At the end of last year I decided to postpone my settling plans to attend a three-month writers’ programme in Koh Samui, Thailand. It was another excuse to continue the travelling lifestyle and an attempt to further develop my writer’s life. After a few weeks in the stinking hot writers’ residency, I developed very strong ideas about what I do, and especially what I don’t want from my writing life.
Writing Programme Intentions
The programme, called the Castle, has as its aim to let you build a portfolio of commercial writing, educate you through workshops and let you do your own stuff in your ‘free time’. In its presentation the programme toys with the idea that ‘you too could be a digital nomad’. The programme seemed predominately aimed at beginning writers, yet more experienced writers were encouraged to apply. From this I gathered that there would be something in it for me, without feeling the need to be more probing. This, in hindsight, was a mistake. My main intention was to build a portfolio of work that lies outside the sector I am currently working for, and see what business I could potentially pick up from the company organising the programme. It was known beforehand that we had to submit work with a total of a set word count every week. Based on my own work and how the required workload was presented on the programme’s website, I thought this wouldn’t be terribly hard to achieve and there would be time left to do my own work. This was, however, not the case.
Not as in the Brochure
At the time of my application at the end of last year, the Castle presented itself as a writer’s residency where you could hone your craft, lie in a hammock reading, do your own projects and explore the ‘island paradise’ of Samui. The reality, however, was quite different. There might not have been the intention to mislead. However, the Castle’s enlistment felt like the writer’s equivalent of the recruitment of a young woman from the countryside, who has been promised a job as an au pair in the city, only to be forced into prostitution upon arrival. With this I don’t mean to downplay any experience of forced prostitution. That form of exploitation is deliberate and absolutely abhorrent. At no point at the Castle was my passport confiscated or was I locked up in a room. Yet, let me explain.
A Writers’ Sweatshop
Rather than being a writer’s residency contributing to the fulfilment of the writer’s dream, the Castle is a sweatshop- quite literally- in which you produce the work for clients of the Castle’s parent company digital marketing agency AC Communications. You work on whatever this agency has available and when work is slow and the Castle is filled to capacity, there is less work available. This was the situation I found myself in, which, luckily, gave me the time to do my own work. This would never have been possible otherwise, as fulfilling the Castle’s required work load is a full-time occupation, depending on how fast you work and what is assigned to you. You can express your keenness to take on any task that is available, but beyond that, you don’t get to decide what you write about. The Castle basically functions as an agency and in my own experience working with intermediaries between me and clients, who often want excellent quality work but don’t want to pay for it, I was mainly frustrated and under-paid.
Claiming my Writer’s Dream
During the programme I could have built a portfolio of work on topics that lie outside the current sector I work in, as was my initial intention. Yet, within a few weeks the Castle’s offering mainly made me realise what I don’t want in my writer’s life. For that reason, the programme was not at all making a contribution to the fulfilment of my writer’s dream, as it says in the brochure. Every writer has her or his own dream. For most, it consist of expressing one’s ideas in prose or poetry with the desire for one’s work to be read by as many people as possible making you some- or a lot- of money. Similar to other artistic endeavours, it can be a challenge to find an audience for and make a living with your writing. As a compromise many writers make money with commercial writing. The aim of commercial writing, also called copywriting, is to promote a certain company or organisation and their product or service. You can make good money in commercial writing and if you are a bit of a geek and like to do research learning about new things, it’s not a bad occupation per se. However, in commercial writing you produce whatever your client wants. You can make suggestions, but if they don’t like it, you won’t get paid and/ or get any repeat work. Commercial writing allows very little, if any, room to express your own ideas and you could be flogging views you don’t necessarily agree with. Even when it comes to journalism or magazine writing, which hardly pays nowadays, you have to fall in line with the publication’s stance.
Riding the Wave of Authentic Living
Although I am very grateful for my current commercial writing work, as it allows me to make decent money leading my desired lifestyle, taking on more of the same does not contribute to the fulfilment of my writer’s dream. During my residency, the Castle offered a lot of ghost-writing work, which is not really contributing to your portfolio as such. AC Communications’ clients, a varied bunch, just want a rehash of existing ideas in an attempt to display expertise with the aim to sell their product or service. These ideas are not original, enlightening or even entertaining. Commercial writing, like much other work in business, is just corporate prostitution. We might not love the work, or even despise it, but it allows us to make a living, so we tend to stick to it, as there are bills to pay and mouths to feed, and yadi-yadi-ya.
Our focus on making a living rather than leading an authentic life is greatly diminishing our human capacity. I strongly believe in living life one’s own way and my intention is to consciously lead an authentic life, while making money. This is by no means an easy wave to ride, and I haven’t mastered it by any means. Yet, I consider the attempt a million times better than staying on the beach engaged in corporate prostitution being rather unfulfilled. Everyone can decide for themselves what they want from life. The Castle’s programme might help some to lead better lives and realise their dreams. Yet for me, slaving away in a writer’s sweatshop producing work on topics I don’t care about expressing opinions I don’t believe in and not getting paid for it*, feeds nothing but frustrations.
Image by Haylen Borrero
*the Castle’s three-month programme requires a fee of $200. You need to submit work consisting of a total weekly word count of several thousand words in exchange for lodging and two meals a day six days a week.
Dark Fairy Adventures 