The Life of a Literary Prostitute

I've been a writer since I can remember, but I've always disliked reading. Although I read more now than I used to, it still isn't more than a chapter a week. I couldn't begin to tell you what a pronoun or adjective is because I don't know. Yet, I've always kept a journal and the only compliments I did receive during my hellish failings as a public school student were concerning my writing abilities. I'm intuitively good at it and I don't need to read or be taught - I'm like those musicians that play by ear, but can't read music. They feel the vibe and fall into the groove because the music is in their soul. Well, the words flow the same way for me. However, I never thought that I would be the literary whore I am today. I never thought I would be a falsely flashy composer of wit and cunning, but that's what happens if you want to make money writing. Successful writing isn't about intelligence. As I soon found out, writing is just another soulless market.

Even as a young 21-year old it is difficult for me to remember why I wanted to be a moneymaking writer in the first place. I figure I was like many aspiring writers. It was the image of a writer that interested me. I wanted to be the vastly misunderstood genius sucking down cigarettes with scotch in hand in front of a typewriter; ticking, tapping. I wanted to be the romantic recluse composing world-changing messages to the whole of the global community. I wanted to be the stereotypical quirky and somewhat dispositional composer whose unparalleled views stabbed straight into the heart of the reader.

I could picture myself in a studio apartment located within the dreariest bone-chilling part of some city like Chicago writing by the open window - jazz music screaming throughout the sectored city streets, bouncing off the brick and mortar walls, making its way into my sultry solace where the melancholy sax sound melded with the rhythm of the keys and scratch of the pen. I could picture myself at a lonely corner-side café guzzling down wine while scribbling ideas into a moleskin notebook behind cigarette smoke and aviator sunglasses.

Just thinking about it makes my ears resound with a painfully pleasurable deep-south blues tempo. Yeah, I know better now.

I've become a whore - a literary prostitute. Gone are my dreams of the proverbial intellectual vagrant. Although I've managed to secure the chain-smoking, scotch guzzling aspect of writing, I've lost the genius without ever finding it in the first place.

To really make money writing you have to jump through fire hoops and compose for the never-ending demographics and statistics. Basically, if you want to make money writing then you have to write for idiots because that's the majority and the majority pays. The majority doesn't want to think. The majority just wants another 101 ways to have better sex or top 10 ways to score a hunk or top 50 luxury resorts. The majority just wants the same old shit, and us grimy, demographic enslaved literary prostitutes deliver the deadline every time.

Demographic Need Not Apply

I had no writing portfolio, I had no education and I had no experience. All I knew is that I couldn't hold a job, I hated being nice to people all the time and I wanted to work in the comfort of my own home. Therefore, writing was my only option.

I read as many articles and books about how to make money writing as I could, but none of it helped. So, instead of worrying too much about it I just started contacting publications. Most of my afternoons were spent on Craigslist.org looking at all the latest postings for writers/editors. I only responded to the ones that paid, and even though I had no portfolio or resume, it didn't matter. I simply looked at what the publication wanted and then whipped up an article to fit the style. I would send the article along with a brief description. Within 3 months of this I finally landed my first publishing gig for a regional magazine based out of Savannah, Georgia.

The editor and publisher figured I was experienced and they figured the article example I sent them was published. Of course, none of this was true, but if they weren't going to ask then I wasn't going to tell.

I was 19-years old at the time. They liked my style and wanted me to cover a restaurant in Brunswick, Georgia and write for a new column idea they had called "The Bar Exam" where I would cover bars. They did not know that I was under-aged, and I did not tell them. After all, I had plenty of experience drinking in bars - I was crafty like that.

I traveled four hours down to Savannah in my old van ready to write about the real Savannah, the wonderfully eccentric and elaborately shabby Savannah I knew like the back of my hand. I drank in the bars and honestly wrote about the crowd, the vibe, the feel. I did the same thing with the restaurant. After sending the stories in and receiving my cheque, I couldn't wait to see what I had written published in a glossy, new magazine. I was drooling to hold it in my hands. I quickly learned that it wasn't going to be that easy.

You see… there are these things called editors and publishers. If that isn't bad enough, there are these numbers and stats called demographics. The magazine I had just written for had a demographic of middle-aged readers that made $100,000 or more per-year. The demographic was primarily made up of old Savannah natives who drove nice cars, drank expensive wine and shunned black people. This meant that my true unadulterated commentary on the Savannah bar scene and description of the delightfully junky restaurant in Brunswick, Georgia wasn't going to cut it. Nope, the demographic would be offended!

It was right then and there that my thought of what a writer is died. I had to re-write my articles and use words like "eclectic", "quixotic", "fabulous", "wonderful" and so on. Basically, I had to write a lot of boring bullshit that wasn't true in the least, just so I could make a lot of old-white southern brats happy.

That's the way it is. To be a successful writer you have to be a prostitute - a whore. There is no glamour. Writing isn't about truth, opinion and knowledge. It isn't about telling the truth and it isn't about being real. It's about being fake, false and it's about being a product.

I learned that you have to protect the publications from angry people. Writers have to be soft-nosed little girls. Writers can only write things that no one will be offended by. If people get offended, then they could sue, they could stop reading, they could stage protests. Therefore, only write what people want to hear and only write for the demographic.

No, you won't make money writing for an intelligent demographic, not the kind you are probably thinking of anyway. If you're the kind of writer that wants to be intelligent and opinionated then you'll end up writing for some alternative publication with no circulation and no pay. That is the way it is, and yes - it is sad.

I was eventually fired from my first writing position because it was discovered that I was underage. It was nothing personal, I was told. They just didn't want to get sued if someone found out I was 19 and writing about bars in Savannah. All this according to the lawyer, and I can understand.

Sucked Into "The Life"

It's almost impossible to find security as a writer, especially as a freelance writer. At every turn, every bend, you are constantly thinking about a new way to make money writing. That's when you really delve into the depths of literary prostitution. Writing is no longer about writing itself. Writing becomes a way to make money and the only way to make money writing is to constantly think of a new way to find a niche market.

The key is to constantly be up on the beat. I soon found out that I could write just about anything - politics, music, lifestyle, reviews, column, opinion, whatever. If it paid, I could do it. If I went to a restaurant then I couldn't stop thinking about how to turn it into a review that a decent paying publication would want to publish. If I heard a new band or went to a show, then I would turn it into a flashy piece for a local music publication. Even if I didn't know about the subject I was writing on, then all I had to do was find out the demographic and tweak it to fit the interests. I might as well have been giving blowjobs, 10-minute fucks and happy endings. In my mind, there isn't much of a difference other than the whole fluid-exchange thing.

I began writing SEO articles for companies on the Internet. I promoted the sale of credit cards, ring tones, vitamin supplements, video games, and hotels in countries I had never been to. When you read descriptions of products for sale on the Internet and when you are drawn to websites due to the descriptions then literary prostitutes like me wrote them.

Making money as a writer wasn't the glamorous or romantic thing I thought it would be. I've been sucked into "The Life" and am now bound by the constant need to sacrifice intelligence and ingenuity for perpetual never-changing pros that all sound the same - like dribble.

Most people make jokes about strippers or prostitutes either because of personal experience or indirect experience. A lot of jokes center on how, when performing a sexual act, a stripper or prostitute will wear a blank face. Well, I know why. It's because they've done the same thing over and over again to hundreds of individuals. It's the same thing when being a freelance writer. You fall into a style of writing that is the same every time, and you write this way for everyone and you write it with no joy. Yet, because you have mastered the lingo everyone thinks you're being witty.

Writing Will Always be a Product

For a while I thought that my hate for magazine writing and advertising writing was just something I would have to deal with until I got to the point where I could write what I REALLY wanted to write. Thinking this way won't help, either. It just isn't true.

Whether you're writing a fiction novel, a searing political column, a heartfelt blog or an inspirational true-life autobiography about your experience as a UN worker in the high Himalayas - all of it will have to appeal to a market. You will always battle editors, you will always battle agents, and you will always battle the conformity of the statistical demographic. This will effectively suck the life out of you, if you let it. And I'm not one to talk, I battle day in and day out trying to keep my mind on the bright side because I know that I can't ever really write what I want to and make a living off of it at the same time. I will always have to tweak it and whore it out as a product and not a stream of intelligence or virtue. If you want to be THAT kind of writer, then you're braver than I. If you want to be that kind of writer you better be prepared to starve, live in filth and wear rags; however, you might just keep your soul.

The good aspects of being a literary prostitute are that I do get to work at home, even though I am always struggling. I do get to write with a certain degree of individuality and I still love it when people compliment me. Even though my writing is a product with a variable retail value, I still take pride in the fact that I can slip in wisdom, intellect and philosophy that may or may not change just a few people. Maybe the planted sentences will just jump out of the page at the right person.

The only way this will change, the only way we will ever be able to make money comfortably as writers while still retaining our morals, souls and dignity is if the demographics change. Yet, humans will usually remain the same and the demographic will always want to read articles that do not challenge their minds.

I do have a slight faith that we as writers can force change. I believe that perhaps, just perhaps, we as writers can change the demographic. Perhaps the alternative publications that carry the writings of some of the best and most honest soul-filled writers that the world will never know could actually become the major sellers. And I pride myself on the possibility that, after I establish some kind of name for myself, I will be able to write for these lower publications for the sheer joy of it. Maybe that will put them on the spot.

Until then, I can only keep on being the literary prostitute that I am. Until then I can only keep hoping that I will one day be able to write what I want to write. But, I'll tell you now - if you want to be a writer, don't.

I want to destroy your aspirations and destroy your views if you are considering being a real writer. Because, if you are, then you don't know what's in store and you'll loose your soul. However, if after reading this you still want to be a writer, then you're the writer the world needs and you've got that classic moxy. Perhaps, if you're that kind of writer, you can keep your soul and eat at the same time.

FROM -- www.William-Mac.com