Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

Writing is a scary job. I can say that with impunity. I’ve raised two kids, trained a good number of horses to ride, and jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. All those things were scary as hell, but in some ways, writing has them all beat.

Now that I’ve ditched the day job, half the world seems to want to “become a writer”. I could be wrong, but what I think they really want is to find some way to ditch the 9-5 and still get paid. Seeing their name in print would be a huge plus.

Yes, I am no in control of my own hours, more or less. I don’t get paid per hour, mind you, nor can I count on a certain amount per month or even per year. Every day, I write at least one 500 word blog post, give or take, plus 3000 words split between two projects. Every writer is different, but most days this runs me between four and five hours of work.

Then, of course, there is the endless pile of editing and submitting to be done. Once you’ve got the final word on that novel, you aren’t done. Truth is, you’ve just started. Editing, rewriting, editing again, the entire process can take days or years, depending on the length of the piece and how drunk you were while typing it. No, really, I don’t drink anything stronger than soda while writing, but during the editing process I sometimes wonder what the hell I was taking when I wrote that particular piece of garbage.

I try to spend another two hours a day on the editing process. Which puts me at between six and seven hours of work, seven days a week. Should be plenty, right?

Nope. Not even close. I still have the outlines and plot arcs to work on, as well as research for whatever pieces I’m working on. The biggest, most frustrating, chunk of time goes to finding markets for your work. Not only do you need to find a place that is accepting submissions, fits what you’ve written, and isn’t defunct, you need to concentrate on finding a place that will further your writing future and actually pay you in money.

You see, a great many places don’t pay authors in money. Magazines may pay in copies, or in ‘exposure’. Roughly translated, that means we aren’t going to give you anything, you’ll just hope that having your name in print is enough for you.

Seeing your name in print is pretty cool, but it doesn’t pay the light bill. This is where we lose the majority of folks that say they want to be writers. Because they don't actually want to write, they want to stay at home and get paid. A few brave souls feel differently, though. They really want to write, but aren't sure if they're 'real' writers.

Writing is scary. You have few secrets, and people tend to assume that anything you write about has actually happened to you at some point. (Just to be clear, although I did write a fairly evocative evisceration scene, I have never actually eviscerated anyone.) Your thoughts, feelings, and personal worth become public playthings. This is kind of the point, but it does require a thickening of the skin, especially when it comes to rejection and critique.

I'll let you in on a little secret. You don’t become a writer by being published. You simply are one. It doesn’t matter a damn bit if someone has chosen to put your work up for sale or not yet. It doesn’t matter what genre you write. Of course some people hold tightly to one style or another, but that is their opinion of what writing is, not what writing is for you. Facing those judgments, on top of your own insecurities, can be scary indeed.

There really is only one requirement to being a ‘real’ writer: you write. That’s it. Close your eyes, flip off whatever is scaring you, and write. Repeat as often as the sun rises.

Cheers,

Michelle