The husband and I recently had a discussion that bordered an argument about money and time and taking care of our family.
I have known for a while about my job ending, but I’ve been dragging my heels in looking for something to replace my income, not just because I am nearly nine months pregnant but also because the only thing I really want to do is write.
It’s the only thing I’ve wanted to do since I was a little girl, and I’ve tried the journalism side and the business side and the marketing side, but the only side that really quickened my heart was the creative side.
It’s not the kind of writing that makes a whole lot of money.
These last few years I’ve built in time to do it, because I finally realized that without scheduled writing time, I will explode.
I will fall to pieces.
So when my husband mentioned that he might need some of the time I’ve reserved for my dream to pursue his own work and provide an income for his family, I pulled back.
I started thinking of all the ways I could make money at what I do, so I didn’t have to give up any of that sacred time, but a hand pressured to make money is a hand that cannot write what the heart wants to write.
Pressure to make money can tie our creativity in knots.
We start thinking about how mysteries are still so popular up there on the New York Times bestseller list, and maybe we could write one of those. We start thinking about how dystopian fantasies are often turned into movies and the authors go from nobodies to celebrities in no time at all, and maybe we should try our hand at a story like that.
We start thinking that what we have to share isn’t good enough to pursue, because it would never make a bestseller list or share its beauty on the big screen or roll in six-figure advances.
For me, there is a reality of five, going on six, kids and the lump sum it takes to feed them every month and the mortgage we have to make so they have a roof over their heads and all those bills in between.
But I want to write what’s in my soul.
How does a creator find balance between creating what they want and making money enough to feed their family?
I don’t think this is an easy, one-size-fits-all answer. I really don’t.
What I have learned in my years writing is that I have to create what I have been made to create. And sometimes that means getting another, less desirable, writing job, because what we have been made to create is poetry or literary fiction or narrative nonfiction, and none of that pulls in a whole lot of money.
If I want to keep creating what my heart tells me is necessary to create, it’s worth it for me to meet my needs some other way, with some other flexible job, temporarily or for forever, whatever it may be.
The money crucible is not a great place to be in the creative world. We cannot create well when we are constantly worried about whether or not it will sell or would people even like it or how much money might it make.
Pressure clamps those shackles around our ankles, and we can’t fly straight or high because of them. Sometimes we can’t even get off the ground.
We create best when we are free from pressure.
That doesn’t mean we don’t do our part and pursue publication (if that’s what we want) or walk toward self-publishing (if that’s what we want), but we cannot write our stories and essays with money and people’s opinions and saleability on our mind. We’re not being true to ourselves here.
And if I know anything at all about creativity, it is that we must be true to ourselves.
It’s the only way to satisfy a dream.
What is your relationship to money as a creative person? What do you do to take care of bills and still create what your heart wants to create? Do you dream and create with money in mind, or do you try to stick as far away from that as possible?
