Some years back, one of the members of my critique group
quit. She not only quit our group; she quit writing.
Her parting words to us were unambiguous. “Never have I spent
so many hours for so little monetary compensation. Time to do something where I
reap the righteous rewards for my labor.”
On the one hand, there’s no denying that even at minimum
wage, almost all writers would reap better monetary rewards spending work hours
doing something else.
On the other hand, SAY WHAT???
Mind you, this member was an energetic and insightful
feedback giver, and her writing was also lively and polished. I thought highly
of her as a group member and felt that if she persisted, she was more likely to
be published than most of us.
But she looked at it differently. She looked at writing and
writing related (like being in a critique group) as hours spent at a
job. In her fortunate case, financial hardship was not in the mix.
She had had better paying jobs before, so she was moving on.
Of course, this was our loss. She was a valued colleague.
But I felt it was primarily her loss because she had missed the whole sailboat that
is the creative life.
Living in creativity is not about financial compensation. If
it were, humanity’s art makers would instantly shrink to one thousandth the
current participants.
People who create, whether stories, music, paintings or recipes— are wedded to being more fully alive. That’s the real deal, or the “compensation.” Being paid is nice and, for the few who get to buy mansions from creative work, it’s very nice. But, for most who create, it's about getting to live in our mansions of vivid and rich imaginations.
This is a work of love, and if it isn’t, indeed one is
better finding out what else is there that could be.