I have yet to write a novel or publish a short story but I did submit an article online and received payment for it. The more eyeballs that read it, the more revenue will come in.
Now, it isn’t a lot of money, in fact, it is almost insulting but that won’t change the fact that I am a paid writer now.
That was not the purpose of the submission but then again, it is still rewarding.
Most people aren’t prepared to start a career in writing. Writing may be a gift in some of us but not all of us. Forming words into sentences and arranging those sentences in such a way as to not be boring can be a real challenge.
At first, I didn’t know what I wanted to write. I just knew I had to do it. I’ve maintained a blog/website for the past twenty years. I just started by sharing my thoughts and feelings. And then moved on to sharing news and ideas with other similarly minded people. In the back of my mind I have always felt like an imposter, or a poser. Self-doubt takes over at the worst moments and the page stays blank. The cursor blinks, waiting on me. Other times the support wasn’t there or you’ve been mocked for your lofty ambitions.
There can be a lot of noise and not enough signal when we finally make the time to sit down and do this thing we want to do. You have finally made time to do it…but the mood wasn’t right and neither was your headspace.
I have had an epic, but incomplete novel in my head for twenty-eight years. With little progress, frustration is real. Someone I loved suggested I start small, a short story perhaps. You can challenge yourself as I have to micro fiction: 100 word stories are challenging!
Maybe we can start with non-fiction. With research and facts already out there, it should be easier to formulate thoughts and opinions around that.
Either way, it is time to start writing. The words you put down today is better than the words you didn’t write yesterday.
When I first acquire a new camera, I don’t bother with the instruction manual. I don’t want to follow the rules of composition in photography so why would I wait to follow the rules of composing a piece of writing?
Nike had it exactly right- just do it
With all the distractions going on during these current events (Wuhan virus) it can be difficult to focus on anything else.
However, I believe doing what we do best can be very beneficial. By creating and doing the things we enjoy, it will help us stay positive, and to stay focused.
By creating and doing, it may be positive for others as a pleasant distraction from those same current events. What we create and if we choose to share could be helpful to those around us. We need more pleasant and meaningful distractions. We need more ideas, art, stories as uplifting and inspirational input instead of the depressing and sensational news out there.
Situations like these make us realize how small the world can be and how connected we are to each other.
Instead of avoiding creativity, embrace it. Share it. I’ll be sharing more of my thoughts and more of my photography. I choose not to get caught up by world crisis.
Keep calm and share on.
Long before my beautiful daughter was born I was heavily interested in photography. I used a compact point and shoot Fuji to bring in the new millennium. Then upgraded to a more robust featured Olympus with optical zoom. All of this was used as a hobby, to document life events, etc. The images were okay but they weren’t the best quality. I used this life changing event of her arriving in our home as a way to justify my first DSLR, a Nikon D50. I wanted more quality images to capture just how beautiful she is. The next step of course was to advance my photography into portraits of other beautiful people. I learned by doing and evolved.
Twenty years later and my excitement and love for photography has grown. I find myself always looking for photographic opportunities. I’ve enjoyed learning the post-processing and organizing. The photo creativity has overshadowed my writing creativity. Now I am at the point where I want these images off the hard drive where no one can see them and printed up for full view. All the while keep learning and practicing for more.
I’ve documented people, events, concerts, travel, landscape and street photography. I’ve recently gone back to film photography and am remembering the joy of making each image count. Taking the time to think and enjoy the process. After all this I realized something:
My best photograph is the one I haven’t taken yet.
My best work is still ahead of me and this is what keeps me going.
“RIP blogging we all tried real hard to make the internet good and then corporations and rich idiots destroyed everything a generation of writers tried to build”
And
“there’s almost no space for writing anymore that’s joyful or an attempt to be creative. hardly anyone is playing around with form or even just trying to entertain. so much of the joy has been sucked out of the internet unless its crowdsourced by platforms from ppl who aren’t paid”
Pffft!
Blogs and websites are still around. The good ones have been around for 20 years(!) and there are more, undiscovered websites as well.
Ignore posting your content to Facebook or Twitter or anything social. Fire up a blog aggregator like Feedly and they will help you find good websites regarding topics you are interested in.
There is nothing stopping us from writing to the web. Have fun with it. Be entertaining or be informative, push boundaries.
We choose the web we want. A lot of good people are creating good content out there. Don’t say that the blog is dead. Encourage them and I encourage others to contribute and make it better as well.
Clint logged into his account and began to pour out his thoughts and feelings that consumed him that day. After reviewing this draft he decided it was time to share with the world and pressed “send.” After awhile Clint received notifications from the site that users were responding positively.
Mixed in with the positive responses were mean, spiteful and rude commentary regarding the story that Clint decided to share. What these trolls failed to realize was that Clint was also a programmer and was capable of finding them. After uploading his //EVISCERATE program he then enjoyed their public shaming.
While traveling through Pirates Alley by Jackson Square in New Orleans, I finally discovered the Faulkner House, a literary landmark where future Nobel Laureate William Faulkner penned his first novel. Other authors such as Ernest Hemingway were known to have stayed there for a time as well. Now the landmark also serves as a bookstore featuring a wide variety of titles, including rare books. It was as inspiring as visiting Hemingway’s home down in Key West, Florida and I wish I could have stayed longer.
As promised, I’ve been writing almost daily during National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO). But to be honest, most of it seems to be for the website.
November is the time of year for three things.
The focus will be writing on a few short stories and even trying to post something here daily. Posts will be in the form of thoughts, quotes, photos, reviews, anything.
I love how both apps are compatible with Mac/iOS and sync with iCloud.
However, as of now, I cannot post to WordPress from the Ulysses app. I think it is being blocked by my web server. But how is IA Writer able to do publish to my website??
Also, Ulysses is an annual subscription at $50. Writer has one time purchases of $30 for the Mac and $5 for iOS.
Hmm.
It is fast approaching that time of year again. November is designated as National Novel Writing Month with their stated goal being 50,000 words a month into a novel. I love the concept but it isn’t practical for me so of course I’ll be hacking this.
Now that I am pivoting focus from photography to writing these next few months, it’ll probably go extreme. The intent is to crank out a couple of short stories, while finish plotting out the bigger ones. There may even be more frequent content here and in my personal journal as well.
I thought about the importance of my commitment to post here daily but nope, enjoying the process is more important than a stringent schedule.
But then too I get frustrated with being a single-focused individual. I also want to grab the camera or write code but what has priority for me? What has more value?
Once I realize that one value is more important to me than another, I have to ask if I am living accordingly.
What’s more important to me? Learning or creating? Expand or focus?
Once I work that out I may yet go extreme with it. “All in” as they say and optimize my life around it and let go of almost everything else. And then change it up after that.
…the realization that Missadventures had polished off one bottle and cracked open another before you could.
2019 was a great year for my portrait photography. There are so many creative, beautiful people out there and it was great to work with them but I need a break.
I’m hanging up the camera for portrait photography to focus on personal photography and reorganizing organizing my archives and portfolio.
I’m really looking forward to focus on writing. The days will be getting shorter and colder but I’ll be inside cranking out those words.
