I Get Paid to Write Articles. Oh, God… This is My Life Now…
“And I hate writing. Because it’s what I do for a living and every day I get up from my cornflakes and go and sit at my typewriter and my hands clench into fists and I go cross-eyed staring at the blank paper — and I think — what a stupid way to earn a living. Why don’t I do something else? Only I’m useless at everything else so I just have to carry on with my writing.” — Cam Lawson, The Story of Tracy Beaker
If that’s not the most relatable quote for any writer, then I don’t know what is, especially in the situation I’m in right now!
In case you don’t know, I have a writing job. No, it’s not related to Medium.com, but it’s still a paying job nonetheless. And right now, I’m just… tired. I’m exhausted. In facts, words can’t describe how I’m currently feeling about my writing job right now.
For the past week, I’ve had to write about payday loans and why you personally should get them. And these articles weren’t short ones, either — they were supposed to be about 2,000 words longs. And I’m not supposed to put any informational in those articles — nothing but pure promotional material. Except…
Nobody really told me exactly how I was supposed to write the articles. So, naturally I had to do a couple of revisions. No problem — that’s part of a writer’s life. So, I did some revisions to the best of what the client wanted, and I thought that would be the end of it, right?
Nope. The client sent me some example articles of how I was supposed to write the articles, but here’s the biggest problem: I wasn’t supposed to do comparisons with other payday loan companies. I was supposed to promote just one payday company.
But here’s the bigger problem: The client never did tell me the name of the company I was supposed to promote. And, neither of the two articles were supposed to be the same. How am I supposed to make these articles 2,000 words long?!
I already felt like I wasn’t in my element while initially writing these two articles, but the amount of revisions I’ve had to do so far is ridiculous! A couple of days ago, I did a couple of revisions, and I thought that was going to be the end of it.
Nope! Apparently, there weren’t enough keywords in the articles even though that wasn’t even an initial requirement besides the one keyword. Keywords can be a bit of a pain, but half of the keywords the client’s wanted didn’t make any sense!
So, I finally snapped. I told the person who assigned the articles to me that I just wasn’t the right person for these articles and that I was sorry for wasting their time. Now, I don’t get paid much for writing these articles (about $8.00 per 1,000 words), but the articles over 2,000 would’ve been about $16.00.
It’s a shame, but these articles were getting me to the point where I was getting physically sick. I hope the person who’s assigned me these articles will understand.
Lately, I’ve been contacting Employment Support, and I’ve been trying to find jobs that are either near me or are remote (since I can’t drive at the moment). Since most writing jobs, including the one I currently have, don’t pay much, I was hoping I would end up with a suitable or “real” job.
But…what if I don’t end up like that? What if the only thing I’ll ever be good at is writing? What if I’m stuck writing articles about things I don’t care about for the rest of my life? What if I’m not even able to do that and I’ll have to end up on SSI (which, by the way, pays less than $1,000 a month)?
I’ve had dreams of becoming a successful author or a successful comic book writer, but what if those dreams never come true? What if this is it for me? Marketing is hard enough on its own, but it gets even worse when autism is involved. The same can be said for finding employment.
I’ve been rambling on and on about my woes because I’ve promised myself to be consistent and upload three articles here a month and also because I just don’t want to do those stupid revisions again. But the way my writing job has been going for the past week has made me too tired and too unmotivated to write a single word.
If these stupid revisions continue into the next week or two, don’t be too surprised if I end up not uploading anything. I’ve always heard the advice of not turning your passions into your day jobs, and I can finally see why that’s the case. Your hobbies are supposed to be a way of escaping the real world like work. They’re not supposed to be your work.
Hopefully, I’m able to find a real job that pays much more than my current one so that I can finally enjoy writing again! Or maybe… maybe I could end up becoming a successful author or comic book writer. But those are just dreams, am I right? Still, it can’t hurt to dream just a little bit.
