By Cheryl Rushing

Image by ooh_food via Flickr

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

from On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft
by Stephen King

(review coming Monday!)

“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear.”

from The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
(review coming Monday!)

Image via Wikipedia

Over the past couple of years I’ve been trying to focus more on writing of the paid variety.  I like to write, and I like money, and I’ve heard there are people who are able to marry those two concepts.  I’d like to be one of those people.

My problem is, I’ve been going about it the wrong way.  I started out by searching for blogs about “freelance writing” and then subscribing to them.  ALL of them.  Then I started subscribing to those job posting sites for writers.  ALL of them.

I had come to the point where my RSS readerwas over 2,000 unread items, almost all of it freelance-writing-related, and I began to feel equal parts guilty and overwhelmed.  I unsubscribed from about half of them, but just the ones I was consistently skipping over.

Then I found a few freelance sites that offer classes and ebooks, and I started buying ebooks (the classes always seem too expensive).  Those ebooks are mostly unread.

Then I started reading those freelance blogs I was still subscribed to, and this is what I read:

• Freelance writing is so easy, anyone can do it.
• Freelance writing is not for the faint of heart.
• With a little hard work and some pluck, you can have a successful freelance writing career.
• If you don’t already have a two-page writing resume and a degree in marketing, you will never make it in this business.
• You have to pay your dues to be a true freelancer.
• Forget about “paying your dues” – get paid for your work!
• There are plenty of great writing jobs out there.
• All the great jobs are taken, and print work is dead.

And so on, and so on.  There are some freelance sites that want to teach you to be a freelancer (for a fee, for a course, for a book), and there are sites that want to discourage you from it (to reduce competition?).

I got caught in the trap of thinking I needed every resource, and then getting overwhelmed by the number of resources out there. 

The bottom line is: I want to write, I want to freelance, and I want to make money at it.  I’m smart, I think I’m talented, and the opportunities aren’t going to come to me.

I think I have managed to cobble together enough good and positive information that, when added to my desire to succeed, I can probably get somewhere.  The journey begins here and now.

Image via Wikipedia

Time flies when you’re having fun.  Or doing whatever it is I’ve been doing since the beginning of January.  Where to begin?

I have been writing a bit, mostly SEO articles for paid blogging sites at other locations.  It usually results in gas and grocery money for the week, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less.

I’ve whored out my oldest blog to pretty much nothing but paid articles.  I won’t even link you because some of it’s lame.  The bad thing about those content mills is they don’t let you choose what you want to write about.  At this point the only thing I’m refusing to write about is diet pills (and by refuse I mean I ignore the assignment until it goes away).

I’ve also been doing a lot of reading.  I got a Kindle in April (yes, two months before the price drop), and after filling it with stories of wizards, vampires and werewolves, I started in with the self-help books.  These are the ones I am currently reading, and I will be sharing more about them in the coming blog posts:

The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated by Timothy Ferriss

On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft by Stephen King

The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman

If you’re still reading, thanks for hanging around waiting for me to come back.

I was looking at this blog the other day and thinking that it was missing something. Oh, yeah! CONTENT.

I’m finishing up my second article for I’ve Tried That and just pitched a third one to them, which they have agreed to.

I’m still waiting on the results from the WritersWeekly.com’s 24-Hour Short Story Contest, and contemplating whether I will be entering the Spring 2009 version.  I was thinking about posting my entry, but I am going to wait until the results for the winter contest are posted.

Last year I decided that I was going to write for pay, something I have never done.  This is not because I didn’t want to be paid for my writing, but because I wasn’t sure how to make that happen.

I’ve often felt that perhaps I needed to know the secret handshake, or know the right people, or be willing to follow a certain set of rules.  I made freelance writing this unattainable goal for myself.

I decided to change all that, and set a modest monetary goal for myself for 2008.  I exceeded that goal by about 50% by doing paid blog posts on my personal site.  Sure, it’s not high art or The New Yorker, but it’s writing, and it pays.

I’ve set a much higher goal for 2009, some of which I expect to come from paid blog entries.  I also want to write articles for Helium and Associated Content.

I’ve figured out that people don’t hand out writing work.  Freelance jobs don’t show up in your doorstep.  You’ve got to beg, borrow and steal to get them.  You’ve got to stick your foot in the door and then force your way in, jumping up and down and yelling “Pick me! Pick me!”

OK, maybe that’s just my way, but it works.  I’m currently working an article (possibly two) for I’ve Tried That (click that link to see what I’m writing about).

I’m not technically getting paid for the writing in the strictest sense, but it will be a writing credit, and something I can point to and say “I did that for them, now what can I do for you?”.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this:  if you want it, go for it.  Don’t let anything stop you.  I let everything stop me, for far too long.

A few months ago I was working on a novel on my old Alphasmart Dana.  The battery was shot so I bought a new rechargeable and managed to erase the hard drive – 6 chapters in progress! – while trying to change things out.

Last week while searching for my car warranty papers I found an excerpt of one of my novels-in-progress I had printed for (and never read at) my local Florida Writers Association meeting.

*deep breath*

I will be posting that excerpt on this very website no later than Friday.   This is a huge step for me because I never let anyone read a work in progress.  Be gentle.

** Edited 11/21/08 – this is going to sound like I chickened out, but I didn’t.  I can’t find the hard copy of the piece I mentioned, and I can’t find the computer file, either.  The hard copy IS here somewhere, and I’ll transcribe it and get it up ASAP.