With the increasing influence of e-commerce in our lives, with the opportunity of earning fast bucks by simply directing traffic to your website/blog, the quality of writing seems to have lost its sheen. It is more of a gimmick now, sensationalism and as much publicity as you can garner on the multiple social media platforms, can lead to maximum hits on your web page.
‘Share’, ‘Post’, ‘Like’, ‘Tag’, ‘Tweet’, ‘Trend’-spread the word and set the ball rolling. The content is relegated to the back seat. So you have umpteen tips and online tutorials advising you how to make writing as your profession in a short span of time. Guiding you about the nuances of professional no-frill writing that might not win accolades from the literary fraternity but keep the cash boxes ringing.
But the question here is, is there a crash course on writing for passion? Can there really be a piece that was written with no passion but with the single-minded aim of spinning money?
Writing can only be a profession if it is a passion. At least that’s what it has been for the millions of writers in the yester years who have wielded the power of the mighty pen to express their myriad emotions. Be it lyrical poems and ballads expressing love for their beloved, poignant tales of life with happiness and sorrows weaving a tapestry around it or be it a strong critique voicing their opinion against the status quo.
Passion has always been the driving force that has been the source of inspiration and creativity behind the eternal creations of literature. Whether he/she will earn millions in the sale of the book or its copyright was not the sole factor that dominated the thought process of the writer. What matters is telling a compelling story with conviction.
Every writer had to go through his share of rejections, failure and struggle to make an impression in the reader’s minds. There was no short cut to success. The sheer quality of content, command over the language, playing with words and creating magic out of them and to top it all transcend the barriers of place and time and strike a chord with readers irrespective of their age, sex, social standing, religion etc. So, a literary work written with a lot of passion is relevant even today, is still read and cherished by readers across the world. But is it the same for writing for profession?
When one is writing for passion, satisfying one’s own creative self is very important. It should satiate the writer’s inner need of creating an excellent piece of art, something unique and sublime. Writing for profession need not necessarily evoke any such feelings in the writer. You just need to know the tricks of the trade, sprinkle in keywords, search tags and meta tags and unleash a promotional blitzkrieg. Divert traffic to your page and earn money, whether the visitors read the article in its entirety is immaterial.
Writing for profession is a planned calculated move that has a focused commercial goal. Writing for passion is spontaneous and emanates straight from the heart. It has no formula, no ulterior motive.
However, writing for passion and writing for profession are not really mutually exclusive. A writer who writes for passion also nurtures a dream of attaining professional acclaim. On the other hand, an individual focusing only on the commercial aspects of writing is bound to hit the roadblock if the quality of content fails to hold the attention of the readers. If the content is not strong, however one focuses on advertising or marketing skills, the reader will turn a cold shoulder to his/her work. So, the perfect balance lies in not compromising on quality, fame and accolades will automatically follow suit.
