This is not to say, “get paid to write”. I’ve done that for almost all of my professional career, churn out copy for other people who couldn’t otherwise express themselves. For me, it was like breaking rocks. Phrases would come out in convoluted chunks because they were not my words; the ideas were partly mine and partly prefabricated, and you had to force words until they fit and looked pretty. When you write like that for long enough, you lose your voice.
I want to see if my voice is something other people want to hear, if I can say something that comes from the darkest corners of my soul and have even one person say, “Hey, I’ve felt just like that. Thank you for saying it.”
I want to come up with an idea and form words of my own around it, until it looks pretty to me, and echoes all the very different voices swimming in my head…show it to someone who will say, “Yes, you must share this, the world is waiting.”
I’m working on an assignment for a women’s magazine that will take the next three months to complete: a story I pitched that wasn’t already in their table of contents. The editor was thrilled. It was my idea, and she was thrilled.
So off I go to work on a travel piece, to three places of my choosing. We’ve not discussed price yet; because it doesn’t matter. What’s important is it’s my piece and my voice. That’s enough payback for now.
