CornerScribe

What’s holding you back?

If you’re reading this blog, I assume that you have at least some interest in making money from your writing. Maybe you’re very optimistic and hoping to support yourself completely or simply looking to supplement your income or buy dinner once a month or so.
So, what are you doing about it?

I know quite a few writers, both online and in the real world, and many claim to want to publish and make money writing. However, very few even manage to make anything, let alone enough to live on. Why is that?

The Artist

The artist won’t compromise his work for anyone or anything. To complicate matters, proofreading, editing, and rewriting all seem to fall under the large umbrella of “compromises” that he won’t make. Forget working with an editor, this person refuses to change the most egregious errors. None of the really great writers are appreciated until after they’re dead anyway, right?

The Chaser

The chaser will compromise her writing for nearly anything. What’s the latest bestseller? She’ll start a novel that’s similar. She reads that children’s literature is booming; she’ll write a children’s book. Never mind that she has no interest or background in the genre, she wants in on the action. When asked about her “voice,” her most honest answer is “Whatever you want it to be.”

The Perpetual Novel

This is the novel that sits in the writer’s drawers (not those drawers!) and gets pulled out occasionally. A paragraph is tweaked, a sentence is labored over, the novel is stroked, loved, admired, and slipped back in the desk. It must be perfect before going out in the world. As everyone except the writer knows, nothing is perfect, so this novel is doomed to be admired by one.

The Almost Writer

These are the folks who sit down and scribble on a poem or story for a few minutes, and then weeks or months go by with no writing. Still, they hope to one day write full time or publish. They’re sure they can do it, when they get the time.

The Sprinter

These writers start strong on a work and then fizzle out. Sometimes it’s the work that doesn’t quite make it, but often it’s the writer’s stamina that’s at fault. Novels are a marathon, not a sprint. Persistence and stamina count.

Fixing it

Okay, maybe these are a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I bet most writers can see a bit of themselves in the descriptions. I know that I can. What do you do to fix it? How do you get on the path to writing success?

1. The Artist. Get over yourself. If you want to publish and/or make money, then what you really want are readers. If you’re writing for yourself, it’s one thing. Be as attached to your work as you like. However, if you’re writing for someone else, you need to take others’ opinions into consideration.
2. The Chaser. Don’t look at the bestseller list. Skip those articles that talk about the next hot genre. Write only what you’d enjoy reading. Given time, you’ll develop your own voice. Besides, you can’t predict what’s going to be popular, and by the time it IS popular, you’ve missed out on the trend.
3. The Perpetual Novel. Finish it. Set a deadline, and declare it finished as of that date. Send it out to an agent on that very day, and absolutely resist the urge to rewrite until an agent or editor tells you to. Then, start another novel!
4. The Almost Writer. Write every day. Not a couple days a week, not most days, every day. When you’ve really developed a strong writing habit, you can take a day off here and there, but not until then. At a bare minimum, write every day for thirty days.
5. The sprinter. Do you have a novel that’s partially finished, AND that’s promising? Dig it out, and spend time every day finishing it.

In short, stick with it!