What it's worth

I tend to keep an eye on Oklahoma authors.  I like to see what they're writing.  See the new releases. Things of this nature.

One of my FB friends follows Gena Showalter.  And I thought she put out an AMAZING post that my friend liked.

To sum up, apparently she had been receiving a plethora of displeased emails from fans because her newest release would be hardback.  Instead of backing down, God bless her, she doubled down.  It was a wonderful post stating that she had worked her ass off for five years before being published.  That she continued to work on her craft.  That she was intensely PROUD of the fact that this newest offering would be in hardback.

I may have stood up and cheered.

Because that's the thing, isn't it?

Those of us with artistic bents are expected to nearly give away our offerings.  Painters, writers, dealers in the abstract making it concrete.

It's horseshit.

I'm pretty sure that no one, other than the above, realizes exactly how much time is put INTO our work.  There's not a per hour wage.  There's not usually a set fee for work.  It fluctuates.  

And it's as important as teaching or plumbing or driving truck.

Because it's OUR craft.

When I first began to write, I couldn't believe how many people wanted me to simply give them the stories.  Just email it to them like I hadn't birthed and slaved and bled over each page.  

Like my work was less than.

Fuck a bunch of that.

Simply because my work is a titch different, that doesn't make it free to whoever wants it.  Could you imagine?  Going to a car lot and picking one out and simply driving it away?  No money for those who put the vehicle together and hundreds of man hours for nothing???

It's the same damn thing.

I research.  I write.  I edit.  I pick apart and put together.  I will not apologize for charging for my stories because it's my WORK.

It's my heart, but it's also my job.

So before you pop off with some nonsense about writing being easy, or start making noise about a "real job", I strongly suggest you put that in check.

Before someone does it for you.

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