It Sure Pays to be a Writer!

Note: If you are a writer, you probably read the title of this post with an all-too-familiar hint of sarcasm. If you're not a writer, go ahead and read that again and just really let the sarcasm drip this time.

Rate of pay at my new writing gig: $1 per article (if it adheres to certain rules), a penny per visitor. You don't get paid until you earn at least $25. Published: 11 articles, Time spent on each article: 2-3 hours, Time invested in getting readers: 1 month and counting. Think I've gotten my first pay check yet?

Look, I'm not complaining, but you know who else gets paid in peanuts? Zoo animals.

Writer's Market

I've decided no more editing! Tomorrow I shall start the laborious search through the Novel & Short Story Writer's Market for literary magazines to send my manuscript to. Wish me luck!

What do you do?

What do you do when you are too lazy to keep up with your fiction writing? Well, try freelance article writing instead. It's so much easier to write a "How To" article because it involves research, facts, steps, introduction, conclusion, etc. All those things we learned in school.
No, really, I actually did write a bit last weekend. Well, re-write actually. I have a short story I want to send to literary magazines, but when I re-read it, I continued to make changes. It'll never be perfect. It gets frustrating when you can't just let it go! All this talk about re-writing calls to mind a scene from Naked Lunch:

Hank: Well, how about guilt re: censoring your best thoughts? Your most honest,
primitive, real thoughts. Because that's what your laborious rewriting amounts to, Martin.
Martin: Is rewriting really censorship, Bill? Because I'm completely fucked if it is.
Bill: Exterminate all rational thought. That is the conclusion I have come to.

what do you do when inspiration strikes?

The thing about being a writer is that sometimes it's very inconvenient when inspiration strikes you. I know you can set aside a time to write everyday, but more often than not it seems that an idea finds you when you're not looking. So what do you do? I am fortunate enough that if I'm in bed and I think of something to add to a story, I can usually remember it come morning. But sometimes I lie awake thinking about it for a long time, so I might as well get up and write it down. But if it's a new idea, I find that I have to write it down almost immediately. I've bought tons and tons of notebooks, and I've tried to get into the habit of carrying them around with me. But the other day I had a line that was in perfect iambic pentameter, and nothing to write it on but a paper towel from the bathroom. I think the craziest thing is when I find myself writing a whole plot outline, character sketch, or anything else down while I'm DRIVING. Hey, stoplights afford you enough time to get a few sentences out before you become a danger to yourself or others...

nastiest rejection letter?

I know writers keep their rejection letters cuz we're all self loathing like that. What was your nastiest rejection letter? Feel free to reword it to soften the blow (or not).

I've been fortunate in that I've only received the standard "Your work is not a right fit for this publication," which is basically a nice way of saying "Your work stinks." But at this point, a rejection letter for me is a pat on the back for even trying to send out manuscripts. In a year or so, when my apartment is wallpapered with them, they'll probably make me cry.

Writing Buddies, Yea or Nay?

I say nay, and that's not because of the other person. I realize that people have lives and a lot of us are often too busy to write. I say nay because you think that a writing buddy will always be there to move you along, or to inspire you to write. But the only person that can inspire you, is you. Maybe if I found someone locally and we had to report to each other in person every week on a particular day, I would say yea to the idea of writing buddies.