Don’t Do It, It’s A Trap

When I was fresh out of high school (way back in 2013), I decided to take a year off school. Apparently that’s where my smarts ran out. People around me kept warning that if I took a year off, I might not go back.

Impossible - I loved school.

About a year later I decided to go to my first college. I’d settled on a Psychology major because it was something that I found interesting and knew becoming a Psychiatrist meant big bucks. So I spent two years studying the way people think and the well-known names in the industry. But halfway into the degree, I realized that’s not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Psychology was interesting because I wanted to understand my own mental health struggles, but it wasn't my passion. It never consumed my life in quite the same way as the literary world.

I dropped out.

I found myself circling back to my original idea of writing - trying to prove that I wasn’t a dropout disappointment - I simply chose the wrong major. People change majors all the time in the first few years of college, right? It was going to be difficult to make a living in the creative field, but I thought having a degree would make it easier. Thus, I decided to take a trip down to Orlando to visit the well-known Full Sail University.

And boy did I fall for that trap too.

The allure of going to a university known for generating top talents in Hollywood was too much to pass up for my eager mind. The campus was beautiful! My friends and I had a tour of the brilliant stages built for film projects and giant audio rooms that created the best cinematic music one could ever dream about. Not to mention the shiny toys you obtained just by enrolling - I mean, what young kid is going to say 'no' to a brand new Mac laptop stuffed with all the expensive products you'd need to create masterpieces?

Obtaining a Creative Writing degree from the university seemed like the only sure way to make it as a writer in this world. Until I started classes. Once I had my very expensive set up, I realized my mistake. Full Sail is a networking school. Meaning that, you can write until you're blue in the face, but if you're not social and not catching the eye of someone special, you'll hit stagnation. Any effort I put into my writing was met with lackluster responses from professors. Nothing was ever good enough, no matter how much thought I put into each short story I was told to write. Not only that, but I was never given any feedback on how to improve my writing. It felt like I was working a job while being given the title of 'Student', and I was on the verge of being fired for not being the absolute best at my craft.

I started to question whether I really was good at writing. Nothing I did could get me an A and I felt such a disconnect from the people who were supposed to be teaching me. Perhaps it was because I lived 2 hours from campus and elected to take online classes; it seemed like the right choice because writing can be done from anywhere. Maybe my experience would have been different had I walked through those beautiful glass doors every day for class. But I have my doubts.

While attending the school, I made friends with three other students. All of them dropped out too. It became abundantly clear that we didn't need a fancy school or degree to pursue our creative endeavors, unless we planned to work some corporate job to create someone else's masterpiece. Nobody was stopping us from writing or filmmaking, except ourselves and the discouragement we felt from school. The only thing we lost was our ability to network with the big wigs who already made it and didn't really care about us.

Being A Creative Is Tough Work

Without a degree in hand and $60k in debt, I realized life was still going to be difficult if I wanted to write for a living. Most creatives work day jobs, and that usually doesn't change unless they manage to produce books at the speed of light or have a partner that's able to support them financially while they focus on their art. It's not impossible - but it's definitely not a 'get rich overnight' scheme either.

I love writing, but I'm definitely not a quick writer because I look over my words a million times before I feel that I've written well enough. This led me to research a different type of writing - the dreaded SEO (search engine optimization). It's a more practical way of making money as a writer. Before AI seemed to take over the world, writers like Jorden Makelle or Neil Patel for example, dominated the SEO writing and marketing game. They were perfect examples of making big bucks as a writer online.

Of course I spent countless hours trying to understand SEO and keyword tools like SEMrush that made it possible. But it drained me. It took the fun out of writing, because I was focusing on businesses and their stories rather than my own; which is one of the things that led me away from university. I wasn't interested in writing other people's stories, I wanted to be known for writing my own.

Platforms like Medium appeared to be a great way to get my words out into the world. It promised payment for every time someone read my story or commented. I spent a few years writing, only to make a little under $4. The problem with platforms like Medium, is that you get pennies for every time someone reads your story. Unless you have a huge fan-base of a thousand or more readers constantly looking at your work, you won't make money. Still, I kept at it, thinking that maybe if I just write more stories, I'll get more people to read.

Unfortunately, the platform is covered with bots, listicles, and "How I Made $$$ Writing Online" articles - a repetitive cycle of the same stories with different words.

After my disenchanting experience with Medium, I decided to give Vocal.Media a try. It was a brand new platform with promises to be better than all the others out there. They also had monthly writing challenges where you could win $15 - $500 bucks. I entered a few contests, only to be disappointed in the poorly written AI stories that won first, second, and third place. Signing up for a monthly subscription to Vocal+ was just another way to give a company money, while struggling to get anything back. Unlike Medium, the platform had more story-driven content, so I assumed it would be easier to reach an audience that would regularly view my stories. Vocal touts that you can earn $3.80 per 1,000 reads on your stories. Not only that, but people can leave you tips.

Despite roaming the platform for a while, I still made no money.

Self-Employment > Platforms That Take Your Money

My frustration with platforms that promised to help make you money, made me realize that there was always a third option.

Create my own website.

A corner of the internet that is completely my own. A place with no false promises or AI bots clogging up the space. And more importantly, something that I could control and was not at the mercy of a platform if it lost consistent users or even ceased to exist (remember Xanga?).

It was still going to be tough to make it as a writer, but that was a fact I'd long ago come to terms with. I realized that it was never about making a bunch of money, but rather being able to write freely without feeling like I was being taken advantage of and throwing money at someone in the hopes that I'd see some of it back.

Haus Reverie was created in 2021 and though it hasn't made me any money, what I've learned is priceless. Beyond writing, I've learned to design my own website; I've created digital designs like logos and social media marketing ads; I've learned how to use Google Ads to promote my own website. The list goes on. All of it adds up to hard work that you can feel proud of in the end, no matter if you've made $1 or $1,000.

There's No Wrong Way To Do It

Artists, Writers, Musicians - there's no one formula to find success as a creative person. It's a passion that you follow because you can't imagine yourself doing anything else. Countless times I've tried to fit the mold of: go to school, get a job, make money - instead of relying on the fact that I've wanted to write my whole life. It's more practical to just do what's expected. It's more secure. But then there will always be that voice in the back of your head to remind you - if only you'd give it a shot, you could make it.

Nothing in life is easy. But nothing is impossible either, if you just keep trying to grow.