Another installment from the Q&A exchange I recently had with a reader. Again, my answer is divided in two parts, because of the two types of writing I do:
2) What is the pay like?
Writing for children — Don’t quit your day job. Do it because you love it, because you love to create stories. love the process of writing and love to engage readers. I’ve met many published writers. Many have day jobs.
Journalism — The pay is not great, compared to other careers. The “career journalists” I know do it because they love to write and feel compelled to tell the story of their community, warts and all. They understand the important role newspapers hold in keeping city and county governments accountable to the people. They also understand that with each day’s edition, you are writing history. There are some stories that, when you write them, you know 10, 20, 30 years from now someone will dig through the newspaper archives and use that story as part of their research, as an historical record of some event or person. It’s interesting to think about that.