Thoughts on Selling My Words

I am now blogging for pay on two websites. That’s something I never expected I might do. Blogging has been a hobby and a means for learning about myself. Sometimes I find out what I really think only after I start writing it down.

If you write for pay, you have to reckon with the fact that you are giving up your rights to the words you put together. Those words have been sold and title to them has passed from you to a new owner, just like selling a used car. I tried to negotiate a deal where I could keep the rights, but that simply is not the way the world works in most cases. After thinking about it, I decided that the potential good I could do meant more to me than retaining ownership rights. The extra money could be used to travel to conferences, which are hard to afford on a fixed income. I also realized that I could be selective about what I chose to sell.

I am writing different kinds of pieces for the two sites. One wants only survivorship-type topics from me: how to deal with scanxiety, how to share news with your family, why patients celebrate treatment anniversaries, and the like. I am an inveterate giver of advice, and these types of topics are a great place for me to let that side of me out of its box. The other site has few limits on what I choose to write about, and so far I have been writing more journalistic pieces for them, such as interviews and reports on my experiences as an advocate.

That leaves a lot to write about for free. My deeper thoughts and speculations, my knitting and spinning projects, stuff that has nothing to do with lung cancer, all those subjects are available for this blog when I find the time and discipline to write them. I wrote about lobbying Congress for pay, but I saved the story of walking into a random Metro car and seeing my daughter there, with an empty seat beside her, for this blog. I wrote only one post for pay that I now regret selling. It was my first paid post, and I have been more careful since. Someday I will find a way to rewrite that post and I will publish it for free.

It will still be a wee thrill when I do my income taxes next year and create a new schedule C for myself, choosing business code 711510 - Independent artists, writers, & performers. I have become a writer. That’s work I never thought I would do for anyone but myself. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Please support the EGFR Resisters Research Fund!

To help improve outcomes for people like me with EGFR mutated lung cancer, please donate to the EGFR Resisters' Research Fund. All donations are tax deductible and are in a restricted fund with the Bonnie Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, a four-star rated charity. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!


Popular posts from this blog

I am not a rock. I am not an island.

Image
After a busy couple of months, I have retired, and I am under treatment. The treatment is a pill taken first thing in the morning. The medicine is very expensive, to all of us in the aggregate although not to me as an individual. Thank goodness for good health insurance. I do have a genetic mutation in the cancer and am able to take targeted treatment. I’m dealing with some side effects, but they aren’t as uncomfortable as full-bore chemo. I’ve been taking care of business. New wills and powers of attorney are executed, my passwords are in a sealed envelope in the lawyer’s safe, beneficiaries are updated, and expenses have been dialed back. I finished my job as neatly and completely as possible, and left matters in good shape for my successor. All of this is liberating. As each task gets done, there is more time to simply enjoy living. I am an oldest child, and I’ve spent much of my life being a responsible person. Now I am pulling back from that role. At the moment, I have very few re...
Read more

Why I am Using Research-Based Medical Treatments Instead of Naturopathic Treatments

Image
I’ve heard many stories of people being sent links to websites promoting alternate naturopathic treatments for cancer by well meaning friends and family. It finally happened to me. I got an email from an acquaintance who told me she believed that I was making a mistake signing up for a clinical trial, and that I should be using natural treatments based on diet and supplements such as turmeric and IV vitamin C. She quoted the saying “Let Food be your Medicine”, and pointed me towards the website thetruthaboutcancer (no, I am NOT going to link to that site from my blog, it gets enough traffic). She also told me that I was signing up to be a guinea pig. This blog post has been in the works in my thoughts ever since. I do not think that this good-hearted person is on the right track, and sincerely hope that, for her sake, she never develops cancer and never has to put her alternate treatments to the test. In thinking about what she said, however, I finally crystallized for myself the reaso...
Read more

My Carbon Footprint Grows Ever Larger

Image
This is how I would reword Shakespeare: Nothing offends me about my life so much as the manner of my leaving it. It’s not the disease, or the timing that makes me feel that way. It’s the staggering amount of energy that is consumed as part of cancer care - energy in the form of miles driven and plastic tossed into a biowaste disposal canister. I haven’t lived an exemplary life when it comes to the amount I have contributed to landfills. I’m not even good about composting my food waste. Still, getting sick has enlarged my carbon footprint, and I’m not done yet. There’s the matter of how to dispose of my mortal remains, for one thing, plus I’m not done with blood draws and treatments. Take the simple matter of a blood draw. Initially they were all taken from a vein. Waste generated: an alcohol wipe, a rubber tourniquet, a pair of gloves, a butterfly needle with attached plastic tube, a few glass vials, and a couple of pieces of gauze topped with a bandaid. Now, however, I ...
Read more