“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”
Dorothy Parker
To Begin With
I’ve been writing for over a decade, and I’ve been doing it full-time for nearly eight months. In all that time, I’ve earned a few thousand bucks — enough to complicate my income taxes, not enough to pay for my daily ramen and now weekly cup of coffee. If you hope to write for a living, either start off wealthy or be Stephen King.
But that’s not success.
Seriously: If your view of success involves rolling around in huge piles of dollar bills, writing is not the career to choose. You’d do better selling things people want rather more, and are less eager to provide, so there’s a decent market. Like drugs, maybe, or sex.
Yeah, I know: Those are illegal. So maybe you’d better not do it. I’m just saying, ya know?
No, writing is its own reward, like telling a great joke or being the life of the party. We scribble our stories in order to write stories. Its a bonus if people read them, gravy if they like them, and a winning lottery ticket if we actually get paid for what we do.
That’s where we’re starting from. If you don’t like it — tough. Not liking it won’t change it. Them’s the facts. Better you learn them now than after you’ve spent a year starving to death.
BUT.
That’s only where we’re starting from. There’s nothing says we have to stay there.
Moving On
So you still want to be a serious writer, even after that, huh? Okay, fine. So here’s how it works:
- It’s a job. Just like a job, you need to be there for a set time each day, several days a week. Unlike most jobs, you actually care how well you’re doing, so you’d best do some work while you’re there. I write in four-hour blocks; some people work eight.
- Get good. If you’re just starting, you’re probably not very good at it. You learn by doing. Write every day, and submit it somewhere that gives you feedback. Unlike with most jobs, you can also read to improve your skill; read daily, and make sure it’s varied content.
- Get used to rejection. If you write stories for magazines, even the very best have only a small chance of ever getting published. Revise according to feedback, and submit again someplace else. Eventually, you’ll need to throw a lot of stories into your trunk, and maybe put them in an anthology one day. Or maybe not.
- Arrange support. You can’t do this alone. Even if you succeed, it’ll probably never pay the rent. That’s just how it works; complaining won’t help. Make sure whoever is paying your rent understands this and that they’re okay with it before you’ve quit your day job — or just keep your day job. Most successful writers do.
- Value yourself. Sure, you can pay money to enter writing contests, but most aren’t worth it. By the same token, no magazine with a submissions fee is worth your time, and no venue that won’t pay for what you do is either.
There’s one more step to this, and it’s possibly the most important of all of them. Naturally, it’s also the one thing everyone does wrong, so be certain to pay attention to all the details. Don’t just pick and choose what you think applies to you, because that’s the certain way to do it wrong.
- Know when to quit. There comes a time when you can’t handle the rejection any more, when you’re sick and tired of eating Maruchan ramen instead of food and drinking weak tea instead of coffee. There comes a day when you can’t pay the rent and the furniture’s been repossessed and your spouse is leaving with the kids. This is not the time to quit. This is two months after the time to quit, and even then it was only time to retrench, re-evaluate, and pay some attention to the Real World.
Once you’re at the point where you’ve got nothing left to lose, you might as well keep going. Sure, get a part-time job to keep the landlord happy (or at least less eviction-minded), and so on.
The time to quit is when you have no stories in you worth the telling. Then, quit only long enough to recharge your stocks and press on.
If instead you choose the course of sanity, normality, and working a Real Job for satisfaction: good for you. You’ll be much happier. Those of us who can’t will envy you from afar, especially while eating yet another bowl of Top Ramen.
That’s my advice, for what it’s worth.
Here’s what it’s worth: I’m presently selling a dozen flash pieces every quarter at SciFi Shorts, in addition to the occasional outside sale. Once in a while I’ll sell an Op-Ed or a fact-based piece. Donations come in to me through my Patreon, the links here at The Not Fake News, and The Planets Magazine. I’m even earning ad-share at Elon Musk’s revised version of Twitter (I don’t like referring to it as X; it’s now and forever TwiX to me). Don’t sneer; it’s all money, and it all serves to help fend off the creditors.
Feel free to use my system; help yourself to my list of paying periodicals. And if you hit it big, donate.
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