A means to an end?

Writing has completely changed my life. In fact, it has changed what I thought was even possible. 

No, this is not a sales pitch or a pyramid scheme. This is my observation from just shy of a decade of writing for money. And I’m going to be honest: the first few months after I walked away from my job (going on three years ago now), I hated it. I hated writing. Knowing that it was all I had between myself and poverty or crawling back to the job market, I despised it. 

Road trippin’

Things were starting to look bleak. The contracts I was counting on to pay out when I resigned had all fizzled. They had promised what I thought was good money at the time, and then each of them slipped away. It was rough. We were basically living on what little money we had stashed away and the income my wife brought in from her MLM gig. It was enough to get by, but we were pretty strapped. 

One thing we owned (we still own one) was an RV trailer. At the time, we started to wonder if maybe full-timing in the RV would be an answer to our problem. So we struck out in it, headed for Texas and ultimately Padre Island.

Our mortgage was on hold with one of those COVID-era bailout programs, so all we had to do was buy gas, food, and campsites. Let me tell you, seven people and three dogs crammed into a 34’ camper gets crowded after a month. 

See, I had been eyeing this as an easy button: it wouldn’t be too expensive to live on the road. Our truck was older and cheap, and the camper was cheap as well. Instead of hitting my problems head-on, I was coping and trying to find an easy way out. 

Long story short, we got back home after almost a month in Texas, thankful to be free of that I-35 traffic. And I realized that it was time to buckle down and start taking this writing thing seriously. So I did. And as if by magic, my fortunes turned around almost overnight.  

Is it a means to an end?

It’s wild, but after I started taking writing seriously for money, I also let it start to work on me. I started to focus on the craft rather than seeing it just as a cash-cow (although it certainly can be that, too). 

So, no, writing is no longer just a means to an end. It is the ultimate craft. If aligns your thoughts. It expands the limits of what you thought you knew, or thought you could do. And it provides an excellent, secure income. 

I talk a lot about SEO, but here’s the rub: the written word has been around a whole lot longer than SEO, SEM, websites, and all of the modern conveyances. When those have all been destroyed and long forgotten, the written word will live on. This is why even Google stresses quality content over quantity or hyper-focusing on the digital component. 

No, writing is not just a means to an end. 

Talk to you guys tomorrow, 

-John