 |
| Wee car selfie - don't worry, I was parked! |
So for those that don't follow me on Facebook or Instagram (and why not? I suggest you click the Facebook link above and find me) you won't know that I am currently 'in transition'. No, I'm not in the process of moving house, changing body or anything else of an elaborately complex and stressful nature - but I am crossing over from Chef to full time freelance writer... and that's a level of discomfort I always hoped to avoid.
Why? Why would I give up full time, paying work to sit behind a laptop all day and hope for clients? I genuinely don't know. But since I made the decision the nightmares have stopped... so that means it must be the good thing to do, right?
 |
| My lovely friend Kirsty Anderson, Illustrator |
I have spent the last three years of my life (Edelweiss was released in 2016, so we are probably closer to 4 years) waking up, going to work, coming home after a long shift and writing up to five thousand words, then going to sleep again. For all this time writing has been what I did in my free time. It was a hobby (albeit one that I was committed to). It was work, yes; but it was work for me.
The upshot of this is that I invested my time and skill into something that I wanted to do for myself. At no point did I start making money from it and, to be honest, I've sunk more into the books than I have made back. This blog I write entirely for free. My short stories - even though they are published - were all written for free, sent off without payment and published with a nod to exposure or a contributor's copy. But what I am going to say next is going to blow your mind... Writing isn't a profession where you can jump straight on in at the top.
If I were to start in a kitchen tomorrow I would be a dishwasher. I might have 20 years of kitchen experience but I don't have a piece of paper that says I can cook. Double this up with being a woman and I'd likely spend triple or even quadruple the time on dishes than a man with a qualification would. And before the anti-feminists get involved I'd like to point out that my record in this position is 10 years, despite being overly qualified for the position and having to watch less qualified people with no paperwork be promoted over my head. I then moved to a new job and was offered a managerial position within three months... but this isn't an equality post. It's about how to be a better writer.
How To Start Being A Writer
So, going with my kitchen example above... why would I accept a new job in a kitchen and expect to be the head chef straight away? Why would I take a job in a store and expect to have managerial responsibilities from day one, having never worked retail before? I wouldn't - of course I wouldn't! So why are there so many people out there who say they don't want to be writers because the pay sucks? Of course it sucks. You're unpublished, you have a name nobody knows and, quite frankly, no matter how many literature degrees you have nobody cares.
Until you have put the time in, until you have started at the bottom and done the free work, until you have edited till 4 in the morning for a project unlikely to ever make you money - you're not a writer. In the same way as you wouldn't step out of catering school and expect a head chef position you shouldn't step out of lit school and expect a book deal. And you're lucky, because you are finding this out now! I had to learn the hard way!
The best piece of advice I was ever given was to write every day (that's Chris Breechen from Writing About Writing, if you don't follow him then start). I started doing this three years ago now and I have a portfolio of work that would put the British Government to shame because of it. I don't want to appear boastful either because I make/have made/consistently fall foul to the same mistakes every other writer makes... but I keep writing. I keep submitting. I keep trying.
Getting Rejected
I have had about five times the rejections that I have had publications made. It might even be higher than that. The chances of you writing a short story and having it instantly published are slim to none - never mind an actual full length book. For every anthology posted on the likes of Horror Tree (another fantastic resource) the editors receive over two hundred submissions. Given that your average anthology is about 12 stories long; you can see how slim your chances are. Worse, anthology work is almost exclusively unpaid, although the Indie industry is on its way up.
So if you manage to get that story published then you are off to a fantastic start. If not? Don't panic, you are in the same boat as the other 88%. That doesn't make you a bad writer, it just means that your story didn't fit. Put it on the back burner, pull it out for another anthology, tidy it up a bit and send it away somewhere else. My record is five submissions to different anthologies before Fangs And Broken Bones accepted "The Spice of Life". At the moment, I have a short story out on it's 10th trip that I absolutely adore and can't understand why nobody wants it... that's just the way the industry works.
My point is that getting rejected should be your default expectation. That way, when something does get accepted, you can celebrate and simultaneously worry that it isn't good enough over a bottle of wine. Keep in mind that the difference between a successful writer and an unsuccessful one is no more than stubbornness. Write every day, get rejected once a week, and after about a year you will start to see improvements.
So all that's left for me to do is apologise to the rock lovers for a blog post about writing and not geology, and stress the point that not giving up is paramount to success in this industry. I am moving forward into freelance writing with the intention of writing a hell of a lot of web content because it actually does make a little money. Wish me luck because I'm going to need it.
One thing is for sure though: kitchens across Scotland will be a lot safer without me in them... although maybe not quite so tidy.
