Who Pays Writers?

Mark Rothko, Orange and Yellow (1956)

I keep seeing links to this site popping up in my twitter feed. Who Pays Writers? offers writers a chance to anonymously post what websites pay them for pieces, "intended to be informational, not judgmental." In addition to this, we have two points of view of a person who chooses to write for free and that of one who never does. And at the same time, we have two profiles of a day in the life of a freelance journalist in 2013 as well a day in the life of a digital editor at the Atlantic. Finally, an online conversation has been evolving between various people in charge of writer pay rates at well known websites (the Awl, Boing Boing, the Observer, the Atlantic, etc.) and a general discussion of how much a writer should get paid.

As someone with an interest in writing but with no educational background in any form of it (creative or journalistic), I recognize I am already a step behind every other person I have to compete with in either of these fields. I have few connections to people that can support, cultivate, motivate, edit, whatever to my work. Essentially, this is why I have to write for free. Perhaps it is naive on my part, maybe I really am the greatest fucking writer ever and I'm making a huge mistake by not putting myself out there and depriving the world of my unique perspective and keen social wit. Unfortunately, I have little to no ego, so I'm going to assume this is not the case. 

The thing is, I don't really have a problem writing for free right now. I try not to spread myself all over. I could probably have been on a bunch of online publications by now, but I have chosen to stick by a certain few, developing more of a relationship with my editors and fellow writers, instead of jumping from unknown site to unknown site. I think of "Better know nothing than half-know many things" and Badiou's philosophy of commitment and fidelity. 

Perhaps I'm also more patient than I realize. I have time to "make it" as a writer. I have time to go back to school to get a graduate degree. For right now I can work a part-time job that allows me to live in a city that I love, to attend cultural events, to work these writing gigs that aren't entirely without their perks, to take time off to travel, to expand my life experiences before I devote myself entirely to the written/typed word.

I'm also allowed more time before the inevitbale reality of repeated rejection. Right now I am a blank slate, free to explore any silly little ideas that creep into my mind, without a history to remain consistent with (not that I have ever worried about that; "with consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do;" not that I believe in a soul; sorry, tangent).

There is no question that we live in a time where there is more written content than ever before, more writers, and more people that think they're writers. I am currently reading A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, and she quotes Milan Kundera from Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1980): "Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time isn't far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding." That was written in Nineteen-Fucking-Eighty. How prophetic. I want to attain that ability to be so perceptive. Which is part of why I continue to read more than I write. Essentially, I only write in order to read more. Which is why I propose this: somebody pay me to read. It would be much more preferable to writing. I wouldn't have to get into that whole messy business of revealing who I am to the world, exposing my innermost skeletons and shedding light on the darkness that the world inevitably creates in every single human being. I could just read! I wouldn't even need to be paid that much. So let's stop worrying about how much to pay you writers and start worrying how much to pay me, your reader.