Show Me the Money or How I'm Hot When I Eat Enchiladas

Photo credit: mconnors from morguefile.com

I just spent a mind-numbing hour on a conference call with a mortgage adviser. Are you so jealous? I think you should be. It was all very adult-y and I got to eat chicken enchiladas and fruit salad covered in caramel sauce while asking intelligent questions and she was none the wiser. This amused me endlessly. As did the fact that I had massive plumber's butt the whole time and my hair very strongly resembled a certain teen pop sensation's and she couldn't see that. She could sit there and think I was totally hot and smart. Which, of course, I am. You just have to look at me with the right eyes. Or, you know, on a conference call.

I don't want to talk about how hot I really am, though. Not today. What struck me during this conversation is that while we were talking about certain tax credits and whatnot, she was explaining that we wouldn't ever have to pay back some sort of tax credit fee thingy (this is, of course, the technical term. I'm very adept at jargon.)  because our income was very much less than likely to exceed the maximum amount allowed and blah blah. So in an act of wizardry, she showed us on our very own laptop when she wasn't even in the room some kind of tax schedule. Her partner (who is clearly a ghost who comes to your home and plays with your computer and opens websites you never knew existed and proprietary software applications and highlights things while she talks to you on speakerphone) highlighted a number and she asked: "Do you see your income exceeding this in ten years?" and she then laughed in such a way as to say "Obviously not, chuckleheads."

I had a conversation via some different email ghosts today with a writer friend of mine about this very topic. Well, sort of. We are writers, and therefore tacky, so we were talking about money. Specifically, earning money from writing. Every book on writing that I have ever read has pretty much said, point blank, don't write for money. Even Stephen King, who makes more money than some small countries, said "Don't write for the money. Write because you love it." I can understand this. Probably even Stephen King only makes about ten bucks an hour when everything is said and done if you do the math. What would that equation be? Number of hours spent writing, editing, thinking about writing, thinking about editing, sweating while you wait to hear back about submissions divided by number of dollars received for finished product, less expenses (which would include your computer, paper, journals, coffee, writing pants, special face creams to reduce the visible signs of aging, more coffee, antacids to counteract the massive consumption of coffee, and so on.)

I have had a long, illustrious career as an unpaid writer. Starting at age six I have written stories and articles and scenes and poems pretty consistently. My publishing credits include: a poem in the church bulletin when I was 9, my story displayed in the Governor's mansion when I was 11, my articles, poems, and stories for The Underground  secretly copied on the faculty copy machine and distributed around the school when I was 16 and 17, an article about the irresponsibility of the collaborators on The Underground  in the actual school newspaper when I was 17; in my 20s there were a few chapbooks floating around sold for a pack of smokes or a cup of coffee, in a poetry creative writing class when I was 25,  my professor (whose name was Chuck Taylor, I kid you not) said one of my poems reminded him of Alan Ginsberg's Howl (an assessment I believe was based either solely on the length of my poem or an utter unfamiliarity with Ginsberg's poem), in a short fiction creative writing class when I was 26, my professor (who looked like a shar pei, I kid you not) read one of my stories to the class as "an excellent example of good tone without any plot whatsoever", I kept my writing to myself for several years after that and then now, in the springtime of my life - my very late 30s - I started "publishing" a blog, wherein I have done a few guest posts, had a few things featured, and met some dandy folks.

So as the magic mortgage lady and her ghost asked us a semi-rhetorical question about what we imagined our income would be in 10 years, this little part of my brain piped up (silently, I might add. Aren't you proud?) "Well, you don't know! What if I get my book deal by then?!" You should be a little less proud, because my mouth was full of enchiladas at the time and I didn't want to spit verde sauce on the phone or the laptop. I am at a point where, as my writer friend and I discussed, I would be happy with coffee money. Or perhaps enough to buy jeans that only I had ever worn. But even if that never materializes, I don't want it to be because I never tried. I write and I write and I write. I polish and I offer my demented little gems around to whomever will look at them. So far, they say "That's lovely. For someone else. Please try again." I'm OK with that. I'll keep writing, I'll keep sending my babies out with their notes attached to their chests, I'll keep receiving whatever criticism or praise I can get. Because I love to write. I need to write. I can't rely on my freakish good looks and stunning fashion sense forever. Besides, I learned tonight that it's win-win for me. If I don't make doodly-squat, I won't have to pay back that tax credit fee thingy when we go to sell our house that we haven't even bought yet. If I hit it big, well, then I can have my CPA sort that out.