The Sell

A reader asks what I think of the famous Samuel Johnson dictum: No man but a fool ever wrote except for money.

I think it's rubbish. I think it's not substantively different from saying no one but a fool ever had sex without getting paid. No one but a fool ever sang a song, drew a picture, told a joke, did a dance, baked a cake...you get the idea.

For me, the far more vexing problem is whether it's moral to accept money for writing. Or - not moral, perhaps, but spiritually wholesome. When I was 23, a few months into journalism school, I had a revelation: I would never write for money. I loved it too much: the story-gathering, the story-telling, the fiddling about with words - both the sensual mudpie pleasure of playing with sounds and rhythms, and the sharper cognitive pleasure of making meaning and constructing form. Something else, I avowed, would have to be my bread-and-butter. I'd keep the thing I loved separate and safe from the sway of practical needs and desires.

A few months later I was offered my first book contract, which proved far too dazzling an opportunity for me to cast aside. Now, twenty years later, I've cobbled a living, more or less, from writing for money. I don't stand around castigating myself: I've got mouths to feed, after all. But I still don't know whether I believe in it.