While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!
I’m in a new and unique situation as I write this: I’ve been retired for the past 8 months and I’ve had unprecedented time to write!
“Oh, well HIS advice doesn’t count! He’s got boatloads of time! I got kids, and a REAL job, and a family, and relatives…his PARENTS are probably dead and his kids are all moved out – what ELSE does he have to do but write! I can only hope…”
Yeah, I get it, I’d have turned my nose up at this article in a split second ten years ago.
Ten years ago, I made the transition from sitting in my classroom, drinking coffee, and showing videos all day long as a teacher (I'd done that for a dreamy twenty-three years); to sitting in my OFFICE, drinking coffee, and having five minute conversations with students about their future. Of course, I had a simple script: “So, you wanna go to college, huh? Yeah. I did it, you can, too. Go on CollegePrep.gov, follow the directions, and you’ll be fine. If you need help with the FAFSA, just go to their website. There’s even directions in SPANISH!” I’d lean out my door and say, “Jane! When’s my next appointment! Yeah? Change it to next week sometime. Nah, doesn’t matter. Ten minutes should be fine…”
During 2010 to 2020, I wrote 129 stories. My youngest kiddo was 18, my oldest 20. Both were in college.
“Of course you wrote 129 stories! Your kids were gone! You had loads of free time! You admit all you did as a counselor was sit around and talk to kids! I have a real job! I have to produce real work! *pfaugh!* You can’t say anything to me! I don’t have enough time to write! You do!”
OK – lets go back to the beginning of my records: 1990. I’d been married three years and had a two-and-a-half year old son with my daughter on the way. I was a middle school teacher – 8th grade science to be specific…the kidlets were 13 going on 14. It was hard to teach them because not one of them could think of a single reason that they had to know ANYTHING about science, because most of them were going to be NBA players, and the rest were gonna make a million dollars by the time they were 18, so what’s the use of learning anything about the Earth?
During 1990 and 2010, ah, I’m not gonna count all the stories! What a waste of my time! But between 1990 and December 2020, I submitted manuscripts 1171 times – note, prior to about 2002 or 2003, submissions were via printout stuffed in a manila envelope that contained a Self-Addressed, Stamped Envelope. It cost money to SEND the stories, and you had to pay if you wanted them returned.
Between 1990 and 2010, I submitted a total of 708 times all while my kids were growing up and I was managing classrooms full of middle schoolers. I DID move to 9th graders in about 1999 or so…I also wrote my Master’s thesis between 2003-2008. Oh, I became certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (not something I sent a couple of box tops and a check in for: it involved video taping six classroom sessions, then critiquing each one with a paper. Once the papers were done, NBPTS sent an observer twice – once planned, once unplanned. In 2001 was certified for ten years, after which I would have had to do it all over again.)
Oh, I also took the training for International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program science instructor and rewrote and taught the entire Gifted & Talented 9th grade science curriculum.
The rest of the time, I sat at my desk, drank coffee, and put video tapes in for my kids to watch and take notes on.
Since 1990, I’ve had 109 manuscripts published in magazines like…well, just look to your right – those are all the MAJOR ones I’ve had published in what are called “Professional Markets”. Those are listed under the heading PROFESSIONAL PUBLISHING CREDITS. Obviously I’ve had other things published in not so professional markets. I’ve been writing for THE RANTING ROOM, which morphed into STUPEFYING STORIES for several years now.
Oh, and since I started this blog in 2007, I’ve made 1672 posts.
So, if you’re going to make the claim, “I just don’t have time to write!”, I guess you’ll have to find a more sympathetic ear than mine. I KNOW it’s hard to carve out time to write. But I’m sure you have to struggle to carve out time to watch football/soccer/baseball/basketball games, too. Or to work out at the gym (“But that’s DIFFERENT! We’re talking about my health here! I HAVE to go to the gym!”) but I’d be willing to bet you could tell a story into your cellphone’s “Voice Memos” thingy on your WAY to the gym. It even writes it out for you!
“But I have my family! They’re important!”
I agree – I have one, too. A loving wife, a son, daughter, foster daughter, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, foster-daughter-in-law and three grandchildren – and if that’s the way you swing, we also have four fur-babies, too. Plus friends. It’s a standing joke with all of them (except the fur-babies who sometimes walk on my computer to express their displeasure with my writing) that I will often say, “Hang on a second, let me just write down this story idea!”
Honestly, folks, I’ve written more stories since I got married and had kids than the entire time I was single – oh, and I did NOT get married when I was 18 and full of vim, vigor, and piss. I turned 30 two and a half months before our wedding day, and I’d been writing since I was thirteen.
If you actually, really, truly want to write (and please excuse me if I’m too blunt), stop making excuses and write. I lost count a long time ago of how many people, when they find out I’m a writer, tell me, “Oh, I wish I had time to write! But, well, you know…”
I DO know – but I’m a writer anyway.
“Oh, well HIS advice doesn’t count! He’s got boatloads of time! I got kids, and a REAL job, and a family, and relatives…his PARENTS are probably dead and his kids are all moved out – what ELSE does he have to do but write! I can only hope…”
Yeah, I get it, I’d have turned my nose up at this article in a split second ten years ago.
Ten years ago, I made the transition from sitting in my classroom, drinking coffee, and showing videos all day long as a teacher (I'd done that for a dreamy twenty-three years); to sitting in my OFFICE, drinking coffee, and having five minute conversations with students about their future. Of course, I had a simple script: “So, you wanna go to college, huh? Yeah. I did it, you can, too. Go on CollegePrep.gov, follow the directions, and you’ll be fine. If you need help with the FAFSA, just go to their website. There’s even directions in SPANISH!” I’d lean out my door and say, “Jane! When’s my next appointment! Yeah? Change it to next week sometime. Nah, doesn’t matter. Ten minutes should be fine…”
During 2010 to 2020, I wrote 129 stories. My youngest kiddo was 18, my oldest 20. Both were in college.
“Of course you wrote 129 stories! Your kids were gone! You had loads of free time! You admit all you did as a counselor was sit around and talk to kids! I have a real job! I have to produce real work! *pfaugh!* You can’t say anything to me! I don’t have enough time to write! You do!”
OK – lets go back to the beginning of my records: 1990. I’d been married three years and had a two-and-a-half year old son with my daughter on the way. I was a middle school teacher – 8th grade science to be specific…the kidlets were 13 going on 14. It was hard to teach them because not one of them could think of a single reason that they had to know ANYTHING about science, because most of them were going to be NBA players, and the rest were gonna make a million dollars by the time they were 18, so what’s the use of learning anything about the Earth?
During 1990 and 2010, ah, I’m not gonna count all the stories! What a waste of my time! But between 1990 and December 2020, I submitted manuscripts 1171 times – note, prior to about 2002 or 2003, submissions were via printout stuffed in a manila envelope that contained a Self-Addressed, Stamped Envelope. It cost money to SEND the stories, and you had to pay if you wanted them returned.
Between 1990 and 2010, I submitted a total of 708 times all while my kids were growing up and I was managing classrooms full of middle schoolers. I DID move to 9th graders in about 1999 or so…I also wrote my Master’s thesis between 2003-2008. Oh, I became certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (not something I sent a couple of box tops and a check in for: it involved video taping six classroom sessions, then critiquing each one with a paper. Once the papers were done, NBPTS sent an observer twice – once planned, once unplanned. In 2001 was certified for ten years, after which I would have had to do it all over again.)
Oh, I also took the training for International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program science instructor and rewrote and taught the entire Gifted & Talented 9th grade science curriculum.
The rest of the time, I sat at my desk, drank coffee, and put video tapes in for my kids to watch and take notes on.
Since 1990, I’ve had 109 manuscripts published in magazines like…well, just look to your right – those are all the MAJOR ones I’ve had published in what are called “Professional Markets”. Those are listed under the heading PROFESSIONAL PUBLISHING CREDITS. Obviously I’ve had other things published in not so professional markets. I’ve been writing for THE RANTING ROOM, which morphed into STUPEFYING STORIES for several years now.
Oh, and since I started this blog in 2007, I’ve made 1672 posts.
So, if you’re going to make the claim, “I just don’t have time to write!”, I guess you’ll have to find a more sympathetic ear than mine. I KNOW it’s hard to carve out time to write. But I’m sure you have to struggle to carve out time to watch football/soccer/baseball/basketball games, too. Or to work out at the gym (“But that’s DIFFERENT! We’re talking about my health here! I HAVE to go to the gym!”) but I’d be willing to bet you could tell a story into your cellphone’s “Voice Memos” thingy on your WAY to the gym. It even writes it out for you!
“But I have my family! They’re important!”
I agree – I have one, too. A loving wife, a son, daughter, foster daughter, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, foster-daughter-in-law and three grandchildren – and if that’s the way you swing, we also have four fur-babies, too. Plus friends. It’s a standing joke with all of them (except the fur-babies who sometimes walk on my computer to express their displeasure with my writing) that I will often say, “Hang on a second, let me just write down this story idea!”
Honestly, folks, I’ve written more stories since I got married and had kids than the entire time I was single – oh, and I did NOT get married when I was 18 and full of vim, vigor, and piss. I turned 30 two and a half months before our wedding day, and I’d been writing since I was thirteen.
If you actually, really, truly want to write (and please excuse me if I’m too blunt), stop making excuses and write. I lost count a long time ago of how many people, when they find out I’m a writer, tell me, “Oh, I wish I had time to write! But, well, you know…”
I DO know – but I’m a writer anyway.
