The Fussy Writer's Guide to Making Time to Write, part 3

This post is part 3 of a 3-part series. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.

It's not just about the writing, you know. It's about having time to dream. It's about a sense of spaciousness. It's about having room to breathe.


Without these things, I personally think we're not fully human. We need time. You need time.

For me, the answer to getting a dribble of income going has been turning (again) to freelancing. For a while I worked for a charitable organization, writing web copy. That was an okay gig. Eventually, I discovered the world of online content writing. I write for a large studio that offers up front pay, and my goal for 2011 is to get more into writing for revenue share. I've barely begun putting ads on my own websites, mostly because my track record in writing consistently for those is crap (obviously), but it's something to consider. There are people out there who offer great and free advice on how to get into online writing. Start with No Job for Mom, and if that turns your crank, try The Freelancer Today's Make Money Writing a Blog series.

Let me be clear about this: online writing is not your key to instant wealth, and I don't recommend it for everyone. Most sites pay a scanty amount. You have to write very well, very fast, in order to make an okay amount. If you're going for revenue share / ad revenue, you have to be persistent and you have to not have a pile of bills or debt waiting for immediate payment. Many people have a fantasy that writers make a ton of money, and that there's some magical online source that will pour cash into your bank account if you can only get there.

This fantasy is false, at least for me. (Of course, if any of you have reached the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, feel free to comment!) My experience is that online writing is okay part time work that pays an okay part time wage, most of the time.

But remember how you just spent some time paring down your expenses? It doesn't matter if your income is a dribble. Your outflow is also a dribble. And you'll have the luxury of time.

It doesn't have to be freelance writing. Try dogwalking. Or part-time receptionist work. Or anything that doesn't make you feel like hell all the time.

If you're a fussy writer, like me, it will be worth it.

The Fussy Writer's Guide to Making Time to Write, part 2

This is part 2 of a 3-part series. Part 1 is here. Part 3 is here.

So, let's say you're a fussy writer like me. You want to write a lot of the time, while having some time left over for other life pursuit type stuff, but you also have bills to pay.

Two words: marry rich.

Just kidding. (I am not totally kidding. If you find someone to love who can support you in your vocation/s, take them up on it.)

But okay, let's say that marrying rich is not an option. Here's the first thing you need to do:

Pare down your expenses to the lowest possible amount.

I'm talking about really looking at where your money is going. Shave your budget right down. Decide what you need and what you don't need. Second car? Get rid of it. You won't need to go anywhere: you'll be writing. New shoes? Buy them later. Clothes? Value Village, Goodwill, or some other discount store. Or, consider this: that old sweater you already own is perfect writing gear. No one is going to see you in the workout pants that have a hole in the knee.

Obviously, how you do this is up to you. Some expenditures will have obvious solutions. I traded my book purchasing habits for trips to the library: easy peasy. I planned major expenditures - car repairs, vet visits, dentist trips - such that they spread out over time, rather than clumping up in one month where their effects would be disastrous.

The big thing for me was groceries. In our household, my partner covers rent and utilities, and I deal with groceries, car insurance, basic car maintenance, and internet. Groceries were the biggest item on my list. They still are, since I'm not too willing to compromise on eating healthfully. But I did cut back on our bills by shopping almost exclusively from the perimeter of the grocery store - the dairy, bread, meat and produce sections - focusing on healthy, unprocessed food rather than prepared stuff. I had been doing this already, but I amped it up pretty extremely.

My point is that it's vital to cut back on all expenses if you want to live like a fussy writer.

Why?

Fussy writing is not about taking 15 minutes a day to try to squeeze in your writing dream. It's about great gouts of time that you can roll around in and play with and dream in.

If you want more time, the easiest way to get it is to cut back on the hours you work. Negotiate a day off. Move to part time. Move to a lower responsibility job. The bottom line here is, you need to make a change. Time is money, people. Less money earned equals more time.

Being frugal - as extremely as you possibly can - will allow you the freedom to write.

Maybe you're entertaining fantasies of J.K. Rowling-like success. That's totally fine. Entertain those fantasies all you want. The fantasies won't pay the bills. That novel you're writing, well, it might not either. But it definitely won't get written if you don't take the time.

Here's what I've learned in the last couple of years of actually writing: dreams of success don't even come close to the happiness you feel when you know you're making yourself into a better writer. Finishing a short story and submitting it is a great accomplishment. Drafting a novel, realizing it's horrible, and drafting another one is good, hard work. Learning new tricks and understanding more and more about how to make your writing better - that is where it's at. All of these things are so, so sweet, and all of them are only possible if you spend great gouts of time on your writing.

I have to admit I'm at an advantage here, although it probably won't sound like one. When I decided I was done with higher education, it was at the crest of the economic crisis (which, admittedly, seems to have continued cresting). I was not super employable, and there were no jobs, anyway. I learned to budget on no income to speak of, and I learned exactly how little I could get by on. I realized that a full-time job isn't necessary for me right now. I would imagine that many of my decisions would seem totally absurd to someone with a good job (or at least a job), but coming from the totally unemployed side, working part time looked great and not scary at all.

Since I've started to cobble together a living, I've found that it is totally possible to fit work into my life, not the other way around.

More on that in part 3.

The Fussy Writer's Guide to Making Time to Write, part 1

I am a fussy writer. I am also a fussy cook, a fussy walker-in-the-woods-avec-chien, a fussy meditator, and a fussy tai chi practitioner.

What I mean by "fussy" is that when I find something that I like to do, I want to do it right. I want to spend lots and lots of time doing it. I want to clear my schedule for that thing. I want to take my time. I want to treasure it. Otherwise, I find it difficult to focus, and I become a cranky jerk. I don't feel right about myself, or about other people. I become irrational. I lose it. It's indecorous.

When I decided to clear my schedule for writing, three years ago or so, I began to poke around looking for advice from other writers in my situation. I talked to friends about it. A lot of them were trying to skootch 15 minutes of writing into their week, or whatever. They were sad. They weren't really writing.

My martial arts background has served me well, in many ways. I know that you can't learn something by practicing it for 15 minutes once a week.

I wanted to find writers like the one I wanted to be, meaning writers who write all the time and still stay afloat financially without becoming super burned out.

I spent some time researching this. I looked into writer's blogs of various kinds. The successful ones mostly seem to have hatched from an egg with a contract with a major publishing company clutched in their yolky talons. When a well-established writer did talk about the days before he or she made it, the stories tend to be about slogging at a day job and crying into the keyboard while becoming increasingly sleep-deprived. While I respect and admire people who work at soul-grinding, mind-sucking jobs - or even just full-time, regularly tiring jobs - and then come home and still find time to write copious gouts, I just can't.

I'm getting old? I don't know if that's an excuse or a reason. I'm getting impatient is more like it.

With a little more research, I found some blogs by writers just starting out, who talked about freelancing to fill in the gap in income. Fortunately for some of these aspiring writers, they happened to be skilled in certain highly valued and well-paying areas that meant they could divide their time between writing and paid work and still make a good living. Unfortunately for me, my degrees are all in the arts. These days, let me tell you, it seems that nobody wants an English major. Especially not one with a PhD.

Ultimately, my goal was to create time to write, meet my financial needs, and allow me to feel like I still had some juice left over after I did work for pay.

Because there is a dearth of information out there about the seedier choices made by aspiring writers, and I am (pretty happily) living some of those seedier choices, I wanted to use the space of this blog to post about how I'm managing to stay afloat while still doing what I want.

I hope that parts two and three of this series will be useful to you, especially if you're facing a similar set of conundrums.

NaNoWriMo, Day Whatever

I had vague thoughts, this year, as October turned into November, of blogging NaNoWriMo as I have for the past two years. I had fun tracking my progress and pulling random stats out of my novel in '08 and '09. It made me feel like I was accomplishing something each day, and like I was accountable for laying down raw word count as often as I possibly could.

Here's what's happened this year. It's November 15 and I have 32, 876 words written. I'm about to add to that word count in the last hour of today, before I hit the hay.

I am amazed, myself. As a classic procrastinator and bona fide last-minute Sally, I don't know what to say for myself, except "woo!" and "hoo!"

Basically, if I wasn't so wiped out, I would be all:

Stats:

Demonic explosions: 3

Serial killers: 2 or 4, depending on how you count 'em

Tentacle rapes: 1

Superpower transfers: 1 or 2, depending on if you count tentacles as a superpower

This month also marks the first time since I started doing serious content writing for a certain rather large online organization (under my other, some might say actual name) that I've been able to keep up with my quota. I've been a busy bee.

And I have to say, I'm really happy with the novel so far. More about that later, skaters! Happy NaNo-ing.

Happy Halloween!

Today, let us all remember the emotion behind the holiday: pure, unmitigated fear. Brought to you by the Ellen DeGeneres show's writer Amy Rhodes, who takes the Universal Studios haunted house maze like a scream queen.


Via The Daily What.

The Bell at Misfit Magazine

My flash piece, "The Bell," is now up at Misfit Magazine. Check it!

Matilda Doesn't Want to Just Be Friends

Back in grad school, we used to play a game called "What should you have read by now but haven't?" Because we were people whose very lives depended on appearing extraordinarily well read, this game required copious amounts of alcohol.

Romeo and Juliet always scored big points, especially among the Renaissance crowd. Anything by Jane Austen would draw gasps. Someone would inevitably say Ulysses, which would lead to the equally inevitable conversation about how no one should read Ulysses, which in turn would lead to the even more inevitable conversation about how no one can read Ulysses.

My point is that now that I have time to read whatever I want, I've been going back through the list of things I should have read and never did, and picking up a few gems along the way.

One of these was The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis. This book was written in 1795. "Monk" Lewis was nineteen at the time - a very pervy, rather sophisticated nineteen. This book has everything - and I mean everything:

Corrupt monks!

Demons!

Innocent virgins!

Devirginated innocents!

Rape!

Murder!

Drag kings!

Sadistic Mothers Superior!

Sexy seductresses!

Ghost nuns!

Evil nuns!

Dead moms!

Dank crypts!

Satan! Satan! Satan!

Magic books!

Magic spells!

Bandits!

Disaffected youth!

Poison!

Sex!

Bastards!

Dueling!

The plots of yesteryear really were a lot more jam-packed than we tend to like 'em today. The real highlight of this book (besides the jaw-dropping and hilarious ending) is Matilda. Arguably the main female character, Matilda is perverse, passionate, vengeful, and just wonderfully wrong on so many levels. Lewis gives her a series of motivations that seem a bit random and nutty, but then - by pulling out a single thread that has been working through the plot all along - makes it all make sense.

We need more plots - and more women - like this in novels today. I wonder if modern audiences would accept them?