Can Writing Pay Off Your Student Loan?

Original Principal Balance: $39,077.28.

Holy shit.

That’s how much I owed the day I graduated. Forty thousand dollars, for a liberal arts education. And that’s not counting grad school. Since I wanted to be a writer, I refused to get a “real” job, like a responsible person, and instead just dicked around, taking minimum wage jobs that left me plenty of time to write. Oh, and let’s not forget my fave method of survival, mouching off gainfully employed relatives and friends.

Really pathetic, now that I think about it.

Was it worth it to go to college? Did I need to pay $40,000 to learn to write? Honestly, I don’t know. I did learn to write much better in college, and I learned to do historical research, and I learned to identify bullshit, of which there was quite a lot. (Don’t get me started on postmodernism.)

The real question is, can writing ever pay off the debt incurred? I avoided the issue by being so poor, I could defer payment, or by going back to school to defer payment. When I married, I still owed pretty much everything. My husband, bless his patient soul, essentially took over paying the debt for me. That’s not fair to him, though, and I’d like to be able to pay it off myself with my own earnings.

It’s Finally Starting To Look Like The Future

This century started out poorly, let’s be honest. Barely a year in, and what have you got, but morons flying planes into buildings, war, more war and economic depression. It seems like at home and abroad there are fanatics trying to drag us back into the dark ages. Hello, was this what the Twenty-First Century was supposed to be like?

Heck, no.

Here, however, is something that finally makes me feel like I’m living in the Twenty-First Century I was promised–3D printers for your home! How awesome is that? Only $1300. We had to get the plumbing fixed in our home (which was built in the dark ages), so sadly this is not something we can afford. But some rich yuppies somewhere will buy it, and help bring the price down for the rest of us. (See? There is a good use for the idle rich!) In a few years, I hope, this tech will be better and cheaper and I will buy one.

You may be thinking, “Why do I need a 3D printer in my home?”

This is the beginning of having replicators in our homes. Instead of having to go to the mall and pick out from a selection of shirts with hideous patterns, one in a size too large and one in a size too small, you will be able to shop online, get any size you want, with a selection that is not limited to what huge fashion conglomerates decide is trendy.

Think of how publishing has changed due to ebooks, and now imagine that applied to everything else. Think what this will mean for home designers. Just as indie authors suddenly have access that large publishers monopolized previously, so indie designers will be able to sell their designs for clothes, furniture, toys, gadgets, tools, and devices cheaply and competitively.

For instance, my brother has designed cute little bug robots. They are fun. But it’s not worth his while at the moment to attempt to distribute them beyond his own family. If he could simply sell the design and anyone could purchase and print the bugs, it would be easy for him to do so.

Now, I just want to know one more thing. When are they going to apply this technology to FOOD? I am so sick of cooking dinner everynight. I would rather pay one of YOU out there to design healthy and yummy meals for me, and let me just buy and print out dinner. I don’t know who “you” are, but I know you’re a better cook than I, and I am just waiting.

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Other good news: The Unfinished Song: Initiate is now FREE on Amazon.uk! Yay! I have made the first book free in the US for a while now, and have been hoping to do the same in the UK. Now this dream is a reality, so if you are in the UK, or know folks in the UK, please, please help me get out the word that this is a great time to grab the first book in The Unfinished Song epic fantasy.

Now free on Amazon.uk.