Write On!: Rules for Breaking into Writing
January 23, 2009 By: almostgotit Category: Emily Anderson, Getting paid for what you write, Uncategorized, professional writing, recipes, writers, writingGuest Post by Emily Anderson
Anyone with a gift for words and access to a pen or keyboard can be a writer, and anyone who is a writer will write. If by ‘break into writing,’ however, you mean ‘write and get paid for it,’ you’ll also need an alchemist’s brew of talent, humility, luck, and perseverance.
Creative Commons photo |
If you’re serious about writing and getting paid for it, Rule #1 is ‘Don’t be so arrogant as to think you have all the good ideas.’ To break in, you have to be willing to try any number of genres you think you might be able to handle, then run with the ones that work, whether or not you’re particularly interested in them. If you have your heart set on sports commentary and someone offers you a job plotting Web murder mysteries, go for the mysteries. If you think biography is your forte and you get a chance to write television ads, write as many of those suckers as you can.
Why so callous an approach? Rule #2. The sad truth about writing is this: ‘If you’re not writing for pay you’re not likely to get paid for writing.’ You have to finagle your way into the field, then manage to stay here, all the while constantly cultivating your contacts. If you don’t know someone or know someone who knows someone who needs a writer, you won’t get the job. If you don’t know someone or know someone who knows someone with the power to get you published, you won’t get published.
There are a number of ancillary rules, of course, like ‘Don’t whine,’ ‘Never miss a deadline,’ ‘Never turn down a gig, no matter how slammed you are.’ In the end, though, it all comes down to this:
Writing, as Annie Savoy said of baseball in the Ron Shelton classic film Bull Durham, ‘may be a religion full of magic, cosmic truth and the fundamental ontological riddles of our time, but it’s also a job.’ And for a working writer, it’s the best job on earth.
—–
Emily Anderson is the author of All-American Comfort Food and The Pursuit of Happy Results: Barry Spann and the Making of Twenty-Seven Landscapes. Emily writes for television and the Web and is on the staff of Paris Notes.
Emily’s blog: The Rocky Road of Love and Other Great Recipes.
—–
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:47 am
When I asked Emily if there were any particular links she’d like me to include with her post, she answered: “You might put a link to a Bull Durham site. That’s such a wonderfully written film.”
Thus, here’s the Bull Durham Link of the Day!
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:26 am
This and yesterday’s article make sense. I write what I want on my blog, and have made a number of blogfriends through it. Self-esteem, social life, daily publication: Check! If I want somebody to pay me, I have to do what they want.
PS I bought the 2009 Writer’s Market a few weeks ago as an encouragement, and the editing of the introductory articles is breathtakingly crappy.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Lavenderbay: On your great reasons to write: Check!
Isn’t that funny re the 2009 ed of Writer’s Market? Writers, publication (and publication in such a PLACE!) notwithstanding, should never pretend they’re gods: Check!
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Somewhere in my tiny apartment are two copies of the Writer’s Market. I have used them to great advantage, but right now they are misplaced. Maybe I’ll get a new one, but in my current job as a web content editor working on a contract with a major television network I don’t have health insurance, and I just got a quote on a prescription that is over $100 for 30 pills. I may need a second job.
Oh, writing how do we break into it? I did it the old-fashioned way, by getting a degree in journalism and working at a, gulp, daily newspaper. That’s not a great option right now.
Aside from my very first job, every writing/editing/teaching job I have ever gotten has been through word of mouth. But one of the things that’s important is that they have to have good things to say about you when they open their mouth. So, write and take care with it whether you are writing the fiction of your dreams or the technical directions for how to make a cat bobble head (really I recently edited a story about how to do that). And in addition to having good writing skills that you take care with, have good people skills. If you don’t play well with others, then the person with the writing job want will not ask you to come play in their sandbox.
Yes, I know someone who has multiple six-figure literary writing contracts. But the man is brilliant and he writes crystalline sentences. But even he had a period between college and the first big contract where he was a gopher for an apartment management firm, taught composition fundamentals at a community college and drove a 15-year-old car. He has a Prius now, and I try not to begrudge him that.
I’m sure I could say more, but there are more cat bobble head articles awaiting my deft touch.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Nice guest post! There’s a need to heed #2 in particular, at least by me. Although I suspect that there are others who began writing out of a natural inclination towards introspection, an inclination which (for me, anyway) avoids that kind of finagling and cultivating. Which perhaps brings up #1.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Cat bobble heads?
Thanks, Pages, for your own contribution to this (okay, rather intimidating) discussion. Pills and Priuses (what’s the plural of Prius?) notwithstanding.
@Quin: Re #1 and #2: as I recall, you are teaching, correct? Which means YOU ARE BEING PAID TO WRITE, aka #2 (lectures.) And you are doing what you must (#1). Check!
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:08 pm
A most astringent post.
Very nice.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
There is a word missing in the last sentence of the second paragraph of my post above. It should read: “If you don’t play well with others, then the person with the writing job you want will not ask you to come play in her sandbox.”
Yes, cat bobble heads. One of my co-workers edited a piece on the bathroom that also doubles as a home office.
I should also note that my first job (the one I didn’t network to get) was straight out of college and paid the princessly sum of $7,000 a year. Yes, this was many, many years ago, but still.
I’ve tried other things over the years, but could never be happy with them. So, I write. It satisfies my soul even when it’s not the dream job. But I have had dream jobs along the way: state capital bureau chief for a statewide newspaper, co-author of an acclaimed children’s book on the Japanese American internment camps in WWII, articles in national magazines.
One thing, that it seems several folks here have figured out, is that you have to pay your dues and even then sometimes it’s just plain luck of the draw. Plus, you have to be willing and able to negotiate the world wide web. If I had been so stubborn in my willingness to do that 10-15 years ago, I might not have struggled so much over the years.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Again, a missing word (you don’t have an edit key on this thing, Almost?): If had *not* been so stubborn in my willingness to do that 10-15 years ago, I might not have struggled so much over the years.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
;0) Pages!
I *do* have an edit key, but it’s too much fun reading your comments to use it! (and you are on my privileged list in any case, meaning your comments auto-post immediately. But if you REALLY want me to edit anything after-the-fact, I can…)
January 24th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
A very good and insightful post! I wonder sometimes what would have happened if I had tried to go for a full-time writing position rather than relying on a “real” job to pay the bills and writing on the side. My wife suggests that we would be living under a bridge somewhere, but there’s a chance that she’s wrong …
January 31st, 2009 at 7:13 am
Once again just commenting (in standard gushing style) that it is wonderful almostgotit draws so many articulate “have something worth reading/hearing” people to comment. I’m in the community business and what she does is community building.
We’re not worthy We’re not worthy!
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:22 am
[...] them, thus violating one of the rules about breaking into the writing field mentioned in AlmostGotIt’s two excellent posts from a couple of weeks [...]
February 6th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
[...] Rules for Breaking into Freelance Writing @ Almost Got It. More suggestions about how to pursue a freelance writing career. By the way, you [...]
February 7th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I came across this by chance but I have enjoyed it’s content.
I am one of those that has just been writing and recording as a form of self expression…..and exorcising my demons.
Now I have turned to blogging also as a means of expressing myself but I am still getting the hang of the technology.
The thought of being paid for something that I have always been compelled to do, is a little like looking for the philosophers stone.
Writers write because they have to, it makes them restless when they don’t the lucky ones get paid for it.
But I also think that we can do anything that we put our minds too.