Hustle culture

What if I don't want to turn this into a business?

I got a marketing email from Ghost yesterday that got me thinking about what it takes to write. So far, I've done a pretty good job of writing, posting more than once a day. But that only works as long as this is fun.

I graduated from high school – and undergrad – in the midst of a decade-long recession. People hustled because they didn't have an alternative. They did whatever they could to make a few dollars. Back home between 2001 and 2004 I was doing a similar thing – knitting together an income from a number of part-time, contract, and consulting jobs. I've done this at various times in my life, and it's not all bad, but it consumes a lot of your energy.

Right now, I have a job that pays me enough. More money is always good, but I don't feel like I have to struggle to make ends meet. And while I'd like to finish my novel, get it published, and maybe even make a few dollars off book sales, that's not what I'm doing here.

Right now, I'm writing for fun. Maybe there's a bit of compulsion there, a need at least pretend to share my thoughts. And while I'd be flattered to have readers, flattered to find people interested enough in my writing to want to read it, the idea of doing this because I feel like I owe subscribers something...that sounds like the kind of thing that would make it hard for me to write.

So yeah, I can't turn a non-existent audience into a business. But even if I had an audience, I don't think it would feel right to turn my writing into a side hustle.