{"id":2699,"date":"2011-04-13T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=2699"},"modified":"2011-04-13T08:26:02","modified_gmt":"2011-04-13T13:26:02","slug":"millions-or-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2011\/04\/13\/millions-or-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Millions or Enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"On Monday, Kristin Bair O’Keeffe<\/a> asked readers of Writerhead<\/a> what they’d go the whole wide world over for.<\/p>\n

She asked readers what they wanted in life–with their writing and just as a human sharing space on the planet with billions of other humans.<\/p>\n

I answered.<\/p>\n

As a writer, I want enough. By that, I mean I want to make enough money to get by doing what I love full time.<\/p>\n

I don’t care if my writing lasts beyond my days or if I write something worthy of studying. I simply want to spend as much time as I can writing, spending time with the people I care about, and enjoying life.<\/p>\n

(In case you’re wondering: as a human, I’d search the whole wide world over for the best falafel and red curry.)<\/p>\n

A Sure Thing or Long Odds?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I’ve heard people at jobs talk about how they didn’t win the lottery. I’ve written about writing vs. the lottery<\/a> before. Some people I’ve heard sounded seriously bummed when they talk about “losing” the lottery (as though they really stood a chance).<\/p>\n

Sure, I imagine it would be very nice to have piles of money to travel wherever you want and live large. But the odds of making it as a millionaire by playing the lottery, or by becoming an overnight writing success, are slim.<\/p>\n

Why bring writing into talk about the lottery?<\/p>\n

Because so many would-be writers think about making it big over what really matters.<\/p>\n

Millions or Enough?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I’ve had this conversation with a friend in my writing group: if we could have enough to be secure and comfortable writing full time tomorrow, would we take that over the chance <\/em>at making millions <\/em>as writers? It’s a fun and interesting thing to think about.<\/p>\n

We’d both take a comfortable household income–say $75,000 (that adjusts with inflation)–if it meant we could do what we love full time tomorrow.<\/p>\n

We’d pass on the chance to make millions down the line if it meant we could plop down at our desks right away and write full time.<\/p>\n

What About You?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you could have enough to pay for a nice little house, a vehicle or two, and an annual vacation (or a bigger vacation every couple years), would you take that tomorrow if it meant you could never <\/em>make more than “enough”?<\/p>\n

Would you take guaranteed <\/em>security and writing full time tomorrow if it means you will never have the chance <\/em>at hitting it big and making millions as a writer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday, Kristin Bair O’Keeffe asked readers of Writerhead what they’d go the whole wide world over for. She asked readers what they wanted in life–with their writing and just as a human sharing space on the planet with billions of other humans. I answered. As a writer, I want enough. By that, I mean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[24,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}