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On the one hand my life is 🤗 in tons of ways. On the other, I am a whirling swivet of screaming frustration who needs to change tons of things in order to not go bonkers. In other words: I’m a freelance writer who is both killing it and getting killed.
This is a not-unusual freelance writer state of affairs, no matter the level, but it is still a whole situation when you never know when you’re actually gonna get paid for current projects, and you have projects in the mill that are old and done with and still haven’t paid you.
This is why, when people email me requests to do things I really want to do, but have no money to pay me, I sometimes can’t do them. Can’t. Not don’t want to. I want to blurb and book talk and give keynotes about justice...but also I am a human who needs to pay rent.
Lately, of course, it’s been even more stress than usual, because I’m deadlined out by the fact that a beastling is going to be born at the end of July, and cannot be postponed. He’s on the way, kicking and pawing at my ribcage. So, wheee, extra stress for writing payschedules.
Sometimes writers break their income down up here - and I could do that, but you’ve seen it before. Even when you’re kicking ass as a book writer, it’s generally a long time between checks, and it takes a long time to write and publish books. I love what I do for a living.
But it’s the kind of living wherein one predatory project - you know the kind I mean, the ones where you do a pile of work on spec, so the project can move forward, because it can’t move forward without the work - and then they don’t pay you? That kind. It kills you.
People don’t realize this, of course. They often have no idea they are the predatory project. Their project is often awesome, and needed in the world, and they ask writers to give their work over and be paid when investors show up...because the project is A Good Thing.
Then the project is slow, or doesn’t happen, or the writer gets replaced by someone else who works for love & thus hasn’t analyzed the potential for disaster in their future. This happens to all of us at some point, because if you love writing, you sometimes forget it’s business.
Historically for me, I’ve often done things for free because I want to make the world better for women writers. I want our loud voices. It’s sometimes been hard for me to remember that the writer, in a creative group, is often the person who gets worked, and who never gets paid.
It’s hard to stop those feelings of I AM LUCKY JUST TO HAVE A VOICE - and replace them with I HAVE A VOICE I HAVE WORKED HARD TO DEVELOP, AND FOR THIS VOICE I DESERVE TO BE PAID. And I’m 20 + years into being a professional writer.
For writers at the beginning of their careers? Even harder. It’s a profession that looks to be constructed of normal, not special skills. People often believe anyone can do it. They will remind you that you are replaceable and that you don’t deserve to make a living.
They’ll remind you that you should be writing for love, not for money, and that if you’re writing for money, somehow, you’re a bad writer who isn’t making good art. This happens all the time. It is hard to shake it off. It causes writers to feel they do not deserve pay.
If you don’t take that reminder, people will often add an additional reminder. That your work isn’t perfect. And hey! It’s not! Whose is? No ones. And the things that are close to perfect? Required time. You know what time requires? Money.
The good thing about having done this for 20+ years is that I know that when I end up waiting a year for payment on a project I’ve done good work on, and the company meant to pay me acts like I’m crazy, welp, it’s not personal. It’s how writers get fucked over.
Peoplelearn that writers are the ones who have been taught that what they are selling is not a real product, that it is dreamy foam of some sort, and that it is not made of work. People learn to take advantage of the ways that writers, when anyone reads our work, feel lucky.
It is not luck, though. It is time. It is learning. It is deep thinking. It is shoulder muscles destroyed by typing, and it is raw fiery attempts to change the world. For me, writing is an attempt to change the way accepted mythology excuses hierarchical poliitcal injustice.
In other words, I spend all my time working my brain off, because I want to change the fucking world. It’s fun, yeah, but that doesn’t make it not work. It doesn’t make it a hobby. It doesn’t make it easy. It makes it my life.
It’s skilled labor. It’s work that should be paid. And yeah, I sometimes work for free, because I WANT to, because that’s how I get to change the world. But it should be my choice, not the choice of someone who thinks writers are lucky lazybones people.
All this is to say: pay your writers. We have to eat. We can’t make writing unless we do, & also, we deserve to have health insurance, (mine costs $1000 a month!) and babies if we want have babies (mine is going to be born in July!) and love, and beds. Because it is work.
When you tell me that I am lucky because I’ve published lots of books, and because I get to write what I want to write, and people know my name, I agree. I am lucky. I also write 12 hours a day, & when you hire me to write a thing and do not pay me, you ruin my ability to write.
Today’s rant is dedicated to a series of people who’ve not paid me in the last few years, to people who ask me to be their main entertainment for free, & to a culture that thinks people who love their work should not be paid to do it, but should just give it up.
Sometimes, as a writer, I want to put something into the world for free. It’s joyful. But much of the time, what needs to happen is that I make a thing & I sell it, and the money I earn pays for me to live and make more things. It is not different from other work.
End rant. For now. 🔥
Here are photos of the resident cat and creepy mannequin, doing a performance art piece I like to call “Pay Your Freelance Writers.” 
