WRITblog

Good morning.  I do not receive a regular paycheck.  My vocation is writing, with a little editing thrown in there.  I have yet to make a thin dime from any of it.

I’m terrified.

Starting today, I absolutely have to treat this as a job: to take it seriously so that others might take me seriously.  I am giving myself a five-day workweek with (hopefully) a fairly regular set of hours, with only myself to be accountable.

I plan to write, to re-write, to research publications and contests and to send stories out to them, to edit, to get in the workshop, occasionally to job-hunt for a juicy publishing gig, and to read voraciously, with a writer’s eye.  I will have a lunch break.  I won’t have a dress code, although I might wear a tie if I decide it helps me write (which it might). 

At some point, if and when I acquire a laptop, I will start bringing the entire operation to the café so as not to become distracted by television, cats, roommates, junk food, or the Internet. (Ok, I might bring my wi-fi card along now and then, but only for submitting things online and working on the Writ.  No lolcats, YouTube, hockey scores, or MySpace.  Srsly.)

Cafés will also have gratuitous amounts of coffee, which I may start needing.  I’m setting my alarm.  I’m getting up early.  I have, at a generous estimate, six months of living expenses saved up, probably more like four or five realistically.  This is not a good plan, this is not enough money.  Vonnegut saved up the equivalent of a year’s salary – from just his story sales, not his regular income – before he quit his day job.  I haven’t made any money on my stories.  And I’m certainly not Vonnegut.  But I can’t keep working crap jobs.  I have to think I can do this, and now seems as good a time as any.