Itisi

I chose this week’s video mostly because the title ties in with the theme of the following post.

Browsing through a few writerly blogs earlier today, I noticed people talking about being commissioned to write up to 20 articles in one day* and found the idea quite incredible. How can someone do that? I don’t just mean in practical, time management terms, I mean, how can someone call themselves a writer when they are simply cranking out articles by the dozen? Surely they are little more than human word processors, and no more writers than someone who fries burgers in McDonalds is a chef.

Writing is a craft; it involves skills which must be practiced and developed. It is not about mass production. Of course any literate person can write an article, but that does not make them a writer. Anyone can write a book, that doesn’t make them a writer either. To use an example: Tennessee Williams was a writer, Barbara Cartland wrote books.

I admit, I am not the most prolific writer and I suppose my opposition to bulk writing could be simply subconscious envy, but I don’t think it is. I strongly believe that what these people are doing is devaluing real writing; they are making it an instant commodity, no different to those aforementioned burgers. They call themselves writers but they really aren’t. Real writers labour long and hard over a single piece of work; real writing can rarely be cranked out in 20 minutes (although that can happen on good days); real writers write because they need to, not because they want to! And trust me, most who merely want to give up because it can be a horrible, thankless occupation. At it’s worst, it isn’t something any sane person would choose to do. It means long hours alone, almost pathological self-criticism and constant rejection. It involves taking your deepest, often darkest thoughts and exposing them to public scrutiny and possible ridicule. There’s a reason so many writers are a little bit mad; it’s because they’re writers.

I read this a little while ago, and one of the comments struck a chord because it described mindset of a writer so aptly:

“An author wakes up with a story burning in their mind and it never goes away, it is an obsession, absolute torture and the only way to relieve the pressure is to get it out of your head. If you aren’t like that then you’re a crappy writer, simple as that. Without passion there is nothing but words on a page, dull, boring words on a page.”

It is an obsession, it can be very much like a form of torture and you do need to have a passion for what you’re writing. I find it very hard to believe anyone wakes up with a burning desire to write a dozen blog posts about cheese, or that those posts are going to be anything but filler.

If you happen to be someone who makes a living this way, you may feel disgruntled. That’s fair enough, but I’m not going to apologise because you are debasing what I and countless others do. In fact not just what we do, but what we are. You are a content provider not a writer, so please stop calling yourself one.

* If you visit certain freelancing sites you will find plenty of similar jobs usually providing content for blogs that border on spam.

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