Help for the Hopeless
Copyright © 2003 by Angela Booth

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If the definition of insanity is to keep doing what's not working in the confident expectation that it WILL work, then writers and other creatives are nuts.

When you're a writer, you write and you market your work. That's it. It's exactly the same process for Stephen King as it is for Stephen Brand-New-Writer. You dig a hole and you keep digging until they bury you in it or you hit a gold mine.

That's what makes a life in the arts so challenging. If you're a creative, you create, and you sell. That's all. This counter-intuitive process leads many writers on an endless quest for the "secret". There has to be something else, they think. It's too simple. There has to be more to selling your work than that.

The bad news is that there is no more to it. And that's also the good news.

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 There is some good news: 

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Every word you write  makes you a better writer

Create your own Opportunities

That's easy enough to take advantage of.  Write every day. Write constantly.  I know.  You've heard it all before, you're sick of hearing it. You don’t want to write every day until you get some guarantees that it's not all for nothing. After all, your partner has threatened to throw the computer out the window, and you want some semblance of a normal social life before you die. It's true, every word you write makes you a better writer, and you don’t get to be a better writer without putting in the time writing those words. Dig out some old files. Go back five years, if you've been writing that long. If you've been writing for less than five years, go back and read your first efforts. Does your beginning work make you cringe? Your improvement has been incremental. The more you write, the better your writing gets.

You can feel better about the writing you do for practice if you are at least helping someone else. Volunteer to write the bulletin for your church.  The immediate feed back you get can do wonders for improving your work. Volunteer to help the elderly write their letters, to the bank, to their insurance company, to their children.  Volunteer to help one or more of them to write stories from their youth, and publish them locally, or even create a little book just for them to distribute to their family. Volunteer to help the unemployed write their resume.  Just walk right into the unemployment office and ask for the use of a desk on one specific day of the week or month.  You should be surprised at how welcome the mat is they throw out for you. Go walking down the street in the business section offering to help write a publicity release for free which will be published locally.  If it isn't published locally, have a Kinko's type store print it out for you on colored stock and let the store owner pass it out to customers. Look for magazines or web sites that only give a byline.  Then work your way up through those who only pay a stipend.  Above all, KEEP WRITING.

Along with writing, you should also read and study other writers. Take writing courses. The big benefit of a writing course is that you're forced to write.

But that's not enough.

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The bad news: Selling is often a matter of luck

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Here comes the bad news. Selling is often a matter of luck. New writers like to believe that editors and agents are super-human beings who know everything. They certainly know better than writers. (Big wry smile.)

Editors and agents have problems even as you and I do. They have jobs to do, and they want to do them as easily and as quickly as they can, with the least amount of hassle. This means that when you send an article proposal to a magazine and another writer sends a similar idea, if the publication has worked with him before, he gets the job. It may not be fair, but to the magazine he's a known quantity. They know what to expect with him. On the other hand, if there's a book on the topic and the agent calls to offer the serial rights for less than it would cost to hire either of you, you both lose out.

Rejection is a fact of the creative life. Many genre novelists have written ten complete novels before the first one sold, and that sale was often a matter of luck. That novel was in the right place at the right time, so to speak. Let's see, at 80 to 100 thousand words per novel, that's close to a million words, before a single word sold. Of course, once a novel sells, the editor and the writer's agent will encourage the writer to dig out those past efforts, revamp them, and chances are they will be published too. (So if you're filling a couple of filing cabinets with unsold manuscripts, take heart. Look on them as your retirement fund. :-))

Many writers have to continue for years, doing what isn’t working. They have no guarantee that it will EVER work. But if they stop digging that hole, they'll never strike gold.

How to survive until you sell (and forever afterward)

Firstly, don’t forget to trust the process. It works. You create, and you market your work. That's all.

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However, you also must:

* keep up with what's selling, so that you’re not selling a bicycle in the rocket age. This doesn’t mean you hop on every passing bandwagon. Trust yourself. If you're writing a multi-generational family saga-type novel and only chicklit Bridget Jones clones are selling, keep writing. The wheel turns. If you write from your heart, you will sell;

* get a life aside from your writing. If you refuse to live your life, your creative well will soon dry up. Keep living and keep writing. If you can’t yet support yourself with your writing, take heart. Look on your day job as material. For a writer, everything is material;

* take chances. Write what's fun for you --- or what’s painful for you. Take whatever happens to you, and use it. It's all material. If you've been writing for ten years and haven’t sold a word, write about that. (I'm not kidding);

* have fun with your writing. Never get so keyed up to sell, sell, sell that you stop enjoying what you're doing. At least 80 per cent of your writing must be writing you'd do for pleasure, even if they weren't paying you. I enjoy copywriting, it's a game to me, and I get as much enjoyment out of writing copy as I do out of crossword puzzles. Find out what you enjoy writing, and focus your efforts on that.

* try new stuff. Investigate other kinds of writing you might enjoy.

Our free Your EveryDay Write ezine helps you to investigate new formats for your work. It also helps you to keep your writing fun, and to stay motivated. We've covered topics ranging from pre-writing to self-esteem:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YourEveryDayWrite 

Or send a blank email to:

YourEveryDayWrite-subscribe@yahoogroups.com 

To sell your writing, keep doing what's not working --- yet. 

One day, maybe TODAY, 
it will work, 
so keep digging that hole.

the end

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To read more articles by Angela Booth, visit the Digital- e Web site--Information for writers and creatives. Ebooks, free ezines, Creatives Club. Love to write? Turn your talent into a business! http://www.digital-e.biz/ 

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Writers, we have once again initiated a place for you to post your own short stories to the web.  When you do post, those stories will be FLUNG to the far corners of the web for millions of readers to see.  Add your moneymaking sales copy in the resource box at the bottom of the article.  Our readers are invited to read those stories published here.  Look on the right hand side for instructions.   Don't wait to be a writer. Write now. start with fillers. start with jokes. start with vignettes. START. Remember, there are some people making a good living who don't do a thing but come up with IDEAS other writers can develop. The key is to begin scribbling and don't look back. If nothing else, start yourself a blog. When positive feedback begins to trickle in you'll gain confidence to stretch out to bigger and better things. Click on the Cover and  Get the Free Book,  The companion title has now been published too..... Sell Everything You Write... Take advantage of every subject and every author in this book.  Any one of them could be worth a million dollars to you.  You can stack the odds in your favor and sell virtually everything you write.  You will find over 30,000 words of pointed advice here telling you how to do exactly that.  Articles by Lin Stone, Robert Bly, Judy Cullins, Kathy Burns-Millyard, Robin Nobles, Max Shifrin, Michael Carr, Lynda Lotman, June Campbell, David Vallieres, Bill Platt, Maria Stefanova, jl scott, ph.d., and others have been assembled into one powerful package that you can use to catapult your career into high gear.  There is a resource box at the end of most articles.  If the author has given you good value then be sure to visit their web site or resource facility to see what else the author has available for you.  This has been published by Browzer Books in pdf format for your instant pleasure.  RIGHT CLICK HERE to download.   Now there is a third book ready for your perusal.   It is a 100 page book, a series of shortcuts in learning to write and speak well. Book Four Article Writing Secrets reveals the easy, proven and simple way to pump out High Quality Articles and turn them into long term Residual Income.  Eight Special Tools for Writers, Click HERE Have you ever dreamed of becoming a professional cartoonist? Now you can get your own cartoons PUBLISHED and EARN REAL $$$$ within THREE MONTHS... GUARANTEED! Some people begin making money immediately.   http://yourcartooncareer.com/ordernow.htm Productivity begins by recognizing and valuing your brilliance, time, and space. It starts with awareness of what works and what does not. It continues with examining what needs grease, or other needs. Search for the truth for what you need in order to rev up your writing.   $10 Book Covers  Use your cover to make your books look real  BEFORE you write them -- and this will help you to sell your books to publishers and editors.    Book Sales Made Easy   Bullet Proof your Proposal  When your book DIES  Sell Your Books While Asleep   Why Should You Get e-Published? A success story from Lin Stone. Cafe Hemingway, news, peace and rest. Do ebooks want to be free?  Every writer needs to get away from it all so, Get Your Own Country Estates  DIRT CHEAP! There are many success systems available to the world of writers, including the Christian's Self Improvement Plan.   How to tell if you are helping web pirates.   CONTACT Travel Writing Search Engines  Writer  Friendly Insurance  Free pictures that can help get you published in a hurry. Golden Writing Resources Over 100 articles are available to help you write better, faster, and find the readership you crave.

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Literary Treasures
Last Forever

The heroes of Homer still romp through the Trojan plains.  The wisdom of Confucius still rings with truth.  The last minutes in the life of Socrates shall never die.  Christ rises triumphant from the tomb.  The immortal works of Shakespeare shall yet claim the thespian boards of deepest space.  Gulliver shall travel on forever. Maybe none of the writers you see working here at Tale Wins will ever be that good, but we intend to give them every chance to make it into the Literary Hall of Fame.  Remember too, you don't have to be THE best to be proud of doing your best. It is said you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. On the web that is very definitely NOT TRUE.  Writers on the web can change the ending of each story twice a day, or even change it every time a new visitor comes, according to whether it is a man, woman, or child visiting, or some other criteria entirely. On the web you can go on improving your story any time and every time you feel like it.  You can have your own web site and rearrange each page in it as often as you like.  You can change the links and the navigation system as often as you like.  If you aren't getting paid enough you can find better advertisers.

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