There’s always been the saying, “you can’t make a career with writing.” I’ve heard it countless times and it can be annoying at times. See, the thing is, a lot of writers do it for the love of it, not for money. I never went into writing thinking, “I’m going to make it big.” The reality is, I don’t care for fame, I’m not a people person like that.
I started writing poetry at the age of 13, it was something I did for fun. I think a lot of writers can relate to that when they started their writing journey. A lot of people start doing something because of interest and/or passion. When we become good at it, then we realize that there’s potential to make a living from it.
A lot of passions in the creative space are not easy to make money off of. Writing, art, content creation, blogging, music, scriptwriter, you name it, there’s challenges that you’ll face. These are spaces where we have to sell ourselves, our journey, our story (with ourselves and the storytelling we create).
If you tell a writer that they’re going to be incredibly successful in what they do, I bet a lot of them wouldn’t believe anyone. I’m one of them to be honest. I would’ve never guessed I’d write and self-publish 60 books. But, here I am, an accomplished, self-published author who has a passion for social issues.
Most people who have a passion for what they do, they know that it’s about the journey and the marathon, not getting quick results. There’s no shortcuts or any “get rich quick” schemes that we’re going to do because we know that we achieve what we’re meant to in due time.
Writers don’t focus on the things that aren’t important. The majority of the time, we’re trying to find time to write, to create, to be in our zone. We’ve heard all of the sayings that we can’t make a career out of it or there isn’t a market for what we write or you’ll burnout and move onto something else.
We understand that the majority of people in our lives are not going to support what we do. They’re not going to read our content or post reviews or share our content on social media. That’s the reality and nature of things and we learn not to take it personal (well at least for me).
There’s a battle for us to get our content and books noticed in a world of information and advertising everywhere. It’s getting the attention of someone who will be interested in our writing, our journey, our story. We’re constantly promoting ourselves and finding ways to get our content seen by the world.
But, I will say, there’s a sense of fulfillment when you publish a blog, poetry, a book or anything else that you put time, patience, energy and effort into. Nothing beats getting your content noticed and people loving what you’ve written. Nothing beats your content being reposted and others paying attention to what you’ve created. Nothing beats the reviews you get from your books that will get seen by others and it will prompt them to wanna buy your books.
There’s so many emotions that we as writers go through. From the beginning stages of our journey to putting it out to the world. In hindsight, there’s a small percentage of us who actually publish a book in our lives. So when people meet me and I tell them what I do, it’s a surprise to them. How often do you actually meet a writer and/or author and has published numerous books? It’s not a normal occurrence (I didn’t meet authors until I became one myself).
At the end of the day, writers who have a love and passion for storytelling, we do it to share information, we do it to share our journeys, we do it because we love it, always remember that.
That’s my blog for today, thanks for reading as always, be good and go accomplish your goals!
Jamell Crouthers
Aquarianmind
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