Paying the Writer

A Mediaeval Chameleon.
I've never seen one in the flesh, but they clearly hadn't either. 

Last week, somebody posted on Facebook about being asked to work for a large, well funded government agency for nothing. And refusing. Some of the comments were instructive, especially those that wrote about 'giving something back'. Because as almost all writers and artists know, in order to 'give something back' you have to have been given something in the first place. For most of us, that's precious little. All too often, we are expected to work for nothing. When they tell you that there is 'no money in the budget to pay the writer/artist/musician/actor '- what they really mean is that there is, in fact, a budget. They just think you will work for nothing. And all too often, I'm afraid they're right.

Some years ago, the late Harlan Ellison made this video.  (If you don't like swearing, best avoided. Otherwise, it may make you smile and stiffen your spine!)  

I've been writing for a long time and as a young writer, during the seventies and eighties, I was almost always paid for work. Even for a handful of poems. I know this because I've been putting together a collection of letters I wrote home from Finland, where I was teaching English, from 1975 to 1977, and payments for the writing work I was doing on the side are occasionally mentioned. I'm not sure when the rot set in, but set in it did. 

Some time in the nineties, I did a year's paid work for a large Scottish media company, developing a drama which was never made. I had an agent at the time, which perhaps explains my idiocy in continuing to work on the promise of non-existent jam tomorrow. It took a more experienced TV writer to point out to me that 'script editors' in television are paid to work with far more writers than will ever be commissioned. But my agent was hugely at fault. There should have been development money and a 'kill fee' so that even when the project didn't go ahead, I would have been paid for my time.

I remember subsequently going to a meeting with another company - at their request, because I had a couple of very successful stage plays under my belt by that time - and their appalled reaction when I politely made it clear that I wouldn't be working on anything for them without some up-front payment. I wasn't a beginner, and they had asked for the meeting. But writers, like the chameleon in Mediaeval mythology, are expected to live on air. They couldn't get me out of the door quickly enough. 

I've been to school board meetings where teachers have suggested that visiting writers don't need to be paid. I've 'performed' at a big chain bookstore, during a city festival, for no fee. There were four of us, as it turned out, little publicity and a handful of people, so book sales were minimal. My travel wasn't reimbursed and neither was my poor-but-expensive accommodation. After that, I declined any future invitations from that quarter. I've done a demanding talk on the understanding that it was a paid gig. It wasn't. I've been asked to be an unpaid 'expert' at an online Burns Supper for a huge media organisation which is not, as Ellison pointed out, sitting out in the street shaking a cup for spare change.

To be clear - I will do the occasional freebie, especially where the organisation involved is a small charity, or book group, where nobody else is being paid, and perhaps where I can sell some books, especially if it doesn't involve travelling too far from home in the middle of winter. In fact one of my happiest evenings was with a businesswomen's organisation where I was wined and dined, and where I sold a huge number of books to an appreciative audience. There's all the difference in the world between being hosted by kind people who look after you - perhaps with a meal and a comfortable bed for the night - and the all too frequent occasions when you're decanted into a strange town or city late at night without so much as a cup of tea or coffee. Most of us will have had the demoralising experience of sitting in a miserable single hotel room (why are so many of them so awful?) with our M & S sandwich and our small Pinot Grigio, wishing we had bought a whole bottle.

I recently attended the annual Scottish Association of Writers conference, judging a competition and delivering a workshop. The hotel was lovely, the staff were friendly, the food was excellent, the conference was well organised, the company was wonderful, the whole weekend was thoroughly enjoyable - and they paid me as well. It was a privilege to be there. But of course that's an organisation run by writers for writers. 

Perhaps some of the more wealthy organisations could take a leaf out of their book. 

How Not To Be A Writer - Part Twelve: Happy Days In Fife

The upper flat here was my home for almost two years.

 For a couple of years, in the late 70s, I worked for an organisation called The Arts In Fife, as a 'community writer'. I was part of a small group of writers and artists working in the community to 'facilitate' various creative events - writing groups, art projects etc. Fife is a big place and I needed to be able to drive, so I took my test in a hurry. Those were the dear dead days when you didn't have to wait years for a test. It was the most nerve-racking exam I've ever taken. Twice the same dog trotted over the road in front of me. It was the only time the stern examiner said anything apart from test related stuff. 'Suicidal dog,' he said. But I didn't run the dog over, and I must have looked in the mirror, because I passed first time. Then with my parents' help, I acquired a very elderly green Morris Minor, the only car I've ever truly loved. 

After a couple of months spent lodging with the kind parents of one of my old flatmates in Broughty Ferry (a home from home for a while) and commuting to Cupar where we were based, I managed to rent an upper flat in an old cottage in Kingskettle. It was pretty and comfortable but as so many houses back then, without central heating. As far as I remember there was a coal fire in the living room, and I carted a couple of electric fires back from Ayrshire. 

The job was huge fun.

Two incidents from that time stick in my mind. One was when my boss suggested that it would be a good idea if I put a notice up at RAF Leuchars, to see if any of the Air Force wives in particular might be interested in coming along to a daytime writing group. A little while later, I had a visit from Special Branch in the shape of a polite young man in a white mac, who had been told to 'investigate' me. 

It was the name that did it, of course. Although why any spy worth her salt would use such an obviously central European surname, I don't know. Surely Blunt or Philby would have been better.

On another occasion, myself and the community artist, Rozanne, pottered down to the East Neuk in my wee green Morris, to visit a National Trust property, at their request, to see if there was anything we could do for them. We were, as far as I remember, given coffee. But throughout the meeting, we were driven mad by the appetising scent of cooking. Eventually, we were shown out, politely enough. They were expecting a visit from the high heidyins in Edinburgh. As we ate fish and chips in Anstruther, we reflected that lowly artists and writers didn't merit such lunch invitations. They were only for 'those and such as those' - a status which I have seldom if ever achieved. 

Most writers will have tales of being decanted into the night in a strange town or city, having given a talk or similar, and heading back to some hotel or B&B to eat a packet of M&S sandwiches (if lucky) and drink one of those grim miniature bottles of wine, if you've remembered to buy one in advance. The very worst was an unpaid event for a big bookshop that hadn't even given me expenses, and being wished a cheerful goodnight, as I headed back to a horrible economy room in a hall of residence, with a narrow bed, a desk, a chair and a spider in the corner. 'Never again,' you say. Until the next time. 

I loved Fife and I still do - a beautiful place with friendly people. The job, as it was intended to do, left me some time to write. I was working on short fiction and poetry, as well as the occasional freelance piece for the Scotsman. I visited St Kilda, by helicopter, to write a piece about the island, and later drove to Fort William to interview one of the last people to leave the island. He still had his St Kilda spinning wheel, and showed me how to use it. Then I drove all the way back to Kingskettle, because I was working in Fife the next day.

Mostly though, my own work at that time involved radio plays, first with the late, much missed Marilyn Imrie, and following that with the equally missed Hamish Wilson. Of which more soon. 

When the job came to an end, I was on the verge of moving to Huddersfield, where I had just been accepted for a writer in residence post but was yet to make up my mind about it. Then an Ayrshire based friend decided to stop off in Kingskettle on his way to a fencing tournament. He never got to the tournament, and soon after that, I moved back to Ayrshire, got married and became a more or less full time writer.