This month is National Novel Writing Month. The goal of the month is to write 50,000 words by Nov. 30, but not necessarily 50,000 publishable words; the goal, according to the National Novel Writing Month Web site (nanowrimo.org) is “quantity, not quality.” This approach is meant to force the would-be-writers to get over themselves and just be creative, just for one month.
I found out about this Web site in the middle of October and signed up. As I was trying to think of a personal statement, it hit me that writing a book is a much better way to spend November than filling out grad school applications. All this stuff about novels got me thinking that, as a college senior, I could write a book now and collect royalties for the rest of my life. Then I could choose a career free of pressure; I could even be an artist. It’s all about passive income.
Passive income is money that comes in on a regular basis without continued effort, such as royalties or rent. And writing is a field very suited for this financial goal; plus, I can’t paint or play an instrument. Books are reproducible like a CD or a DVD, except people still like to have hard copies, so there isn’t as much to worry about in the way of illegal downloads. And unlike a sculpture or a painting, where the value is in the individual, original piece, writing (again, like a CD or DVD) doesn’t require an original copy; anyone, anywhere in the world could buy that book, and I’d still make money. Though there are some first edition “Harry Potters” that are worth way more than the list price.
Painters though, generally make money on the original sale, and then after that, a picture becomes a commodity on the art market and the new owner makes the sale. Higher reselling values do help painters, though, as their newer works become more in demand. But writing seems like a much safer path ““ there are more potential sales.
But it is the middle of November and, as expected, the whole novel thing isn’t working out. Quality or quantity, I haven’t written a word, let alone 1,667 words a day (that’s 50,000 words divided by 30 days). The site keeps track of your postings in a cool little graph showing your progress toward 50,000. I don’t even have a graph. I’ve looked at other profiles, and some people’s graphs are actually half way up there. Some authors even blog about their progress, things like “Didn’t write yesterday, back on track today” or “Dialogue going great.”
Novel writing, it seems, is more than just signing up on a Web site. The original copy, while not worth much more, is still hard to produce. All I’ve got are drawings in the margin of my notebook: I can’t even write a journal. Maybe I should be an artist after all. But in order to spend my time drawing, I’d need the royalties from that novel, so I’m back to square one.
If you know of other ways to earn passive income, e-mail Crocker at acrocker@media.ucla.edu.