What does it take for writing to pay the bills?

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.

Amazon Publishing?

An October 16th article in the New York Times details how Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal, and indeed, if you pay a visit to Amazon, you can find their self-publishing information that allows authors to self-publish their books in the Amazon system using CreateSpace to do manufacturing-on-demand publishing of books.

Amazon's publishing platform allows authors to take advantage of Kindle Books through Kindle Direct Publishing to sell eBooks. Even to use Amazon's Search Inside! feature to allow potential buyers to search inside of your book so they can decide if it is the book they are looking for before they buy.

Check out the Self-Publish page at Amazon to find out more about how you can self-publish your books through Amazon. Or to get an idea about the costs associated with self-publishing your book through CreateSpace see their Understanding Royalties page, or the CreateSpace product page for books.

What have I been up to lately?

So... what have I been up to lately? I've been working my tailbone off, but not as much on writing as I would have wanted to be.

I worked on The Writing Office a bunch. Preparing it for a beta opening ... tomorrow. Gaspy! I'm not ready for that yet! I think I know what today is going to be spent doing.

Other than that I was a little busy this week (yay!) getting some work done that will actually help to pay some of next month's bills. Always nice when I check the work box and there is to-do stuff in it. I even still have a few more things to work on over the weekend to finish up this week's work and get ready for, hopefully, more work on Monday.

I did some reading. Must read, it is essential to keep reading and learn what styles you like and what things you would like to avoid having show up in your work. I'm reading Michael Crichton's novel TIMELINE, which my dad had in his books. He loved Michael Crichton, and had recommended TIMELINE to me in the past, so it became the first novel in my list of books I want to read this year.

Over the weekend I want to somewhere find the time to do major Spring Cleaning renovations on my office. I want to be able to sit at the window to write again. Not on the computer, but longhand. I have taken back to writing outlines longhand in a notebook with a sharp #2 pencil, so I want to be able to sit by the window and watch the garden while I work on that stuff.

Right now I have several websites I need to go check in on and update a bit here and there, not to mention some work that is waiting to be finished.

The Writing Office

I have a writing website called The Writing Office that is designed to be a virtual community office for writers. I opened registrations for new members, that was scheduled for May 1st, a bit early to help me work out the kinks in the system. I have also temporarily enabled guest posting access to the shoutbox on the main page of The Writing Office so that anyone that has any issues with the registration process can let me know that they need help with it.

Writing Prompt: A fire argues

Life had kicked me about a bit, but I am back now and will be getting back to writing and getting this blog back up and being posted to. To kick it off I am going to work on a bit of a writing challenge. What could one create with the writing prompt A fire argues?
__________________________

"You will burn."

The apprentice stood, eyes focused on the brazier and the flicker of low flame that burned within it. The fire seemed to laugh before it ducked down into the low coals and hid. Curses in several archaic languages followed as she apprentice cursed the elemental origins of the flame that refused to kindle. There was nothing that could be done about it, though. What could be done? Apprentices were simply helpless to do anything about it when a fire argues against being properly lit, even without the use of magic.

_____________________________

Okay, not much, but the best I could come up with to work in the phrase 'a fire argues', and I'm tired to it sort of lost the tense there in favor of finishing the exercise.

Late start to early work day

I was going to get up early today and start working on resetting my internal clock so that I was waking up at a decent time every day and getting work done.

You could consider that one a total fail. Slept in until roughly noon before I got up, and now I can’t find my co-writer anywhere. lol So, I’m going to work on a few websites while I drink a mug of coffee and get myself woke up properly.

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.

Heir on hold for another book

Okay, Heir is on the back burner once again, but this time it is for a reasonably good cause. I am still plugging away at it, but I have started trying to work on a novel with a friend of mine. I won't be saying much about it, but I am at least still working on my writing.






Heir to Magic
Current Chapter: 18 I think
Today's Word Count: 0
Chapter Word Count: unknown
Total Word Count: unknown
Current Favorite Method of Procrastination: work on another novel

Maui Writers Conference online

One of these days I am going to make my escape and go to the Maui Writers Conference. I have got announcements for it several times over the years, but have never had the money to be able to go. Now I am seriously thinking about attending the conference online.

I visited the website and discovered that the Maui Writers Conference has an online version they offer for less than $20 a month. The only drawback that has me uneasy is the difficulty in canceling the subscription. While it is easy enough to sign up, you need to submit your request to cancel the automatic renewals in writing by email, mail, or fax. I would much prefer being required to resubscribe every month than to have to jump through hoops if I decide I want to cancel the subscription.

Writing on more than one novel at a time

I've got a good percent of Heir to Magic copied over into yWriter, but I have shifted my focus to another story for a brief time. There is a good reason for that, the other story works better at the point I am at in going back over the writing course I have been taking.

So, I am sort of pinging between the two novels at the moment, working on both of them as the muses shift their focus from just wanting to write, to working on the course work. It seems to be working so far, especially since I have kind of a gerbil mind that likes to shift focus at random points between one thing and another.

I'm not sure how many other writers work well when they are focusing on more than one novel at a time, but I think it would be interesting to look into as a study to see if some writers can function better when they are working on several novels or if the same group works better focusing on only one novel at a time.

NaNoWriMo

I have already decided that I am not going to finish NaNoWriMo this year, but I am not very worried about it. For me, NaNoWriMo is not something that I need to have a "I won!" badge for to be a writer - it never has been. For me, NaNoWriMo is just a distraction on a grander scale than the average writing meemee or quiz on writing.

So, while others all across the world are diligently writing away headed for the goal of 50,000 words so they can earn a badge made up of pixels, I am diligently writing away on work that will earn me cash that I can use to help pay off the mortgage on my parents' house.

Heir to Magic update

At long last, I can make another update to my progress on Heir to Magic. I got to working on it the other night and have added roughly 500 to 1,000 words to it. No, bad me did not keep exact count. But I know it's somewhere in that range.


Heir to Magic
Current Chapter: 21
Today's Word Count: unknown (500 - 1,000)
Chapter Word Count: 1,329
Total Word Count: unknown
Current Favorite Method of Procrastination: work

Virtual Desktops for Multitasking

After having to spend a week getting my desktop computer reset to factory specifications, and losing a bunch of the stuff that I had on it as a result of the needed reset to those specifications, I am now trying to get caught back up in my writing course that I am taking. I had just caught up in the thing too, then my computer had a malfunction and I was forced to spend a whole week trying to get it fixed and working. Thankfully the reset seemed to have cured the problem, even if I did loose a bunch of programs that I use in my work as a freelance writer.

One I miss in particular is AltDesk, which I might just buy a replacement of since the open source one that I found that is similar to it, Virtual Dimension, does not allow me to have different desktop shortcuts on each of my desktops. I really liked that feature in AltDesk, since I could set it up for having different work stations for each project, and have links to the programs and websites I needed access to for that project on the corresponding desktop.

Virtual Dimension does have one very handy feature that I like, I can move the mouse pointed to any side of the screen and it will skip from that desktop to the one I have placed directly to one side, above, or under the current desktop. That is very handy for when I am working on something, I can just shift to the research desktop and have the things I am working on right where I need them. I find that easier than using hotkeys, which Virtual Dimension also lets you assign to each desktop.

Editorial Calendar using Sunbird

I'm working on getting myself an editorial calendar set up for all of my blogs, so that I can have something to work from when I need to make posts. So far I think it's going to work out great.

I'm using Sunbird by Mozilla, and while it has had a learning curve of almost all day, I have it working now to what I want it to be doing and I think it'll work out really good for what I want it to be doing for me.

I have already decided that I want to have two things that I can do with it. I'm looking for how to get it to do them, if it can.

1) I want to be able to click on links I add to tasks without having to open the task itself, I want the URL links to appear in the sidebar where I have the task list at.

2) I want to be able to print out my task list for the day / week / month so I can have a printed copy of my editorial calendar.

Writing Course

For about a month now I have been taking an online writing course, Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways, which means that my time has been pretty much divided between that and work with only a little time dedicated to non-work writing. I'm learning a lot from the course, and after 5 weeks I find that I am as excited about the stuff I am learning as I was when I took the plunge to sign up for the course.

Six Classics Come to Life in a New Way

Here is an interesting digital writing project. On March 18th, Penguin UK and reality game designers Six to Start launched the ambitious project of creating interactive stories from six classics, with a seventh online tale hidden somewhere online and clues to its location scattered. Check the We Tell Stories website to find out about this very interesting idea and learn more about the stories, the authors and the classics that the stories are based on.

I'm enrolled in a writing course online

I have taken the plunge and enrolled into an online writing course. I am confident that the course is going to be an excellent one, but will hold off on giving my opinion for the time being - since I just started into it and since it is booked solid - sold out all 300 available places in the first day. I'm excited so far and am looking forward to learning a lot more about how to get a book finished and published from someone that knows the trade from the inside.

Story Prompts - do they work?

You've seen those story prompt things, they generate a random idea for a story that you can flesh out and build on. I have the Writer's Idea Bank, a random story prompt generator, on my iGoogle page. It's interesting sometimes to see what the thing comes up with for story prompts. Today as I am checking the page I get:

You have just been swimming in the Thames
during a violent storm.
The year is 1889;
The bored schoolgirls are clapping,
in a nearby house, a girl is waiting for something.

Hmmm.... intriguing. What can I build from that? Let's see...

The year is 1889 and the protagonist has just come out of the Thames after diving in and swimming in it during a storm. Why? The location must be somewhere near a school, because there is a group of bored schoolgirls clapping as the protagonist steps out of the Thames. And a girl in a nearby house, waiting for something, is significant to the story. Okay...

The protagonist dove into the Thames to retrieve something that was lost in the river. The item was thrown into it perhaps? As the protagonist exits the river they hold their prize high to show they retrieved it. A group of schoolgirls clap unenthusiastically, acknowledging that they see the victory, but really don't care much one way or the other. The protagonist has retrieved the item for the girl that is waiting in the nearby house. Perhaps it is something of hers that someone threw away into the river?

Who would have done that? A school bully perhaps? Her step-father? or Step-mother? Maybe it is her mother's locket, and her step-mother grew angry with her and threw the locket into the Thames as punishment for something that the girl had done. The boy who wants to be the girls' friend dove into the river and found the locket for her.

Will they run away together now? What is the significance of the locket, or is it merely his hope that retrieving the locket will get the girl he loves to notice him?

The Thames can, of course, be changed to any other body of water. The ocean, a pond, an old water-filled quarry, a deep well... simply taking random segments such as the story prompt offered by the Writer's Idea Bank can provide the basic foundation for a good short story, or even a novel. You just need to be creative in reading a story into the offered prompt.

Writer's Block

Being a writer means having to write, I understand that, but there are times when I just want to take the computers and all the pens and pencils and toss them out the window. Go find a job flipping burgers or something. I am, of course, talking about writer's block. That annoying point in every writer's career where they can't think of what it is that they are supposed to be writing about and every effort to think about what they are supposed to be writing about leads only to another mindless game of solitaire on the computer. There are reasons why I removed all of the games from my work computers, that's the primary one.

I have done everything I can to avoid having to write. Clean the hallway, wash the dishes, trim the dog's toenails, organize the cubby where I keep my briefcases... I'm going to go slowly insane and still be plagued by the "You should have been writing" demons. So, the cure? Write. Forget the dishes, forget the dog's feet, forget the hallway, put the backside to the chair and write. Worry about if it is any good when I do my revisions.

I doubt it'll work, but it's a plan. What do you do when you are overcome by writer's block?

The who what when why and where of writing fiction

The Five W's is a fundamental technique of journalism that can help any writer make sure that they are covering all aspects of a subject. The Five W's can be found in Rudyard Kipling's Just So stories in a poem that accompanies The Elephant's Child:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

The key to the Five W's are that none of them can be answered by a simple "yes" or "no", instead the writer must actually pass on information when they are writing to answer all of the Five W's and when How is added into the equation it offers another level of depth which expands the information.

Some examples of how writers can answer the Five W's and one H when they are writing:

Say you are writing about something that happened:
What happened?
Why is it happening?
When did it happen?
Where did it happen?
Who did it happen to?
How did it happen?

Maybe you are writing about a new product:
What product is it?
Why is it worth talking about?
When will it be available?
Where can buyers find it?
Who would want to buy it?
How is it used?

Writing about an event:
What is the event?
Why is it being held?
When will it be held?
Where is it being held?
Who is holding the event?
How can someone find out more information?