Dear World

Please Kill Me,

Greetings and happy Friday my withering weekend writers. As always, I hope that your week was filled with anxiety and peril, (it makes for good writing). Anyway, before you push through your final day of the work week (assuming that your current employ allows such freedom) – allow me to spew some of my legendary (pretentious?) ramblings (#AllOverYourScreen).

Worth, ( Brought To You By the Makers of: – Internal Delusion- “Delusion…GET SOME!!!!)

*cough*

Yea, yea – I know my parentheticals can be a little mean at times – but this is actually a topic that is near and dear to my heart. As a writers, we’re often faced with a lot of hard choices. No, not simply the fictional (or non-fictional – depending on grasp of reality) type, that stories require – but decisions about our careers, what opportunities to take, and which to leave alone.

Any of you out there with a blog, vlog, youtube, etc – likely have a contact email address on that page (as you should)- and as such you, (as I do) likely receive tons of invitations from various sources, (it took me forever to come up with a nice way to phrase that), to add some content to their site – based on the content that they may or may not have read.

Don’t get me wrong – there is NO problem with attempting to spread your name, brand, reputation, (peanut butter?), etc – via various resources – as a matter of fact, many of these opportunities can provide open doors to the (let’s face it….struggling) writer’s of the internet.

These opportunities are #FineAndDandy – however, I’d be lying to you, if I didn’t address the fact that there are certainly some out there -as well- who may seek to grow their viewership (for free) using you essentially as – digital slave labor (I may be a little dramatic, but you get my point). They’ll dress up their emails, flaunt their “high” volume of traffic, (sneak in the window, kiss you on the forehead, and sneak back out) – or any number of wooing tactics to sway you into giving them content.

If you do choose to do this, then great. In all honesty – you never know what site may or may not “takeoff” or what post will be in the right place at the right time, (the internet is like the “wild wild” west in that way). But, I will say that you should be weary of the cold contacters (a.k.a “click pimps” #PatentPending) who seek little more than profiting (financially or otherwise).

By no means am I knocking any of you that reach out to other authors to network (as a matter of fact, the few experiences that I’ve had with such interactions have been pleasant and gone off without a hitch) – but keep in mind- that I did choose these people carefully – while concurrently expecting that they’d inspect my work just as thoroughly.

I’ll cut this short before I get all “preachy” (as if I haven’t already) -my point is to know your worth. Don’t give away gold, for the promise of oxygen, (you get that for free already). It’s great to network, (better to mutually benefit).

Remember, what we do is special. When you subject yourself to being used (in ANY creative field) – that isn’t mutually beneficial – you risk cheapening your art, and thus yourself. What you produce is priceless. It would serve you well to treat it as such.

For those of you confused on when to accept an offer or not here’s a simple test: Think of all the hours that you worked on your project. Think of the effort it took, the research you did, the time that you’ll never get back. Then look at who you’re considering handing it over to. Whatever you feel in that moment – is probably the right decision. Or you could just ask me, (though I warn you – I’ll mostly just freak out about how you got my number).

The best thing about being an artist, is that we have the ability to set our own starting price. Don’t undersell yourself. Chances are, you’re worth way more than you think. Whether that be to one person, or a million.

Alright kiddies, this post was a little longer (to make up for the one I missed yesterday #IGetLazy) – I hope that you didn’t miss me too terribly (Yes, I do), and of course, I hope that this gave you all some clarity (at least on my stance) of the whole free-writing thing. At the very least, you got a few poop jokes out of it (#TootToot).

*washes hands*

“Oh you’re still here!???!”

I’ll see you all at some point in the not-past – for more words in a language that will be obsolete (you know…..after the ALIENS INVADE!!!!).

Enjoy Your Weekend,

-Antwan Crump.