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How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.  ~Annie Dillard This quote, from the FundsforWriters newsletter on November 26, 2021, reached me toward the end of a one-month writing residency. Dillard’s words helped me understand why I had found my weeks at the residency so worthwhile: because this brief period of time proved to be the exception to her otherwise true insight. Many of us, including myself, work hard to fit writing around the daily grind. My grind includes a day job, a family, pets, household maintenance, garden maintenance,  friendship maintenance, and self-maintenance. I am not complaining. I love my grind. As a deadline-driven woman, I often find it helpful. If I have a meeting at nine o’clock, for instance, I will get my word count in before that Zoom alert blooms on my screen. Meeting postponed for an hour? Reaching my word count will stretch out until ten a.m. But doing some types of writing requires in-depth, sustained attention rather than the rapid-fire rhythm of deadlines. I have been working on such a project, which I call Asking After Alice. It is the story of someone in my family who spent her whole life institutionalized because she More

Steven Pressfield (the author of The War of Art) speaks about the difficulty of pushing through and reaching THE END of whatever you are writing. It could be a poetry chapbook. It could be a memoir. It could be fiction of any genre or any word count. It could be a how-to on cabinetmaking or a children’s picture book. A lot of writers struggle with perfecting an effort and reaching THE END. Why? Because that is the point where you let others read it . . . and get feedback. That is when you submit for publication . . . and get feedback. The feedback is the thrill and the agony of writing, and sometimes we feel safer just saying we’re still writing it, because that is the world in which we feel safest. What are we afraid of? -Being told it’s just okay. Or worse, that it’s bad, but frankly, once we hear it’s okay the meaning is the same. -Prematurely releasing your darling in the world. But who’s to say when it’s premature? -Learning after all that time invested that we really do not know what we are doing. It’s called being a phony. Look across social media. When an author More

As writers, we tend to carve out a niche for ourselves and stick to writing what we know best. We get comfortable writing in our genre. It fits us much like a pair of old pajamas. Even if the money isn’t coming in like we’d hoped, we don’t want to take those flannel pants off, because then we’d have to find something else to wear that might not be as soft or warm. But if the royalties are sputtering, full-time writers can’t just throw their hands up in the air helplessly. The better angle is deciding it’s time to get proactive and take some of those old eggs out of the basket. As writers, we have skills and talents that can be put to use beyond the pages of a book. Most of those ways are lucrative. Maybe not Jay Z-lucrative, but they’ll keep the wolf away from the door. Let’s study some of the ways to boost your income before you return to the grind of a 9-5 job. Articles. Articles. Articles I can’t emphasize this one enough. Writing nonfiction is different, but your talent can be shaped into bites of 600-1,000 words that will pay considerably well. The More

I just saw another crowdfunding campaign where the author is asking for money to be able to do what they love to do…write. These types of campaigns are usually not successful, and this is why: 1) Everyone has a dream. Why should the world pay for your dream? 2) A lot of people, millions as a matter of fact, wish they could write and publish a book. 3) A lot of people, millions as a matter of fact, ARE writing and publishing books without asking for money. 4) There are ways to publish without paying to publish. I’m known for suggesting to fledgling authors who intend to self-publish (paying to publish) or hybrid publishing (paying most of the publishing cost), that they consider a crowdfunding campaign. But: 1) Most don’t want to pour their heart into the campaign. 2) Most post a campaign and do not work it. 3) Most write the campaign about themselves instead of the mission of the book/magazine/anthology they need money for. Crowdfunding is not about you. Most err in asking for money for themselves, and that’s not very palatable to the people out there who wish they had money, too. Crowdfunding is about funding a More

There are almost 31 million small businesses in the United States, and a freelance writer who understands how to serve and communicate with small businesses—and their special needs and restrictions—can open up a whole new world of opportunities, relationships, and steady income. As a small business owner, advocate, and consultant, someone who has worked on both sides of this equation for over three decades, here are ten tips for working with us. 1.     Know that small businesses need writing help (templates, letters, newsletters, website content, blog posts, social media posts, press releases, marketing materials, manuals, books, and more), but we likely don’t know it. How will it help us? How much will it cost? Will it save me time and money and bring in new business? 2.     I’ll say it again: 31 million. That translates into an endless stream of potential clients for any one writer. We are not being contacted as often as you’d think by freelancers (rarely, in fact)—and not with compelling offers that speak our language. Fix this and you’re ahead of the minimal proactive competition. 3.     We are everywhere, starting with outside your front door and in the personal networks More

I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.   ~James Joyce I grinned at this quote. Do you remember in English Lit class when the teacher spent days dissecting a novel on what the author really meant between the lines? What were the hidden meanings? What was the symbolism? What metaphors spoke to the issues of the time? Even as a fifteen-year-old tenth grader, I found it audacious and pretentious of a school teacher to claim to understand what a creative mind thought when alone at a table penning a tale. And when a teacher deemed a student off-the-mark in their interpretation, well, the less I thought of the teacher. Who knows what an author meant but the author? Of course some stories are clear in their intentions, such as Orwell’s 1984 or his satirical allegorical novella Animal Farm. His intentions were in-your-face and purposeful. Others, however, are just telling a deeply felt story. I once attended a book club where they discussed Murder on Edisto, the first in the Edisto Island Mysteries, and an outspoken member More

As a teacher, I know firsthand the value of using visuals to catch my students’ attention and move them from the printed word to a higher level of engagement. Therefore, as I pondered ways to attract potential buyers of my debut novel, The Bottle House, it occurred to me that brief videos could interest and engage potential readers. Short videos on Facebook ads work well, but I wanted to get the most “bang for my buck” when it came to buying advertisements. The lessons I learned were these: Choose a video-making website   As a classroom teacher, I have used PowerPoint for video work, but I found some places that made video making simpler. Needing a company that could help me produce videos in a download form; one that would not have to be hosted on YouTube, I found InVideo. I chose this company for a few reasons. They have great tutorial videos both on their site and on YouTube. They have many templates that allow you to change pictures, movements of words, graphics, and music tracks that you can upload into your video. You can sign up for one of two different plans to make videos and the monthly More

Most of you will say both, but that is not true. You may not even realize it’s not true. Truth is, we all start writing with a purpose in mind. . . to either make money writing, or to have our work loved. And whether you admit it or not, you favor one mindset over the other. This is going to be a very opinionated piece, so buckle in for the ride. The biggest frustration to most writers, any type of writer, is not being read. Whether that means being read to earn royalties or commissions, or being read to be loved for the art of the story, the bottom line is you write for words to be appreciated. You love the thought of words being powerful. But when you think you’ll make a million dollars with cozy mysteries, or your beautiful talent will be appreciated in a blog post about buying the best earbuds, you have your priorities become mixed up. You become your own worst enemy. First, if your main desire is to earn a living as a writer (whether you have to or want to, doesn’t matter), then accept that and look for writing niches that earn More

Access to TV/film producers and directors has never been easier through direct access pitching. It is made possible through a variety of online venues (below) that have sprouted up over the years in an effort to bridge the gap between screenwriter and TV/film decision-makers, with the prospect of getting it produced. While traditionally securing a film agent can offer you advantages—like better access to opportunities—direct access pitching offers shorter wait times and the chance to create one-on-one relationships with producers, that can ultimately lead to selling your work. Whether you’re a professional screenwriter, newbie, or looking to build your credits, direct pitching can offer you opportunities to expand your portfolio to include short scripts, TV, web-series, or even podcasts. More often, when submitting to producers through a direct pitch, you’re connecting with someone who not only has a budget in place to pay you, but is reading for their current production slate, or one in the very near future, increasing your chances of success and securing a paid contract. Since you are directly pitching a decision-maker, if you receive an outright ‘no,’ you might be able to ask what they are more apt to say ‘yes’ to—they may also return More

The publishing industry is never going to settle into a norm. Frankly, it never has, it’s just we, as members of different generations, enter the business at different times, with different books, in different genres, with different styles of publishing, and with different concepts of marketing, and as a result we establish our own sense of norm. However, serious change occurs almost monthly, at least seasonally, so if you enter this profession, get used to change. The adaptable types wind up the most successful. In other words, no hand-wringing and crying about how things are not fair. In still more words, you chose this gig. On to the changes of late: 1) Library lending through OverDrive is up 16 percent. Partly due to the infusion of federal COVID funds and partly due to the increase in library patronage. Publishers appeared more sympathetic to libraries in terms of costs. 2) Reading was up around the world last year, but it’s sluggish this year. 3) Print sales were up in 2021, with adult fiction the primary catalyst. 4 )The majority of sales in 2021 were due to backlists, justifying why an author always ought to be writing on the next book. 5) More