While every writer dreams of the day their writing will pay all of their bills, most writers live paycheck to paycheck and search for that next writing piece that might put them ahead enough to make ends meet completely.
So, how do you know when the writing is paying the bills? You calculate what your average monthly bills are for three months in a row, then subtract that from how much you have made from your writing in the same time span. If your writing income minus your bills leaves you in positive numbers, then you are starting to do good. If you have a significant amount more from writing than you are paying in bills one of two things may have happened: you might be doing really good, or you might have forgot a bill (you remembered the mortgage payment, right? Cost of food?)
Ideally you want your writing to consecutively pay the bills month after month with some left over for one to three years before you start to think about quitting your day job to write full time. And then you should have enough set aside to live at your current standard of living for at least one to three years after you have quit your day job just in case your writing hits a hard bottom after you start doing it full-time.
So, what does it take? Hard work, and a little-- no, a lot of luck combined with good planning for when is the right time to test your wings. It is always better to glide down slowly than to fall, and with luck you will take off and fly.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
New daily writing goal on novel - 5by5
Okay, so 250 words a day is not working so well for me. Here I am on day 4 of that and I should have 1,000 words toward my novel... I'm about 1,000 words shy of that mark at a nice round zero.
New determination hit me this morning though, and I think it might just work. I am not going to promise to write a page worth of words, or a paragraph or anything else.
My new goal. 5by5. I am going to write five words by 5 p.m. each day of the week 5 days a week. If the muses want to keep going I certainly will not make them stop, but the goal here is, I have to have five words added the page by 5 p.m. every weekday (M-F).
Five words ain't too much. And if you leave out the 'ain't ain't a word' type cheats, then it gets harder to keep your count to just five words, because - Five words is not too much work to fit into an afternoon.
New determination hit me this morning though, and I think it might just work. I am not going to promise to write a page worth of words, or a paragraph or anything else.
My new goal. 5by5. I am going to write five words by 5 p.m. each day of the week 5 days a week. If the muses want to keep going I certainly will not make them stop, but the goal here is, I have to have five words added the page by 5 p.m. every weekday (M-F).
Five words ain't too much. And if you leave out the 'ain't ain't a word' type cheats, then it gets harder to keep your count to just five words, because - Five words is not too much work to fit into an afternoon.
