Why Authors Really Write

I went to a conference today with several authors talking about what inspired them to get into writing. One mentioned having a mind bursting with creative and imaginative energy that needed to come forth. Another expressed a passion of writing since childhood that developed into a career. One writer said that he wrote to inspire young minds. At a previous conference I went to writers gave similar reasons as these. All these motivating factors are very uplifting and noble. However, they leave out one very important motivation: money.

I cannot believe for one second that all these authors write either out of the pure goodness of their hearts or simply because they have too much creativity. Everyone has to make money to survive and writing is a business like everything else. I believe the reason that they leave the monetary motivating factor out of their lofty speeches is that it sounds morally repugnant to say you write for money. People would look down on writers as greedy if they said they wrote for money. Writers that write for money are not artists but are given another name: journalists. But why does this have to be? Almost any other profession can say they work for money except writers. You don't see starving engineers romanticized like starving artists. We need to let our writers not be afraid to say they want to eat.