Writing for Love or Money?

“Writing is like prostitution.  First you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for money.” —Molière

Since I first began publishing my pieces, I’ve struggled with this idea of writing for money.  Why, as Moliere suggests, should writers be prostituting themselves if they write for money, but a doctor isn’t if he charges patients for treating them, or a lawyer for advocating, things they’re trained and skilled to do?  I can’t answer for Moliere. I’m sure there were complex reasons as to why he felt this, many of them connected to his times, economics, and philosophy on life.  But I can try to tease out an answer for myself.

When I read this quote, I must say I felt a certain twinge, as if I may be doing something damaging to myself, exploiting myself, misusing a talent, something I’ve considered before.  Unfortunately, the kind of writing I get the most from emotionally can’t support me—poetry and fiction.  In these areas, I feel if money is the main motivation, then I’m not going to write as I need to. I’ll primarily be writing for an audience, not for what needs to be explored or said in writing.  But will I be violating myself if I’m writing non-fiction, material that might put something back in my pocketbook?

The word prostitution seems key here.  Most of us think of a prostitute as someone who sells her/his body for money—who uses something intimate and vulnerable in order to live.  What relationship does the body have, though, to writing, to words?  Beckett may have the answer.  He says, “Words are all we have.”   Similarly, in a way, our bodies are all we have, though I’m not sure we even have them, and words are as connected to us, to our souls, if I can use that term, as our flesh is to skeletons.  Words not only are all we have but, as Orwell understood so well, language forms us—informs us.

Does prostitution need to always have a negative connotation?  Couldn’t one have sex for money not just to exploit the body but to share it, to get close to another’s body, to have something vital to give, and this may be the only way to give it?  (I’m thinking of Moll Flanders, that wonderful 18th Century character, a prostitute if you like, but what a prostitute!)

Or maybe what Moliere means is that like a prostitute, a writer has something to give that is intimately related to him/her self.  The problem might arise in our attitude to our body or ourselves and our customers.   If we are doing it, sex or writing, only to exploit, only for money, then the behavior could be damaging.  But if we approach this process consciously, we might not only do our best work, we also may stay truer to ourselves.   It needn’t be an either/or proposition, as Moliere makes it sound, but both/and—not love or money, but love and money.

When I first started reading Writer’s Market years ago, looking for potential buyers, I would ask myself, “What can I write for this publisher?”  Later I realized that this was the wrong approach to take. When I talked to my University of San Francisco expository writing students about assignments, I told them, “Write about what moves you.  Always try to find a way into a topic by finding where you can connect to it personally, emotionally.  Otherwise, you’ll be writing from a disinterested place in yourself, contributing to the growing body of writing that’s mechanical, that doesn’t have heart or soul.”

By trying to force myself to write to a market just to make money, rather than the other way around (choosing a market because I happen to either have things I’ve written that would fit it, or I have things I want to write that apply), I would be prostituting myself.  I view most writing as an art, and I don’t want to fall victim to the tremendous commercialization that already has invaded our culture, turning everything into a commodity.

However, I believe it’s possible to make money from writing and also keep our integrity. Still, it’s important not to exploit oneself or others. Writing just to fulfill an assignment, whether as a student or professional writer, does something to our relationship with language which comes from a deeper part of ourselves.  Similarly, those doctors and attorneys who work only for profit and not to satisfy their own intrinsic need to heal or to advocate are in danger of doing the same thing.

Now when I go through Writer’s Market, my approach is different. So is my attitude.   I don’t try to fit myself, like a round peg in a square hole, into markets that don’t suit me and my interests.  Rather, I explore in the same way I browse in a thrift shop, looking for that one beautiful item that someone has thrown away, the article (or assignment) that will only fit me.