People Ask Me Why I Write

Here’s what I tell them (spoiler: it pays really well)

and

Jul 16, 2024

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📣 This guest post comes courtesy of

Harrison Moore

, a founder-turned-writer offering new perspectives on thinking creatively and writing nonfiction. He’s also a Writing Mentor at the renowned Write of Passage. I was eager to get Harrison’s perspective on why he writes - I know you’ll find it instructive, too.

(15-minute read. A lifetime of hotdogs.)

EVERY FLEDGLING WRITER knows what I'm talking about. It happens at drinks with old school mates, dinner with the in-laws, doctors, dentists, and visits from Aunt Sue—at some point they all ask, “So what are you doing for work?” and your sphincter promptly tightens like a hangman’s noose.

If you want writing to be more than just a hobby, then unless you’re earning a good living with your words, explaining why you write can be quite scary. Even painful.

But writing seriously for two years now has revealed something unexpected: Besides the financial income (which I won’t talk about in this post as I know David provides a lot of guidance on that), there are four extra handsome incomes to be had from being a writer.

This post is a reflection on how these incomes show up in my practice. How they give me options. How they help me through tough times. And how they give me a new language with which to talk about the work. I’m hoping they will serve that purpose for you too. And give you some bulletproof answers for the next time you see your Aunt Sue.

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1) 🧠 Learning: I write to get smarter

To begin, I’d like to celebrate writing’s generous educational income.

This is all of the new information I’m learning by virtue of doing my research, as well as all the new tools and writing techniques I’m picking up along the way. Have you heard of the Zeigarnik Effect1 for instance? It’s a neat psychological trick writers use to hook readers and keep them reading.

Beyond that, it’s about the new situations writing thrusts me into. Like when me and my girlfriend went to live with a Oaxacan mezcal producer for a book about lifestyle design. And we found ourselves scrambling to learn how to conduct interviews whilst the subject was driving a truck through the desert.

But perhaps writing’s most important education comes from all of the empathy-building, perspective-taking, and mind-changing that comes with the job. Especially when tackling a big thorny topic. I found that after writing about those irritating people who play loud music on their phones on the bus (“Sodcasters”), I wasn’t pissed off with them any longer. It turns out I’m more like them than I once cared to admit.

To go to a university or to hire a tutor would cost me a lot of money these days. But by keeping my keyboard close, following my natural curiosity, and putting words on a page, I can continue getting smarter for the rest of my life, for free.

And writing’s where true learning happens anyway, as you know, since between thinking and writing it is writing that’s the "stricter test," as the essayist Paul Graham put it2. The act of explaining something in written words is the ultimate way to make sense of things, commit them to memory, and teach them to others. When I look at my intellectual growth over the past two years, I haven’t had a bigger payoff than from being a writer.

2) 🤝 Connecting: I write to find the others

Closely following writing’s educational income is its unmatched social income.

Writing is a uniquely solitary endeavour and writers don’t work from offices or go on team retreats. But as the writer Henrik Karlsson has nicely pointed out, "a blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox." For the first time ever, I can exchange my ideas online—not just ideas but also jobs, requests, collaboration, and a sense of belonging—with a very diverse range of people based absolutely anywhere.

These people, my tribe (yes, you!), play many roles. They have become my friends, devil’s advocates, and accountability partners. My writing mentors, champions (thank you David for letting me guest-post), and uncompromising copy editors. Some of them have even become coaching clients and paying subscribers.

But writing gives you more than just community and influence. It also gives you access. A writer is a role people expect to see in random places without much explanation. If, say, the boss of a school or an office got a note saying a writer was on-site for a research project, odds are they’d just be like, “Yeah fine.”

And this applies everywhere.

A shopping centre?3—”Fine”

A football club?4—”Sure”

A Department of Sanitation?5—”Why the hell not.”

Writers, like artists, have skeleton keys to go where others can’t. And we don’t need posh degrees or fancy CVs to get going and be taken seriously. I remember when I lost my job in ‘23 whilst travelling in the Dominican Republic. I wanted to try travel writing, interviewing restaurateurs and selling city guides to Condé Nast. I didn’t have to flash any credentials to the locals; I just said “I’m a writer” and I had six interviews lined up that week. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of many jobs that give you that kind of social mobility.

3) ♥️ Growing: I write for my own wellbeing

When you’re learning so much and connecting with people, it’s only natural that you derive a rich psychological income.

But more than that, I’m talking about writing meeting your deepest needs, when you feel a real sense of purpose in the work. For me, writing’s incredibly meaningful because I’m often deeply absorbed, talking to people about things I care about, and I feel I’m making a very small difference in peoples’ lives. No more boyish delusions of saving the world; just a sustainable engagement with a few interests, the craft, and my readers.

At times, writing can lead me to that sublime state we call flow, where my skills are just good enough to cope with the challenge at hand, and where I’m so focused that I can’t think about anything unrelated, or worry about any of my problems. Self-awareness melts away. Time flees. And when reality comes back around, I wonder how long I’ll have to wait again for it to find me and possess me.

Fundamentally, writing is a source of mindfulness and presence, stress relief and emotional regulation, through journaling, making lists, brainstorming, or just writing to a friend. When something bad happens, I write my way through it. It’s how I get to know myself. It’s therapy. And sometimes, it’s just the sheer interestingness of a topic that can send me to bed at night believing everything is gonna be alright.

4) 🕊️ Exploring: I write to stay free

Last but in no way the least—in fact, it’s my favourite—is writing’s freedom income.

Freedom-wise, I was able to write this essay from a cosy cat-sitting arrangement in Prague. And then from a tiny caravan in the south-west of England in between hiking and BBQing locally made sausages. That’s me plating up 👇

I have to say, this certainly isn’t the wurst part of being a writer. (Sorry. I’ll see myself out.)

But the true freedom of writing lies in the joy of imagining new possibilities and escaping old thought patterns. Of controlling my own narrative. Of pursuing my own interests and solving my own puzzles. It’s about sticking a middle finger in the faces of the parents, teachers, bosses, and politicians—anyone who ever tried to hem me in or clip my wings.

Writers share this need for freedom with inventors, artists, athletes, architects, academics, entrepreneurs—basically, with the dreamy and defiant individuals of humanity. Freedom's not a priority for most people. Once they've gotten their twenties outta their system they disregard liberty and put everybody else first. Or they get enslaved by the fucking algorithms and advertisers. But there are also the few committed idealists who are determined to think for themselves and to live life on their own terms—and serious, non-hobbying writers belong squarely in this group.

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There’s more to work than making a living. I’ve used this income model to show why this is the case. It helps you understand why you thrived in some jobs and not others. Why you should choose future jobs over others. AND WHY WRITING IS THE BEST JOB IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!

But more importantly, it helps you see which parts of your writing practice are currently lacking so you can improve it. For instance, let’s say you’re low on educational income at the moment. You could:

study the history of your interests, or the history of something within your interests like a technology or a trend
put yourself in new situations where you’re forced to adapt, like interviewing an important neighbour or writing for a local paper
start a subreddit, a mastermind, a literary supper club—anything that introduces new challenges and puts you on a steeper curve

It’s really important to try and maximise all five incomes in your work (rather than settling for three or four and telling yourself you’ll get the others outside of it) because work dominates so much of your time. And it often comes to define your identity.

That’s not to say you can’t get the incomes from non-work activities too. If you can, all the better. But you’ll be happiest in (and outside of) work if you aim for high scores on all five. And you deserve it, god dammit. Life is too short.

The next time you see your Aunt Sue and she asks you what you're doing for work, tell her, with enthusiasm and pride, that you're building a writing practice. And that you’re in it for the long-term. And that she should too! Because it's the best-paying job that she could possibly ever have.

Money's important for writers, we all know that. We’re skilled and experienced and we deserve to be paid. But money’s just the petrol you put in your car so you can keep 🧠learning, 🤝connecting, ♥️growing, and 🕊️exploring; it’s not the destination. And besides, what would you even buy with the money once you had it? A bigger BBQ?

You'd spend it, of course, on creating the very conditions that lead to more learning, more connecting, more growing, and more exploring. And writing already gives you all of that. You're already rich. ⬥

“Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.” – Stephen King

Thanks to David McIlroy, Dominik Gmeiner, Kelly Davis, Meryl Rowlands, Jisoo Kim, Becky Isjwara, Josh Ponelat, Ian Black, and my partner Corina for reading drafts of this.

👋 Hey! Thanks a lot for reading this piece. I’d love to know how these incomes show up in your own practice. What’s paying you well right now? What could be paying you more? Do you earn other incomes not mentioned here? Let me know in the comments.

Here’s that income model again:

Financial income (earnings, bonuses, equity)
Educational income (skills, knowledge, experiences)
Social income (community, prestige, access)
Psychological income (purpose, wellbeing, meaningfulness)
Freedom income (autonomy, agency, flexibility)

A quick intro to me: I’m a founder-turned-writer. I have a blog called The New Workday where I write about creativity. I also work for a leading writing school—Write of Passage—as an Editor and Workshop Leader. I coach writers and share tools that make them better, such as Thinking Postures, Writing Prompts, a Resource Library, and more. Subscribe if you like. Or just reach out to chat. I love talking about ideas.

Hope to see you soon. Thanks again David. Happy writing everyone!

– Harrison