Rebalancing My Writing Career

Are you doing what you planned with your writing career? For me, the answer is yes and no. When I first thought about writing as a career, I had no idea of the form it would take, but I assumed that at some point I would write a novel, get published and earn lots of money from my writing. That’s not quite how it happened.

I am making money from writing, though not in that way. And I do enjoy what I do. My writing career allows me to research new topics and make them digestible. I’ve turned into a polymath, just because of the sheer number of subjects I’ve written about. Since I enjoy acquiring and using new knowledge, this aspect of my career works well for me. That’s the yes part.

However, there’s another aspect of writing that is less fulfilled by client commissions (that’s the no). My poems, short stories and mini-essays tend to get neglected in favour of hitting my writing deadlines. And let’s not even talk about the barely begun and half finished novel writing efforts that are stashed in folders and on hard drives somewhere. It’s been a long time since I’ve had time to look at them.

Small Steps To A Creative Writing Career

But that stops now. I’ve decided that it’s time to take small steps to build another aspect of my writing career. That means:

• doing something with my poems

• reworking my children’s stories and adding to the collection

• assessing my novel drafts to see if they are worth saving or whether I should start again

I’m also going to keep it simple by making a small time commitment to begin with because when I make longer ones, I end up having to sideline personal projects in favour of client projects and deadlines. So I’ll start with one to two hours a week for creative writing projects. If that goes well and I can keep the commitment, then I’ll increase it.

Have you got unfinished writing business? How are you going to take the first step to realising your dream?

(Photo: patries)