How long can you write without earning a dime?

10 Feb, 2024

Everybody is a writer these days because basic education has provided us with the tools to express our thoughts and the internet has provided us with the platforms. Anybody who writes is a writer just like anybody who clicks a photograph of a sunset and posts it on Instagram is a photographer.

Anybody can create content for a while as long as there’s a motivation for recognition or payment. What if you keep writing your thoughts that are filled with interesting anecdotes, personal stories, and a lifetime of insights and yet there’s no one to read those? What if your serious work is met by casual “clap” here or “like” somewhere else? This is a real stress test for any artist including a writer.

Would you continue to write a hundred essays if there’s no one to read it? Experts would say that if you post consistently you will end up with followers and readers. That’s a rosy picture. It might or might not happen and that’s a good motivation to begin with. What if it doesn’t happen? Will the quality of your essay drop?

I like to call my write-ups essays instead of blogs or stories.

To me, the quality of any essay is as important as the moment in which I formulated the thought. The emotion behind the essay makes the essay what it is. There are some essays where I am investigating my line of thought or investigating an entire topic. There are some essays where I am only ranting. Then there are essays like this one where I am pondering and sharing at the same time.

The quality of each of my essays is an output of my emotions. Emotions are seldom logical but provide me with fuel to go on with the essay. It comes out as raw, unfiltered but authentic. Then I add structure to my ranting to make it readable. If there’s no one to read what I write, will I go on? Would I want to go on?

The short answer is YES. I will go on writing them because for me the writing doesn’t emanate from the hope of making money, it’s a direct output of my emotions. I am always going to feel something. I am always going to be mad at something. I am always going to learn something. There are habits in my lifestyle that enable me to do so.

There are two fundamental rules in my life — I read a lot and I write a lot.

I would love to make money out of my blogging and even when I make enough money from blogging, I wouldn’t change my style.

My curiosity is my content factory and my emotion is my authenticity.

As long as I have these two I know I am never going to stop. Platforms might change, my audience might come or not, but my writing will go on.

One of the things that I feel money can change in my writing is discipline. I would certainly be more disciplined with my output. I have been blogging since the early days of blogging. It’s sad that I have never stayed committed to one platform or followed a routine. The audience-building never entered my mind.

My writing has begun from the incessant urge to rant. I was writing on my blog on Blogspot and then WordPress where I had no audience at all. I was sending my blog posts into the void and I loved it. It was therapeutic. I was screaming to the world while maintaining privacy. Screaming because I was publishing my rantings to the world, privacy because no one was there to read it. They could read and discover my true personality but I know they wouldn’t. Going viral was an alien concept in those days.

To answer the question in the headline, yes I can continue to write without making any money because that’s what I have done till now. I haven’t made a single penny from my writing. I wrote two books and combined they sold 20 copies. Despite this, I have an outline ready for my third book. I have an outline for two more short stories. You can call me an optimist or you can call me an idiot. I preferred to be called a writer.

If you are someone like me who loves the craft of writing, take the advice from a successful “broke writer”. Write and publish every day. I am not sure whether you will build an audience but it will be therapeutic. You will be calmer. Write like you have a massive audience, publish as if no one’s going to read it.

Write for the craft and the art, not for the applause.