It's not a skill I have, or have any interest in developing. But I need to, because creative work is rarely allowed to just flourish for it's own sake, and if that's the work I'm doing with my time, it needs to be compensated, right? Not because I want it to be, but because it needs to be. Or I'll die.
So I just don't do any work. No matter how good it might be, the specter of having to make it be successful, purely in terms of making me money, just kills my interest in following through with anything.
That and the part where something I do for free and because it's fun gets someone interested in having me do some work for them, but then they balk when they find out it will cost them real money. Like, I'm supposed to want this interaction to happen to me more? I'm supposed to be trying to court these jerks until one of them agrees to pay me, and then also actually does pay me? I've known artists who have literally died from the strain of having to live their lives this way, when all they actually needed was to be allowed to create things because they enjoyed doing it.
I say I'm a freelance writer, but in practice I don't do either of those things much. The latter because I rarely get to enjoy it. The former because I am obligated to be open to that at all times, up to and exceeding the point where the effort is to my own detriment. Like any mercenary, I am truly expendable in any negotiation that involves me. As the Prince hopes his Condottieri will perish at the victorious moment of the last battle they're needed for, the Client hopes the Writer will die between the second the work is finished, and the second they have to pay me.
