A beautiful new notebook. A seminar with my favourite poet. A website design upgrade.
The list of things I want to spend money on as a writer goes on and on. And they might all be worthwhile investments. After all, I have filled many notebooks with poetry and learned so much from classes and writing retreats in the past. However, I have also wasted precious pennies on the same things when I was spending money as a replacement for simply doing the work of being a writer.
Let’s be honest, I can establish a writing routine just as effectively with an old notepad and a pencil as with fancy software. And instead of dropping hundreds on a course, I can listen to talks by the world’s greatest writers for free online if I take the time to find them. I can also remind myself that a website upgrade will never be a more effective marketing tool than in-person networking.
Something I’m finally learning as a mid-career artist is that the enticing courses and slick technologies are never going to make me better at my craft or magically boost my career. At best they will enhance existing skills I’ve developed through practice, at worst I will be disappointed by the results.
We do sometimes need to invest in things like classes or new materials. But I’ve learned to be honest with myself about when those things are real investments or just distractions from the sometimes tedious discipline necessary to be an artist. My new approach is to “prove” to myself that I need something before spending money on it. I realized that if I was willing to spend my time and energy first, it would help me gauge more wisely (and more honestly!) if I should also put money towards it.
So for example, I wanted to brush up on my grammar skills because I felt like I was being too sloppy in my drafts and it made the editing process onerous. So I researched paid online courses, which I’m sure are great. But then I found a lot of free blog posts and videos by copy editors, as well as books available at the public library. I admitted to myself that even if I pay for a class I still need to show up for it with commitment and focus for it to benefit me. Turns out I can do that with the free materials I find too. In the end I felt like I had gotten what I was looking for simply by investing my time to research quality free content and study it.
Another time I was trying to learn about the publishing industry through the same approach and after months of research I still felt confused and disconnected from the industry. So I invested in a membership to a children’s writers association as well as a mentoring course with an author I admired. Both opened doors for me and I made back what I spent within a year. Waiting the extra few months trying the free approach didn’t hinder my career and it helped me take advantage of the content I paid for because I better understood its value.
So, I’m going to fill my current journal to the very last page before I go out and buy the turquoise moleskin I’ve had my eye on.
