A Writing Career While Holding a Job

The biggest obstacle to getting writing done is having to do so on the side.  If any of the books could break out enough for me to be able to survive off it, the rest would be much less of a problem as I would write during the day.  However, when a person has to go to work, place all their mental and physical energy toward that, and then, only after they've gotten home from a full day on the job, can they START working on the day's writing... That's the number one reason most writing doesn't get done.  That and procrastination, but that's another blog entry.

So how does one get past this?  I've been lucky enough to have a job at home, so at least I don't need to deal with a commute.  But by the time I can begin, my eyes are tired of staring at a computer screen, and I just need a nap.  In addition, my girlfriend's getting home and I can't tell her not to make noise, plus I want to spend some time with her.  So how to answer this dilemma?

My own case is unique as I work on a deadline transcribing video files.  While I'm at work, I can only be concentrating on that.  But I get to choose when to work.  So I'll generally do my mindless transcribing late at night so I can write while Jamie's at work.  When she gets home, she wants to take a nap, so that gives me a time limit of about 30 minutes from the time she comes in the door.  I'll often then get about another hour when she's doing something else, as is happening right now.

But in the days when I had a normal 9 to 5, I had to slip it in a little more cleverly.  Mostly, I made sure to have my laptop with me so that I could take advantage of any moment I had.  Is it slow at work?  Get a little writing in.  Lunch break?  Get some writing in.  Fifteen minute breaks are for figuring out what I'm going to write.  And then in the evenings I had a specific amount of time set aside to get my writing done that was understood by all around me.

Commutes were time to think through a story and figure out what's going to happen so by the time I began writing, it was simply a matter of putting down on paper what I had already thought out.  I once came up with a whole book on the way to Vegas.

Of course there are the weekends, too.  But regardless of when you have time to write, the most important thing to do is determine a block of time ahead of when you'll write; a time when you're not allowed to procrastinate or do anything else.  That's writing time, and it's precious.

Writing for Podcasts

This year I finally conformed and jumped into the crowded pool called podcasting.  I wasn't going to as I've got enough pots on the artistic fires that aren't paying anything.  As it is, I'm having difficulty getting people to watch my Youtube shows and read my books, so why should a podcast change anything?  Won't it just add to my already over-saturated promotion schedule?

Well, yes.  However, until I find that sweet spot of media of which people will consume my stories, I am constantly on the search.  And I have noticed that people more often listen to new things in podcasts than they do anywhere else.  Movie studios and major publishers only seem interested in rebooting older products, and Youtube seems obsessed with commenting on those rebooted movies.  But podcasts are often filled with original, new material.

People seem to be more willing to try something new while they're driving during their commutes, or at work.  I used to think they'd try watching my videos at work because studies have shown a tendency for people to consume social media while there.  However, what I didn't take into consideration is that my videos are often around 20 minutes and sometimes longer.  People can't take a break for that long.  The videos they watch are usually about five minutes maximum.

As for my books, I've been trying to send out free short stories on Facebook and push promotions on Amazon.  This has been met with limited success as people want to spend their free time on things they trust.

So it seems the commute is the time to present something new; something they'll try while they're bored, because no matter how bad it is, it beats waiting in traffic.  And so I'll be recording my Relic Worlds short stories since I was giving them away anyway, and in so doing I'll see what might need to be rewritten.  I'll also be re-recording the narration for RPG Storytime, having to describe things a little more since I won't have visuals.  But it should be interesting.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it all goes; and I'm hoping it's at least a little more successful than my previous endeavors.

Building the Benefits of a Writers Group & Keeping it Afloat

Earlier this year a writers group I belonged to basically fell apart.  I usually don't go to writers groups as I don't need incentive to write, the travel time to and from them is time I could be writing, and most people use them as excuses to talk about writing rather than actually writing.

However I did notice a number of benefits to having a writers group, and they're not always completely evident.  There's the obvious aid it provides by being able to read what you're working on and getting feedback from others.  This can be laborious as you also have to listen to everyone else's and give them feedback; but you don't want to be selfish, and you can always learn from what others are doing.

But there are some other things to make one's writing group beneficial.  For one, having a central location to communicate between the group meetings is invaluable.  With our group what I suggested was to post on the Facebook group we already had.  It had been set up just for communicating who was coming, but when we started using it to post what we were working on, it became beneficial for members to post both what they were working on, and what they had already finished.  The current work could be critiqued and people could come to the meetings with advice already to give.

The earlier work was especially beneficial online because the members could share it.  Online resources are the best way to spread the word of your work, and one of the best uses of a writers group can be for everyone to help spread each other's work, and to post reviews for one another.  This latter action is one of the most important commodities for independent writers.

Another great benefit for writers groups can be for everyone to swap suggestions on where they can take their work to be seen by those who need to see it.  Screenplays need to be seen by producers.  Short stories need to be seen by magazines.  Traditional works need to be seen by publishers.  Independent works need audiences.  And everyone could use a good agent.

Some of these suggestions may seem obvious, but so many writers groups are all about people writing off of a prompt and fishing for compliments.  The group pats each other on the backs and everyone goes away feeling good, but they gain nothing.  Regardless of how good they feel in the moment, though, eventually they'll realize that they're going nowhere in their careers, and going to the writers group isn't paying off, so the group will slowly dissolve.

So the best way to make one's writers group thrive is to provide elements that will help the members in the long run.  It may not be as much fun, and it may be uncomfortable even when you give suggestions rather than just say, "that's great," but ultimately it will keep people coming back as they'll see it as indispensable.