Ok. I don't know what you thought of your father when you were a child, but I looked up to mine.
To me, my father was this hairy bearded mountain of a man. While I could barely lift my little brother's poop-filled diapers, he could easily lift me and my brother (and the diapers!) at once.
In my mind, he was as strong as a mammoth.
What I didn't realize, though, is that he was not only as hairy and strong as a mammoth, but also about as old.
You see, my father had me quite late in life. He had me after having already lived three entirely different kinds of existence:
as a metal worker who specialized in acid etching in Germany's knife manufacturing capital (Solingen),
as a high school teacher in Berlin, and
as a hippie who joined a cult in India, met a woman there (my mom), and then moved with her into a goat stable somewhere in the hinterlands of Germany to raise me and my brother before taking us all to live in Spain.
Of course, I noticed that he had gray hair and a gray beard, but it wasn't actually until about a year before he passed away that I looked at him and thought "Holy shit! Dad is an old man!"
And I still remember how it was a sudden realization. One second he was this sturdy hulking bear in my mind and the next I saw for the very first time that he was actually a wrinkly emaciated gray Chewbacca.
So it's weird how you can have someone—or something—before your eyes every day for years and have a completely different perception from reality.
I recently experienced a similar jolt of realization about the writing game.
On the quantity versus quality debate, I was always well on the quality side. I had this feeling that if you're putting out high-quality writing consistently, that's how it will eventually pay you more than a pittance.
But, of course, the reality was before my eyes all the time: those who can pay their bills with their writing alone are all about quantity.
It wasn't until I ran some numbers that the veil before my eyes was yanked away and I could see it clearly before me. If you're getting paid by views, then quantity is the only thing that really matters when it comes to paying the bills.
If you want to see those numbers yourself, check out my latest essay below. Maybe it will yank away a veil before your eyes too :)
Why Quantity — Not Quality — Is What Will Make You Money as a Writer
Or why you need to publish more if you want to earn more
As a writer who has spent way too many hours — and often entire weeks — fiddling around with articles to get them just right, there’s one thing I hate. And I hate it as much as I hate treating crotch fungus with Tabasco sauce. But it’s the truth.
When it comes to making money as an online writer, the quality of your writing doesn’t matter. It never has and it never will.
Now, before you …
Thanks for reading!
— David
Hours and days fiddling around with perfecting written work hits home for me!