Gruntwork

My brother offered to pay me to write a paper of his. It was about the effect of video game violence on minors. I told him where he could find more information about it, but declined his offer. I told him the journalistic side of me told me it was unethical.

As someone who presents themselves as a would-be writer, I get these requests often. Some people only know me as "that dude can write well," so they'll ask me to write or edit their papers. I've never taken up an offer to writer someone's paper for them, but I have edited a few. The most money I've ever gotten out of this was $30. It feels weird to do something like that when I myself need a huge amount of editing on my work. But usually, the papers I edit would be absolutely obliterated by a proper editor.

The other part of this is that everyone seems to think that writing is the easiest thing in the world to do. They think it's hard for them because they're not good at it, but that for me, words flow and stream out of me at a constant rate. Any writer knows that even when it's fun, writing is work. You have to put effort into what you love, just like any other profession or obsession. Good writing definitely does not come easily. So no, I don't want to write about things that don't matter to me in the long haul. I care about video game violence, but enough to write something that'll go under someone else's name.