It’s been almost five years now and yet, I still find myself keeping tabs on journalist jobs.
“Want to move to Phuket?” I said to Ming the other day. Yesterday I asked him if he’d like to spend summer in Italy.
The truth is, I miss it. And yes, I’m finally, slowly finding my way back to it. Perhaps not journalism, but some form of storytelling.
Back then, and even now, people say you can’t make money as a writer, you can’t make money as an artist.
Why do we listen to these voices? I’m slowly learning to take what they’re saying into consideration, and disagree politely.
What I think they mean is this: if you’re just a writer, there’s a low probability of you being discovered and making money.
If you wait around to “be discovered”, for your writing to gain some kind of traditional form of “approval”, you might end up waiting forever.
In Perennial Seller, Ryan Holiday writes that making the art is only one part of the process. After you’re done in your role as artist, you need to take on the mantle of marketer.
You have to share your work.
After creating a product that sells, you have to sell that product.