cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Discreditable Self-Pity You know, call me crazy, but I think that an ability to write reasonably well is probably the most overrated skill in the modern world. For the most part, an ability to quickly string together a coherent sentence with proper spelling, grammar and punctuation is not rewarded in the slightest bit by the marketplace. Perhaps you may wish to skip reading the rest of this, because I am about to indulge in the most discreditable sort of boasting and self-pity. My memos and emails at work are frequently things of great beauty. Even an email tossed out in the space of 30 seconds to confirm something or other will have proper sentence and paragraph structure. Wheras 90% of the emails and memos that I receive from other people in my business, at all levels, at utter shit. Full of incorrect capitalization and awkward sentences that dangle like a booger on a child's nose. Yet I do not believe that I am paid any more than any of these other dip shits in my industry. I write constantly. Almost every week I write blog entries on my real-name blog that are of essentially magazine quality in terms of research, citations and writing quality. I toss this shit out without even reading it over before posting it, and its still better than most people's 5th drafts. But you know how much money I have made from this? ZERO. Not a fucking cent. I co-wrote a book with a small publisher last year and never saw a cent from that, either. Never will. I have written and photo-edited several childrens books. Years ago I wrote a short book about how to keep a certain type of amphibian as a pet, but unfortunately I found that everything that there was to say was said in about 25 pages. Which isn't really long enough to sell as a book, so there I am. No money to show for any of it. Each month, I probably write at least 50 pages of material overall. This includes email, blog entries (which are really very done and I mean it), these diary entries, memos for work, lectures and lesson plans (for classes that I teach but do not get paid for), and various and sundry other writing projects and books that I peck away at. Yesterday, in the space of about 2 hours, I wrote a fantastic natural history of a typical year in the life of a whitetail deer. 6 or 7 pages in a 12 point font. This was in preparation for that class that I am teaching starting in September. I banged it right out, hit 'print' and took it home. Right before falling asleep I read it over and there was no more than 1 or 2 things on each page that needed a touch of red pen. It's fucking great. AND I WILL PROBABLY NEVER GET A CENT FOR IT. Maybe I just have a marketing problem here? I don't know. What I am certain of is the fact that being able to write coherently has never done me the slightest bit of good. It would have been better from a financial point of view if I had been very good at unclogging toilets. All of this shit that I produce is in spare moments. I don't even have a quiet place to write. I don't even have a working laptop any more. It makes me bitter and dark to think of what I could be producing each year if I were only to get paid to do some of this. If it were my job each day to sit down and write books and magazine articles, and if I was to be paid a reasonable, living amount of money for this, then I could be producing massive quantities of decent to excellent material. The books and articles that have gone unwritten over the last 10 years break my heart. Well. That's enough asswipe self-pity for one day, I think. Meanwhile, I only have a few days to come up with the $1,000 for the bison tag. The deadline is coming right up and I just don't have the money and don't know what to do. Trish's father is so excited about going on this bison hunt in October and I can't bear the thought of disappointing him when I have to say "sorry, we missed the deadline for the draw because I couldn't get the money together." Actually, I did squirrel away most of it. But then every few weeks Trish would fuck something up in the budget and we'd need the money because she'd spent too much on something else and then I'd have to fork over everything I'd saved. But I've got to get this somehow. I've got to. I'm having to turn people away from this class. I had no idea the demand would be so high. If I had more confidence in the product, I would charge money for it. Well, I'm charging a $35 fee to cover the cost of ammunition. But if this goes well, I think I might try doing it again and charging something for it. Like if I charged $65 for the 7 week class, I'd at least be looking at $400 or so for my trouble. I just feel like it would be a bad idea to go taking people's money when I literally only have a basic course outline and a lecture and lesson plan for only the first class. Oh sure, I could take the lectures and notes and diagrams that I'm producing for the class and probably pull it together into a book. But what's the point? 9:58 a.m. - 2009-08-04 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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