Motivation

[Peg Herring]

I was surprised not too long ago to get a call from an acquaintance with a problem. As we had talked over the years about writing, he'd told me he had several manuscripts in a drawer somewhere that he'd written as a younger man. He was interested in my quest for publication but maintained that he was too busy with work and family to try it himself. But when the news came that his job would disappear within a few months, he contacted me to ask about getting an agent. It seems he considered publishing his work as a viable replacement for his $60,000/year salary. I encouraged him, as gently as possible, to get a day job first, and then see if he still wanted an agent.

I guess my surprise at the man's ingenuousness stems from the fact that it's been such a long time since I considered publishing as a way to make money that the idea sounds downright silly. I'm not sure I ever approached it that way, but if I did I was quickly disabused of the notion. Motivation for writing can't be to make money because the overwhelming odds are that you won't.

We write because we have to. We write because the computer or typewriter or pad of paper insists that we come to it and do what we do. But if you're counting on advance money to make next month's rent, I think they're hiring at Pizza Hut right now.