Check out this week’s lecture schedule!!

Mon 6/7 – Crafting Your Career: C.J. Redwine returns for another installment of Query Writing 101.

Wed, 6/9 – Anatomy of the Male Mind: Wayne Wednesday: Bettermen.org’s Wayne Levine returns with another stirring post about how much women really need or want to know about their men’s activities.

Fri, 6/11 – Chaos Theory of Writing: Should unpublished authors take valuable writing time and use it to begin building a platform? Author Ann Charles says “Yes!”

All Romance University lectures are generously provided by our Visiting Professors. RU is a tuition-free zone!

Best regards,

Carrie Spencer, Kelsey Browning, Adrienne Giordano and Tracey Devlyn

PS  - Want RU’s weekly lecture schedule in a cool new email format straight to your in-box? Sign up on RU’s homepage or any of the lecture posts!

I would bet some of you are trying to figure it out, too.  With this in mind, Jessica Bacon is here to tell us about her path to being a freelance writer.  Welcome, Jessica!

Adrienne, Kelsey, and Tracey: Thank you so much for inviting me to be a guest here at Romance University.

When Adrienne asked me if I was interested in visiting and sharing my story, I jumped at the chance. Shortly after I agreed, however, my enthusiasm lessened. For the same reasons I was initially excited, I began to doubt myself. While I was initially thrilled to share the same stage as authors I read and admired, I became increasingly nervous about my ability to do so.   

For weeks, everywhere I looked, I saw articles and blog postings pertaining to establishing a platform before publication, making a living while writing a novel, or freelance writing for novelists. On the surface, this might sound like a good thing ; I assure you, it’s not.

The following scenario is best utilized by mimicking a Rod Serling voiceover:

Consider if you will: Jane Doe, New York Times bestselling author, writes a piece on the same topic as Janie Doe, No Name unpublished but corn-fed Nebraskan. Janie Doe may write as well, if not better, than Jane Doe, but in what world can Janie’s voice get a chance to be heard? Only—in The Twilight Zone. <insert Twilight Zone “doo doo doo doo” theme song here>

Okay, that was a bit dramatic, but it was fun, at least for me.

Like many RU readers, I’ve written for the vast majority of my life, writing poems and short stories throughout my childhood and teenage years. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I decided on a whim to write a book. As a wife and mother who works from home, I was able to tap out over 100,000 words before I told anybody what I was doing. Of course, this was before I knew anything about avoiding passive voice, adverbs, or omniscient POV, so 100,000 words were easy.  

When I mentioned my little hobby to my husband and he didn’t look at me as if I had horns sprouting from my head, I decided maybe I wasn’t crazy after all. At the time, I’d read every book in Catherine Coulter’s FBI series and I found myself writing in the same fast pace, non-flowery prose style in which she wrote. For some reason, I found the courage to contact her. Her advice? Sit your butt in that chair every day and write!

Catherine Coulter said it, and I did it. As my word count grew, so did my curiosity about the craft. Before long, I’d found myself a beta reader in one of my mother-in-law’s friends. Judy ran through my rough drafts with the eye of a reader and the pen of an editor, making me realize I didn’t know a dangling participle from a dangling modifier (I still don’t, to be honest). I also realized it was time to figure out if I was going to do something about this writing habit, or ignore it and hope that it would go away.

Do as I say, not as I did

Fast-forward a couple of years.

Through the Internet, craft books, and online classes, I learned a lot. In fact, I learned too much. Where I once had a unique writing style of my own, I started to write what I’ve pegged as “chameleon-style”. My manuscript headed in new directions each time I discovered another magical tool in the writer’s toolbox. (I actually have a pet name for my ms, I call it Joan Rivers, because of its many facelifts.)

Setting goals is important, but setting them and sticking to them are two different things. I set unrealistic goals. My goals were simple and attainable—for a single, 20 year-old, full-time writer. Burnout loomed beyond the horizon, if I’d only known to look for it.

Contests and groups, and loops, oh my! Balancing time between learning, networking and writing is difficult. Writing is a business, but if you find yourself sacrificing actual writing time for marketing and networking before you’re published, then what’s the point? Finish the damn book, then go back and apply your newfound knowledge through revisions and edits, and at least you’ll have something to market.

Don’t try to categorize your work, let the booksellers and librarians figure out where to shelf that hardcover beauty. I fell under the false assumption that my book had to fit neatly into one of a select few sub-genres, and I revised the content to satisfy the so-called rules of the one it most closely matched. I ended up wasting months trying to write what I now realize was a category romance that I wouldn’t have wanted to read.

If you’re writing because you love to write, then don’t worry about industry standards, what’s happening in the publishing world or what today’s hot selling genre is. The road to publication is long, and trends come and go. Who knows? In a few years from now, ‘robot dogs in space’ could be the new ‘vampires’ of romance.

To be Paid or Not to be Paid

Getting paid to do something you love to do is every writer’s dream. With the exception of a lucky few, most new writers can’t expect to earn a living writing novels until they’ve served their time in Gruntville.

Gruntville is that solitary place writers go before dawn or after midnight, when the rest of the house sleeps peacefully. It’s where they reside when they turn down invitations from friends, miss family outings, or eat cold leftovers because they missed dinner—again. Writers may spend more time in Gruntville than they do at a full-time job, and they do it for free.

If being paid for what you write is important to you, there are many paying venues in need of high quality writers of both fiction and nonfiction, but be careful of anything that sounds too good to be true.

Selling completed short stories, poems, or flash fiction can be a great start to your writing career, but be sure to check the fine print. Verify the reputation and readership of the publication before you agree to release any rights to your work. If the publication is only willing to pay ten dollars for a 3000-word short story but you know top-notch agents, editors, and publishers will see your work, consider it a decent trade-off. On the flip side, some venues may pay more, but insist you give up all reproduction rights. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact, it oftentimes benefits the author, but it’s important to be aware of and weigh your options carefully.

Freelance writing is another option for writers looking to earn money for their work, but the rules I mentioned above still apply. The pay rate varies widely from venue to venue and there are too many online scams to count.

My excursion into freelance writing was the result of months of coinciding events that increased the demand on my time. My stress level went up and my writing output went down. When I did find time to write I felt pressured and couldn’t focus, which led to more stress. I got to the point where I hadn’t written in over a month and instead of relieving my stress level, not writing seemed to be making it worse.

I’m a slow writer and I write in spurts. It takes me a while to get into my characters’ heads, but once I do, I don’t like to stop. Because of this, slipping in 15 minutes here or there isn’t an option for me.

Making a Choice

I finally admitted to myself that I couldn’t fashion time where there was none and that I needed to slay the deadly chameleon-style of writing I’d adopted. I needed to step away, give myself some breathing room and come back to it with fresh eyes.

Because I needed to write, and because the money tree in the backyard had recently died, I searched online for freelance writing jobs. As plentiful as they were, the list narrowed considerably as I crossed off those requiring experience, a degree in English, willing to travel, etc. Of those that remained, I chose the option that worked best for me by weighing the pros and cons of each.

Ultimately, I decided to think of any money earned from freelancing as a bonus. As the Lincoln Literature Examiner, I get to hone my writing skills, and write about a topic I love. I choose my own stories and make my own deadlines. I write short news articles that force me to stay focused on the topic and restrict my poetic license, so it’s a treat when I’m able to set my words free on the pages of my book.

My career, my goals, my choices.  Right or wrong, they’re mine. If someone can benefit from my experiences, great. If someone can learn from my mistakes, even better!

 ***

What about you? What steps have you taken (or did you take) on the road to publishing your book? Do you have any positive or negative experiences RU readers can learn from?

Thank you, Jessica for being here today.

Please join us on Wednesday when our monthly columnist, Wayne Levine, shares his own love story.

Bio: Jessica Bacon lives in Nebraska with her husband and two children. She is a member of RWA, KOD, and NRW. Jessica is currently working on a suspense with romantic elements, but has been known to revise so often, the completed manuscript may well be a sci-fi comedy. Known as a wife, mother, freelance writer and fiction writer, she prefers her newest moniker, courtesy of her youngest son: “A mysterious woman who gets grumpy in the morning and at night.”