11th July 2016 | for Creatives | artist integrity, the successful artist, writing, reaching your audience, value the art, Lola Augustine Brown |
"Act like a pro and charge money for your words or build your audience on social media where the only one profiting from your awesomeness is you, not some super-wealthy media mogul that's too cheap to pay writers."
"You don't need to line someone else's pockets to show off your writing skills. It's easy enough to set up your own blog and display your talents there or to write carefully crafted pitches that make editors want to assign you stories even if you are a newbie. (That's how I got my start.)"
"None of these excuses are valid. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. They don't pass the plumber test: Would a plumber say this and not be laughed out of the room? You're a professional. Professionals do not work for free. Period."
"If you do care about having a go at this writing thing as a proper career, do not write for exposure. Exposure cannot be measured, and you might as well write for any number of invisible things: the dreams of sleeping kittens, perhaps, or mystical unicorn turds. You should always be getting something measurable for your writing."
"People die of exposure. As prestigious as you may think writing for certain websites may be, most editors know exactly what websites are legit and pay their writers. They know you likely gave it away for free—which is definitely not how the pros conduct themselves."
"As an artist, you want as many people to see your work as possible with no compromise. .... I don't want to .... have it watered down, and follow a soap opera, and have all the edges filed down and have someone interfere. .... Delivering the exact thing that I made ... that's so important to me, you know, that's, I said, the ideal of the most beautiful and purest thing. And it's how little it can be ruined from your brain to the observer. And that's the way you do everything yourself, really, because, you know, I've probably only produced and directed to protect my writing, the idea, you know?"
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