Selling Out

On the day the market dove below 10,000... down, flutter, down like a brick sinking through polluted water, my children came home from school and hosted a lemonade stand outside our house. Em raced down the street shouting, and holding a little sign marked, “Lemonade One $” and “Coffee banana thing, too!” referring to a cloudy brown substance sitting in a Mason jar on the front lawn. The dog sat at the bottom of the stairs and brayed. Anna ran inside and looked for more pitchers and change. “Didn’t we have another pic-ture?” Then out out out again to sell sell sell to a man who said, “A dollar? This better be the best lemonade I’ve ever tasted.”

“You’ll have to try it to find out,” Em answered.

I cringed. Told Anna to warn Em that she was marketing too hard. “It’s embarrassing!” I said.

And then I had to wonder what part, exactly, was embarrassing. Was it the entrepreneurial spirit that irked me, or the bald inflation? Was it the aggressiveness? Or was it the sinking feeling that soon my children would have more cash on hand than I did?

Not exactly. I was mortified because my daughter knew exactly what she wanted (money); why she wanted it (to buy a “DS”); and she was willing to do whatever it took to get it. (Including bag dog poop and team up with her little sister). My kids had no idea that the market had tanked when they started their enterprise, nor, as they counted their haul ($14.50 over an hour and a half) that it had rebounded. During dinner with a friend, they discussed the nuts and bolts of their efforts. It would be better, they decided, if they contributed one out of every 15 dollars to Bhante Wimala’s humanitarian efforts. It’s easier to ask for money if a portion is going to a good cause, and they like Bhante’s works. Also, they would keep a running tally of the amount earned and donated, in writing. And also, they would get a Wii, because they could share it. And also...And also...

I sat and listened, mostly. I had, after all, spent some portion of the day talking to people about writing- how to market writing, why writers don’t market themselves better, and how, if a writer does market herself, she can actually, gulp, earn, like, money. And it’s high time I did just that. The problem is, writing isn’t anything like lemonade. At least, I thought it wasn’t.

Today I talked to a guy who buys his writing off-shore - “ten bucks for 500 words!” And another who buys his “From the Eastern Europeans now, because I have to rewrite less but it’s still cheap...” and he asked how many words I’d give him for $40. “What?” I wanted to be indignant. This is my passion! I write from my heart! But I was getting paid to make the call, so I gave him a number. And then I felt sick.

Here’s what I wish I’d said. “A dollar a word, my friend.” And if he balked, “It might be the best you’ve ever read. Try it.”