Several years ago, I wrote this essay for another blog I have called “Beneath the Midlist.” I’m not as familiar with all WP’s bells and whistles and tend to “forget” to post there.
I really liked this blog and thought other writers might find it helpful to read so here it is.
While it would be nice to make a living at writing, I never have. If I hadn’t married a Renaissance prince–a patron who shelters, feeds, and encourages me–I would never have had the opportunity to write.
Sure, it’d be nice to rake in a lot of dough, but truth is, I’ve always written and I’ve never made a lot of money at it.
But I have experienced a lot of joy.
One of my favorite writing experiences occurred when I wrote a humor column for the local newspaper. I had a good friend who was an older woman who had worked tirelessly through the years to make our home town a better place. When I discovered, she had started the Girl Scouts organization in town and helped establish an arts alliance program, I decided to devote a column to her.
After I lauded her accomplishments, I asked readers to thank her the next time they saw her. Well, they did more than that. They had the mayor proclaim a day in her honor and held a reception for her, inviting the town to come and thank her.
I got hooked up with newsletters right after I was married. My husband was in the Army and I volunteered with Army Community Services. Once the supervisor learned I had studied journalism in college, I got to write the monthly newsletter. The Army sent my newsletter to military installations around the world so I was internationally published way before the Internet made it easy. One of the wives who received the newsletter wrote to thank me. She didn’t live on post and felt out of touch with military life while her husband served overseas. My newsletter helped her feel connected to the military community that she missed. It was nice to know she read and enjoyed my newsletter and that it helped her endure the separation from her spouse.
To my delight, an article I wrote in an aviation company newsletter led to three mechanics in Alabama receiving the FAA’s Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award. They read the article and realized they qualified. Of course, it took a little more than that for them to receive the award, but it got the process started.
As a fiction writer, it’s always satisfying to feel your characters have touched someone’s life. When Stealing Destiny was first published, my hair stylist begged me to write a sequel because “I want to know what happens to Billie and Grayson after they go to Colorado.” While I appreciated her desire to stay with them longer, their story had reached its happily ever after conclusion.
The Internet has opened wider doors and it was great fun to hear from a reader in Australia who used my essay about finding ants in my iron to convince her “mates” that ants had been in her iron, too. And I doubt I’ll ever forget my husband’s co-worker who told my husband what I needed to do to get rid of said ants. It was quite a pleasant surprise to discover what I wrote interested men, too.
I’ve met many writers during my journey. Some have done well financially, some have made a little money from one project or another, and some have published their own work and given copies to their friends and family. In my opinion, the size of the audience and the amount of money earned doesn’t make you a writer. What makes you a writer is the act of writing.
Only then can you experience the joy writing brings.
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