Why am I Doing this Again?

I was lamenting to my husband awhile back over the length of time it had taken me to finish a large, complicated feature story, and he observed that I seemed to have been incredibly stressed out by this story almost since I started reporting it five months earlier.

Yes, I agreed. I had been incredibly stressed.

And, he went on, you’ve spent an incredible amount of time on this story.

Yes, that was also true.

And, he asked, in his measured way, how much are they paying you again?

I told him I’d rather not dwell on the economics of this transaction, as they would surely depress me further. Because the economics of writing never pencil out! Everybody knows that!

Rather than ponder that ghastly calculus, I launched, unprompted, into a lengthy defense of my decision to take on and report and write this story.

I explained why the topic was so important, and how it hadn’t gotten the bird’s eye treatment it deserved in local media, perhaps owing to its complexity.

I explained that I wanted to do justice to the people affected by the issue and some of whose personal stories would be woven into the feature.

I explained that I wanted to make it really, really good, because I thought it might be worthy of submitting to a few competitions.

And another thing, I went on: I’d asked for it. Because every huge feature story goes this way.  

You love it and you loathe it in turn as the act of its creation plays out. You feel protective of the story you are chasing, and you also want it to leave you the fuck alone, to get out of your dreams and your head, to just let you be.

The logistics are too stressful and the work takes too long (especially when divided by the pay, and OH MY GOD THE PAY) and the topic is too unwieldy, and even when you finish, it’s only because time ran out and not because you actually finished.

By then, I’d exhausted myself, and the conversation with my husband shifted to other less-freighted topics.

But his questions were good and fair ones.

Why do I keep doing this?

I don’t persevorate over it, but when I take personal inventory of everything I’ve given up in order to pursue writing — all the money, the time, all the other easier and more profitable things I could have been doing — I can’t help but wonder.

Why continue to bother, when the rewards are so modest?

I think, for me, it all comes back to a kind of faith.

Which sounds so flighty and ineffable and even dogmatic, but, really, it’s the exact opposite: By faith I mean trusting that if I chase truth and meaning, I will invariably move in a good orderly direction.  

Trusting, too, that after all this time and practice, I have the skill to pull this writing thing off and am not merely burning daylight.

Trusting that if only I keep paying careful attention, watching for signs, learning from my elders, following my creative impulses, asking smart questions, and making time for my creative work, the right way forward will continue to reveal itself to me, little by little.

By faith I mean believing that I don’t need to know exactly where I’m going or precisely why, so long as I’ve got good shoes and a good compass and the will to move forward by sheer feel.

By faith I mean my ability to believe in my work and in myself, regardless of what’s in my bank account or how little I earned when you divide what I was paid for that story by the hundreds of hours I spent on it.

By faith I mean, too, honoring the fact that the stories I write are liable to annoy me greatly at times.

If you decide to write and report long, complicated things, too, you are bound to wish, at least once, that your big story would just go the hell away.

If things get really serious, you might even consider moving to a new town and assuming a new identity and beginning a brand new life just so you can quit without the editor who assigned the story standing any chance of ever finding you to ask where the hell your draft is.  

At the very least, you’ll probably swear once or twice that you are never, ever taking on assignment like this again.

I know I do that. Lots.

When that moment of lamentation comes, here’s what I suggest: don’t run through the financials or logistics of complicated writing projects; they won’t add up, and you’ll feel sad.  

Friends of friends occasionally write me to ask how they can start freelance writing, because they want to bring in money while on maternity (or paternity) leave, or because they are sick of the 9-5 grind, or because whatever.

And I’ll tell you the same thing I tell them: if you are looking for a straightforward way to earn decent money in your free time from home … RUN! This is absolutely the wrong profession for any of that, unless you want to work in copywriting/advertising. (This kind of advice is probably why I am not an in-demand writing coach, but so be it: I refuse to lie about the financial prospects of writing work.)

But, see, writing isn’t a rational choice; it’s an emotional one.

What you’ve given up to do this is easy to pin down: all those late nights and early mornings and passed-up opportunities for more reasonable and respectable life paths.

But what you gain? That’s subtler, and vastly more gratifying.

It’s a sheer-joy-of-the-thing kinda thing. It’s a sure sense that you are in just the right place, career-wise, and on your way to an even better place, even if your shoes and pockets have holes in them. You just have to keep trudging.

So take breaks when you can, swear angry oaths over your works-in-progress when you must, and above all, keep the faith; this path is bound to lead us somewhere immensely interesting.