What is the first thing that comes to mind when a word mill is mentioned to you? I usually immediately think of windmills and particularly “The Windmills of Your Mind,” that beautiful Michel Legrand composition for Steve McQuinn’s Sixties thriller “The Thomas Crown Affair.” But then, mills do not usually have such a positive connotation. After all, it is a hard-working mechanism that is supposed to grind something to a wheat. Or a messy pulp. Like rumor mills, Jonathan Nightingale wrote about on Medium. To writers, particularly freelancers working on all sorts of copywriting all connotation work with the so-called content mills. Or like for coffee or meat, in that case, should we use the term grinder? It usually doesn’t matter what kind of content mill is concerned — fiction ghostwriting, all those SEO copywriting mass-production sites, startups that answer silly or not so silly, undefined or very defined business questions, so-called ‘academic’ sites that do the student’s homework. Makes no difference. It usually means a lot of hard work, with plausible and quite implausible rules. And as a writer, being underpaid. And actually being exactly as the term implies — ghostwriter. Usually, there’s nothing of Casper, the friendly ghost there. Except being a ghost. An underpaid ghost. With most of these organizations, with three parties involved, the employers, writing customers, and writers, the key benefits are for the two of them — employers and customers. The writers are not third, they are last, and the whole of the system is set up like that. Of course, there are exceptions, and it is usually online sites and PR organizations that engage selected writers with a track record, do jobs for a specific, well-paying customers, where there is a thorough selection and vetting process when the writers are concerned. But what about the rest, usually a majority of writers? As a fresh writer (let’s forget the term beginner here), you are often eager to start working for any of these ‘writer grinders’. After all, they pay, and often, any pay seems better than no pay. But soon enough, in most of the cases, the pay is too small, the rules and regulations are too restrictive, and your writer’s identity is nowhere in sight. Still, what if there are very little as far as paying choices are concerned? Well, than you have to look at all the negatives of these content mills (those are usually predominant) and see which of them you can bear the most. For a while. In time, when you get a chance, you can move to those with high reputation (and pay) and/or establish your name (and identity) and get paid well. Maybe at that point, you will be able to put on Legrand’s soundtrack and enjoy “Windmills of Your Mind”, without being reminded of ‘writer grinders’, and possibly turn them into ‘writer’s grinders’. What is the first thing that comes to mind when a word mill is mentioned to you? I usually immediately think of windmills and particularly “The Windmills of Your Mind,” that beautiful Michel Legrand composition for Steve McQuinn’s Sixties thriller “The Thomas Crown Affair.” But then, mills do not usually have such a positive connotation. After all, it is a hard-working mechanism that is supposed to grind something to a wheat. Or a messy pulp. Like rumor mills, Jonathan Nightingale wrote about on Medium. To writers, particularly freelancers working on all sorts of copywriting all connotation work with the so-called content mills. Or like for coffee or meat, in that case, should we use the term grinder? It usually doesn’t matter what kind of content mill is concerned — fiction ghostwriting, all those SEO copywriting mass-production sites, startups that answer silly or not so silly, undefined or very defined business questions, so-called ‘academic’ sites that do the student’s homework. Makes no difference. It usually means a lot of hard work, with plausible and quite implausible rules. And as a writer, being underpaid. And actually being exactly as the term implies — ghostwriter. Usually, there’s nothing of Casper, the friendly ghost there. Except being a ghost. An underpaid ghost. With most of these organizations, with three parties involved, the employers, writing customers, and writers, the key benefits are for the two of them — employers and customers. The writers are not third, they are last, and the whole of the system is set up like that. Of course, there are exceptions, and it is usually online sites and PR organizations that engage selected writers with a track record, do jobs for a specific, well-paying customers, where there is a thorough selection and vetting process when the writers are concerned. But what about the rest, usually a majority of writers? As a fresh writer (let’s forget the term beginner here), you are often eager to start working for any of these ‘writer grinders’. After all, they pay, and often, any pay seems better than no pay. But soon enough, in most of the cases, the pay is too small, the rules and regulations are too restrictive, and your writer’s identity is nowhere in sight. Still, what if there are very little as far as paying choices are concerned? Well, than you have to look at all the negatives of these content mills (those are usually predominant) and see which of them you can bear the most. For a while. In time, when you get a chance, you can move to those with high reputation (and pay) and/or establish your name (and identity) and get paid well. Maybe at that point, you will be able to put on Legrand’s soundtrack and enjoy “Windmills of Your Mind”, without being reminded of ‘writer grinders’, and possibly turn them into ‘writer’s grinders’. It seems that the word order strikes fear in somebody, who swims in the waters of freelance work, but particularly among writers. Is not order exactly what you wanted to escape or what made you run away from a ‘regular’ weekday to weekday job? Haven’t you seen too many episodes of any variant of “Law and Order”, or did the band that called itself New Order hit the exact spot when they called one of their (best) songs “Blue Monday”? Well, it certainly what you think order represents. If you think of it only in terms of restrictions, rules, and regulations that are imposed on you. But then, if you think of it in terms of having a set of standard steps and procedures which you apply to your writing and your daily routine in general, in the sense of being order(ly), isn’t that something that you must have if you want to do something that is actually very serious work? No matter how easy, inspiring and leisurely it comes to you personally. No, by the order I don’t mean having a messy pile of books, magazines, notepads around your workplace or food and drinks next to your keyboard, writing pad, whatever. That can actually be exactly a part of your personal order that you set up because it actually stimulates your process of reading, thinking and ultimately writing. It is exactly that personal set of steps, procedures, ultimately order that you yourself set up to make you think and work isn’t the best manner you can. But it is also setting up an order during your day where you devote time also to your other obligations, family, sleeping eating… This is actually the best way to stimulate your creativity, just as long as it is personal, something you have optimally set for yourself. Devoting specific time to thinking, whether it is on a run or just simply sitting by yourself does produce ideas, even so, they come at a completely different point. After all, you can always note them down’ “out of order”. Anything else is just ultimate chaos, doing things at a whim or being pulled by other people at any undefined point, or just simply letting events and things pull you any which way. For a writer, that is exactly the thing that actually creates a chaos in thinking and writing. So don’t call it order, but do make it your own. Then no Monday will be blue, no matter how good the New Order song is. When Janis Joplin sang “Piece of My Heart” way back in 1968, she really did exactly that. It gave all her listeners a piece of her heart, and probably more than that. She obviously had no second thoughts about it — she had to express all she felt and wanted in that song. Did it cost her later? That is impossible to say what leads to what, the fact is she didn’t care what anybody was to think about it, she didn’t care about any risks or personal vulnerability, she just had to get it out of her. Absolutely no difference when you dabble in committing words to something that is not just inside your head. You can try to give it all, or you can try to control it, curb as much risk as you can, show how much you know and how intelligent you are, but try not to expose any of your personal vulnerabilities. Some writers try to put in that control by not writing about anything that deals directly with themselves personally or even anything that can remotely be connected to them. They pick up writing non-fiction, science fiction or as the French would call it ‘beaux arts’ poetry about the beauty of nature. The only problem is it never works. Not even if you’re writing some content copy or preparing an advertising campaign. Whenever you commit a single word to anything that makes it readable or audible, like Janis, you give a piece of you, no matter how minuscule it is. As it usually turns out, the Repeated Wordfurthermore you try to restrict it, the further clues you are bound to leave about who you are and where you come from. But then you have to ask yourself one key question — isn’t that exactly the reason why you picked up writing, any writing, after all? The thing is, the more you express yourself without constraints in your writing, the more you don’t think how much you are going to uncover yourself to others, the better your writing is going to be. Even if it is just a copy where your customer sets the parameters. Then, at some point, you might even come up with a piece of marvelous art like Janis Joplin did. There’s a sentence that writers encounter in any written contract they sign that goes something in the sense “Any copying of other texts, will immediately…”. There’s nothing debatable there. And there shouldn’t be. Copying is cheating in any shape or form, sometimes even with quotes. But what about originality? It certainly isn’t the same thing as copying, and can it occur every single time you commit words to paper/word processor? It can’t and in these modern times, it certainly doesn’t happen. In any art form. And sometimes for the ‘writing customer’ originality is certainly the one thing he doesn’t want — it is a well-trodden formula with certain thematic and stylistic patterns that is exactly what he needs and wants. But what happens when that ’customer’ is a very undefined reader you as a writer want to reach and you don’t want to conform to any pre-set formats? I’m afraid that there, again, particularly in these modern times when you are able to receive practically any piece of information almost instantly, there isn’t much space for true, unique originality. It usually turns out that somebody has already done it before you. Often, even better than you would have done it. But is that a reason to exclude yourself from everything in hope that that spark of originality will suddenly hit you? Not really. Actually, it is more often the case that the more you inform yourself, the more you read, better words, better ideas will come out of you as a writer. The key point there as far as I’m concerned lies in the following — when you encounter an original idea, style that suits you, do you simply slavishly copy it or used as some sort of a springboard, inspiration that will enable you as a writer to enrich an existing idea, give it another outlook, add to it if you will? Examples of music prove that it is possible. Back in 1980, David Bowie came up with “Ashes to Ashes”, one of the best songs in his opus, with so many musical elements that did not crop up in that shop and form until then. In 1982 The Psychedelic Furs came up with one of their better songs in “Love My Way” and in 1985 Bryan Ferry recorded the excellent “Don’t Stop The Dance”. Consciously or unconsciously, both the Furs and Ferry used elements of Bowie’s “Ashes To Ashes” to come up with their gems, The Furs gave it an additional rock touch, Ferry gave it a bit of (then) slow, modern dancehall touch. Sure, both of these two songs had melodic and rhythmical touches Bowie already used in his. But neither Richard Butler nor Bryan Ferry could be labeled copycats — they just gave Bowie’s ideas new touches and shapes and made two great songs in the process. Why should there be a difference when writers use already existing ideas as their springboard, inspiration, to give them yet another angle? Probably not, just as long as it is not copying, and that can be easily detected and almost always is. |
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February 2020
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