Writer Quotes.

“The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.” -Karl Marx

I didn’t want to fall back on this, but, when I’m in a long stretch of a lot of other work and haven’t been able to focus on my writing or writing related things, there will probably be a writer quote, followed by me talking about it and what I think about it, as if people might actually care. Today’s the first of those days. There might be more ahead; I’ve got a crazy busy week, and none of it is writing related, unfortunately, which is why I chose the Karl Marx quotes.

I am currently working two jobs in retail, both in the same shopping center, and both with hardly enough hours, but, for some reason, those hours always seem to be arranged to suck away the best part of my writing days and leave me too braindead (or disheartened) at the end of it all to really work on anything. Part of me is wondering if I should try to push myself to be an evening, night owl writer again, although this morning business hasn’t been too bad of a start yet.

But the point is that I will probably always be working these jobs, because a person who expects to earn a lot of money with writing is more often than not delusional. It’s possible, of course. We all have our dreams of pulling a J.K. Rowling, where you’re writing something you’re passionate about, it hits the market at the right time, in the right place, and it becomes a sensation. But it’s unlikely. And to strive for that, as Marx says, will not produce writing in the form of art, in the form of brilliance, in the form of literature.

Entertainment, sure, but not literature. Not that I haven’t considered churning out a few Harlequin-esque romances just to see if that might be something good to bolster up my finances a little.

I also wonder what Marx might say about a writer who’s in it to collect the fans, if not necessarily the money. Because I know that’s what I’m pretty guilty of. Bring me fangirls! Bring me bad fanfiction! Bring me Internet fandom! That’s probably my biggest writing sin, and I have to remind myself: how are you going to have anything if you’re not actually writing anything?