Writing for Work and Pleasure

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Writing is considered by some to be hard work. Most people would rather speak than write. Whether we write by hand or digitally, finding the right words, watching the punctuation and making sure we don't repeat ourselves and sound tedious, is always engaging. There's also the fact that the written word can be misunderstood, so we sometimes need to edit for clarity. Sometimes we write in a good mood. It shows. Sometimes we write in a bad mood. That shows too. Our mood definitely affects our writing, especially when we write for ourselves.

When writing for pleasure, we write freely, choosing to focus on subjects we enjoy. We may write fiction or non-fiction. When we write for work, we need to ensure clarity. If we know our writing will be read, we must please our readership, whether it's our teacher or millions of adoring fans. So that's where the work aspect comes in.

A few years ago, I was approached by a young entrepreneur to write for his business blog. He ran an online company and wanted a writer to produce a well-written blog in English to feature on his website. It seemed to me that this could bring me regular work, as he required one blog post, one thousand words minimum, per week. When the subject of payment eventually came up, he was not at all accommodating. He thought that he was granting me a favour by 'selecting' me to write for him. According to his logic, I would get all this 'publicity' by writing for him and therefore become well-known.  Why did I want to be paid? Considering I don't remember his name, we can take it that I wouldn't have become well-known by writing for him, in spite of my best efforts.

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As we were chatting online, I came to understand that he didn't consider writing to be real work. Just a 'pastime' as some would say. So I had to decline his not-so-generous offer. He couldn't believe I was turning him down, but to me, it was a no-brainer. Producing a thousand-word lifestyle article is a day's work and the one or two dollars that he was grudgingly willing to pay for each post  would in no way compensate for that. Yes, I write because I love to do it. But writing for someone's business means we are writing according to their vision, their needs and their SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) needs. Not to mention, giving our time. That type of writing is 'work'.  It needs to be paid at a working rate.

Writing for pleasure is therapeutic. Those of us who love doing it find that it gives us an opportunity to explore different subjects and situations. But the kind of writing that we enjoy might not be much use to anyone else. We usually need to write to someone else's specification if  we want to be paid for writing. 

Some people write ebooks and appear to be able to make a living from it. Free seminars on ebook writing for profit are being heavily publicised online right now. But this is coming across as a bit of a get-rich-quick scheme. I always feel that these markets reach their saturation point after a while. Yet the Indian author Sundari Venkatraman is a great example of an author who is independent and producing great ebooks which are being devoured by eager readers.  It's good to know that at least some writers can write about things they like and get paid for it. For now at least.

*     Thanks to Megan Rexazin from Pixabay for this image

**   Thanks to USA-Reiseblogger from Pixabay for this image

*** Thanks to Janeb13 from Pixabay for this image