File this one under “Why I’m writing on the internet for free”.

People have always told me I should write. That I’m good at it. That I should make a career out of it.

They seldom follow that up with any specific tips or action plan or job referrals. Just vague advice to go do this thing and, I guess, hope to Heaven I can make a buck at it. Having both bills and stomach, the two of which need constant input, I haven’t yet found the way.

I lie. I did have a writing career for a while — newspaper, right out of college, when my bills (and my stomach too, I hate to admit) were smaller. Being broke is tolerable when you’re in your early 20s because you can convince yourself it’s exciting and romantic at that age. That life and all the peanut butter sandwiches it entailed grew stale quickly and I found myself opting for alternative career options that paid better (she claims, knowing full well she went to work for nonprofits making only marginally more money).

But alas, it was all good fun anyway, and I like to tell myself I wouldn’t trade the colorful experiences I’ve had for an alternative past life in a corporate hellscape. Anyway, here I am with no writing career but still an itch to write and the words of well-meaning advisors haunting my subconscious. But then came I think perhaps the best advice I heard on the matter, which was offered less as advice and more of a sincere question: “Why do you have to make money at it?”

Indeed. Why do our passions need to be made profitable in order to warrant the expenditure of time? So here I am throwing out words on the internet, and for no other payment than the satisfaction of a job well done.

And in the meantime, since I don’t know beans about publishing and click rates, I’ll resort to the beans I do know: bean toes. Yes, I’ll be shamelessly peppering my writing with cat pictures. Let’s see if this strategy pays.