Today–a random day because I fell behind in blog post writing–I read a post on bluesky by Taco Bell Quarterly, (self-described as “The World’s Most Prestigious Literary Magazine. Unaffiliated with Daddy Taco. We publish the boundaries of cease and desist.”) that plainly stated the truth that most writers face: “You’re not going to make any money doing this and no one is going to read it, so you must hope for a secret third thing to happen“. This, no matter how many people might wish to deny it or refuse to except it, is the truth of being a writer in this day and age. Whatever that third thing is, though, is up to you, and the replies to this post were full of people giving voice, in varying degrees of sincerity, to what that third thing is for them. Most (ignoring all the people who missed the point by trying to get around thing two by saying “someone reading it and enjoying it”) of them fall into pretty standard categories such as “spite,” “to have done the thing,” or “because I need to,” but the one that I keep thinking about is someone quoting the post and asking the respondants “At what point does ‘artist dies penniless’ stop feeling like the artist in question just wasn’t sufficiently zen?” Because that’s the side of this that doesn’t get considered enough, you know? We’re all so ready to find reasons to write other than getting paid or making a living or being able to support ourselves, and it’s a good thing that we do that since finding our own purpose is more likely to play out positively than trying to make a living at it, but it’s still worth thinking about the fact that we’re essentially papering over a massive, systemic issue with acceptance and inner strength.