I did see a lot of YouTubers back then and didn’t know that they got paid for what they did until when I was told. I never truly believed that you could get paid for engaging a hobby until I watched Cyrus (the Dancer) for the first time. That was how I even came across the term YouTube.
Cyrus’ body movement left me in so much awe and desire to be able to use my body like that. But I wasn’t resilient enough to stick through the tough practices. I knew that Musicians got paid for singing but I only listened to gospel songs then and bought CDs and to my tiny brain, I narrowed it all to a very small tunnel. You know where you are doing something and thinking everyone does it too and you think that you can just make an estimate? Well, that was how I did it. I made the total conclusion that these gospel artists are not paid a lot since I see their CDs everywhere on the shelf. To me, if they are making money, those things shouldn’t even be there. But my ignorance quickly met a wisdom and I got to understand what streaming was. I was made to understand that the CD was just on the surface level – the tip– and there was a deeper level.
Then I came across kids doing weird shows and then Nickelodeon. Ha! Watching kids way younger getting paid for doing something they love. I narrowed it all to that too. I also thought Pastors were paid well too. Then I grew and began to write and shared handwritten stories to my classmates. I was probably 12 when I read a story written by a Nigerian and really liked it. Then I flipped the back and felt my jaw drop. A 10 year old wrote it! I was spurred. I felt the burning desire to write for the first time – for money. Because I understood that whoever this girl was, she was getting paid.
Fast forward to years later, I was the ghost behind some fiction and getting paid handsomely for it by my foreign employer. Although it came with a lot of stress (writing 30k words in a week and a minimum of 3k in a day), it was also challenging and I didn’t know it then but it was opening my mind and stretching it. It helped me a lot. Then I started writing on my own. Wrote my first song ever and lost it. Then I met someone who trusted me enough to give me a beat. I wrote a rap and it was nothing short of glorious. To me that it until I began to listen to rap and understood that I had a lot of work to do to improve myself. Soon, I got an offer or two to write songs for some upcoming artists and was paid handsomely as well. At 19 years old, that was pretty cool.
Then life happened and I lost track and hit rock bottom, forgetting about how much I loved these things (see why I love NF and relate to him so much?) so I tried to get back and I did. Wrote a couple of more raps and losing track of time cooped up in my room playing beats all over again and trying to create cool punchlines. Then I met Hive. I started expressing my feelings and loving just being words. The hobby of writing and listening to music progressed and I met quite some people who challenged me to become more. So what did I do? I started writing more fiction. And I got paid for it. Not just paid. I was engaged with and got beautiful comments and praises.
Then I came across the V-log and the several music videos dished out. I saw this as an opportunity and what did I do? Hit up my friend to “trust me” and give me his beat. He did. And I published “MAD VIBEZ” on the blockchain. An original rap written by yours truly. And I got freaking paid for it!
I wrote a couple more but never published here. Soon, I began to hunger for more and decided maybe it was time to take my writing to the next level. Writing for formal organizations. Am I there yet? Nope. But I am halfway.
So, writing has become a hobby that pays me and I know it would pay for a longer time. I am not looking to write on Hive forever. I have set my sights on getting involved in bigger projects. I love to express myself with words and recently, I discovered that the way I can, in flourish, keep growing and developing my writing skills is to do it constantly. Because people pay for value. If I can hone this hobby and make a kick ass skill out of it, I am looking at a long term of earning from it.
