Lu-Hai Liang

Dear reader,

I write you from Seoul, Republic of Korea.

I want to talk about a few ideas that have been coalescing in my mind. They are to do with money: income and expenditure. But I eventually realised it wasn’t really about that, at all. Money shouldn’t enter the picture.

(I caveat this by disclosing I have no dependents, no mortgage, and no desire for those things at the moment.)

To that end, let’s just talk about work.

I enjoy my work and I don’t mind doing some of it every single day. But there are some things I need to get better at. These are:

1. To get better at continually stringing together series of commissions.
2. Find more “anchor clients”.
3. Re-orientate my thinking so that I believe the work itself is the reward, rather than thinking the money (or acclaim) earned from the work is the reward.
4. Take time off to focus on my own writing — creative writing.

Let’s talk about the craftsman attitude: this is where you devote focus to your craft and take a rarified approach to the work. The theory is that if you adopt this approach enjoyment, flow, and meaning should naturally arise. Then the material rewards — such as money and acclaim — come about as mere byproducts.

The main reward is simply the reward of focusing deeply on what is in front of you.

Second point: taking time off to focus on my own writing. Another problem of being a writer is professionalisation.

Writing shouldn’t only be thought of as a source of income. Writing is a craft and an art. But writing only articles and being a professional writer — that is being paid for written works — can diminish the feeling of it being a source of enjoyment and pleasure.

To that end, perhaps I should take more time off to concentrate on my own creative writing. I believe that might be very important to my ongoing journey as a writer.

I believe, then, my sense of time might expand. And the anxiety will diminish. Chase only the work, the process, nothing else. Find the joy in being lost in all the opportunities, and creative problems, that arise from being a valued writer.

Forget everything else and bring your focus to bear on the task at hand.

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