, being present with your family, writing and living your life? Can you really have both worlds? And for me, that’s why I think, there is a level of seriousness/hunger that has to be attached to your writing for you to consider that duality.
I think there are some jobs where this is possible and some where it isn’t. For example: I worked as a journalist for some time. After work I couldn’t write anything. There was too much going on in my head with deadlines and research and all those kind of things. While working in a factory, I had no problem with writing in the evening after I recovered. So I guess it had to do with the fact, that Journalism and my own writing were somehow too close in my head, which is funny, because of course writing for a newspaper is something completely different. But somehow I couldn’t clear my head. For some writes it’s different: I know a lot of people, who earn their money with writing for newspapers. And maybe someday I might do it again. Maybe there are times where you need your work, which you do for a living, to be completely disconnected from your work as a writer – and times where it’s good to have a job, which is connected. I think it all depends on your writing routine. Kafka worked 9 to 5, then slept for three hours, went for a walk, wrote during the night and slept another two hours in the morning. Maybe that’s the reason why all his heroes are tired all the time. But it worked for him.
One of the most cited refutations against unconditional basic income, is the presumption, that people won’t see a need anymore to take care for necessary everyday work/job and matters, that benefit others, but strain themselves.
I get the opposite out of your comment, Philip, because it connotes the necessity, that writing needs to be inspired by various areas of life, that writing for its own has no quality, while at the same time, you need the possibility (as a writer) to go into retreat, without having the fear to live on the breadline…
Do you think unconditional basic income would improve the conditions of writing?, would it simply change the conditions?, or deteriorate the conditions, because of the abolished force of earning money (and therefore being forced to get in unexpected touch with the world)?
I completely agree with Nyana. It´s hard to manage your writing, when you work in an 8-5-job – especially if you like to spend a little bit time with your friends or your family. For sure it´s possible… somehow. Philipp is right, Kafka did that and a lot of other writers did that too, before they got successful. Stephen King for instance lived in a caravan with his wife and his children, worked as a teacher and used all his free time for writing (sometimes with one of his children on his lap) and sending his stories to publishing houses (the rejection letters he collected with an arrow on a dartboard). But those are not ideal conditions for writing. And Tom, for sure it´s good, if a writer collects life experience. But, if he is able to concentrate just on writing and does not have to work an additional job, that doesn´t mean necessarily that he is living in a cell isolated from the every day life (I mean, Marcel Proust did that in some ways, and I think, what he has written is not so bad). Nobody would say to a musician of an orchestra, to an actor of a theatre or to an architect that it maybe would be good for him, if he also would work in a “real job”.
Hi Nyana Kakoma, do you have some books you have written, and do you do school visits? Thank you Deo.
Wow, spoken truly and highly encouraging!
I have been battling with these very issues myself, being a writer who has to take up a ‘real’ job to make ends meet.
However, you are right. Writing is so diverse and not just about writing fiction. Most of the time, fiction won’t make money immediately. Sometimes never. But people need information out there, and writers can be paid good money for making such information available.
With just a little bit more effort, you can make a living out to writing. Check out this article I wrote over here: http://www.michael-sinkolongo.com/Six_Ways_of_Making_money_from_YOUR_Writing
Thank you! I think this is inspiration I badly needed.
Coupled with Joel’s “Publishing in Uganda”, it gives me good advice. I have kept a pile of poems and a few short stories for some time now, quite not sure how much I could get rewarded for them. I am my own audience.
I think I will now seriously make longer strides towards getting them published and proclaiming my “presence” to the public. Thank you, again.
On one hand, I identify with this issue of hiding behind writing-related jobs, from the real challenge to exert yourself to achieve your real writing dream – a fiction book perhaps, or an anthology.. whatever the case may be. I wonder if settling for the features writer for a newspaper or magazine job quenches that desire to write that book you wanted to write since you were little, but can’t write because it is harder, and less profitable, to work at than your features articles. It is all writing anyway, isn’t it? Same satisfaction derived from putting thoughts onto paper, right? At what point do you settle for the right balance?
I have to ask a question, that has not been mentioned (or subtle mentioned) in this Blog yet, but that has hunted me since the beginning:
Do you writers claim yourselves as artists?
I mean, I don’t want to doubt the serious conversations about earning money with literature and the simple need of surviving, I really don’t – but there would be missing something, if the discourse of writing would be limited to that.
Is there an idealistic drive, or somehow a political conviction, or any other thing, that is an absoluteness to you?, that makes you think and act with a behavior of ‘I won’t do anything, but writing (… because this is what’s relevant in this world right now)’?
Or:
Is there something in your mind or your behaving as writers, that you would be appropriate to claim you as artists or part of your being as artistic?
I am here to give my 2 cents; I too was once given. If you want to be a writer you have to do it full time. Daunting I know considering the unpredictable monetary returns but you can’t two time this passion related stuff. It can’t be a side hustle. Cause then it will always remain a side hustle. I think our passions deserve more than being the hurried evening bang before rushing home to the main ball and chain. So better to give up one or the other. At least for an experimental period of time.
I do no agree with you. At least not fully. Writing can start as a side hustle and end up as something rewarding. There are some examples that I can give but this is not quite the time.
I do no agree with you. At least not fully. Writing can start as a side hustle and end up as something rewarding. There are some examples that I can give but this is not quite the time.
Otherwise, nothing short of an inspirational, informative yet supportive read I must say for us writers anonymous. Thanks Nyana for sharing this.
Writing is a special talent, not everyone is a good story teller , all successful people do what they know best, with or without pay, but driven by passion ,however most successful writers have always worked in universities as lectrures etc I tend to believe there is a connection
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