Working for a Living, Living Like a Writer, Working with Writing: Not the same as making a living AS a writer. And that's OK.

“I admire that you make a living as a writer.”

A young woman writer said this to me at an event recently.

I’m quick to correct her: No, I don’t.

Because it’s the truth.

I make a living, I tell her, because I’m a writer.

Each January I calculate how much I earned from each of the activities I get paid for and in which percentages in the previous year. I want to understand where the money comes from, where the time goes. (I hate math and I'm bad at it; my husband cannot understand how I was once the statistician for the men's ice hockey team at Syracuse University, but I digress: check out the Percentage Calculator.)

In 2019, some 33 percent of my income came from editing book manuscripts, essays, and book proposals, and acting as a writing coach. The largest amount, 40 percent, was earned by teaching in an online MFA program, and about 23 percent from teaching other writing classes and speaking and leading workshops at conferences, retreats, and libraries. That leaves just 2 percent from book sales and royalties and another 3 percent from paid freelance writing.

That’s it. That last figure is how I did not even get close to making a living as a writer. My income right now comes mostly from helping others with their writing, their writing life. 

This is fine with me, for now. Many years ago, I did in fact make a full time living as a full-time freelance writer—back when there were scads of print magazines and newspapers doling out living wages for articles. But now, my husband (also self-employed) and I have two kids in college, live in one of the most expensive areas of the country (northern NJ, 10 miles from NYC), fund our own health insurance and retirement.

I’m not complaining. I’ve chosen this. Although often it feels like I’m cobbling things together with whatever comes my way, I’m also fairly methodical about seeking opportunities, proposing things, applying for gigs. It’s good that people notice I’m busy, that I work a lot—mostly because that often leads to future work.

I guess that’s what the young woman above was reacting to—my busyness, perhaps combined with getting published enough (in short forms, though often in unpaid literary journals) so that it appears I spend a lot of my time on my own writing. I don’t.

Depending on the cycle of the academic semester, and how much freelance editing/coaching work I have in the house at any one time, my own writing gets done—much like most writers on the planet, I suspect—in between. When there’s a lull, some breathing space. Over holiday breaks and on Sundays and very late at night and occasionally when I need a respite from others’ words and writing problems and editing needs. I like to think this reality helps make me more understanding of the time management, energy, and brain-drain challenges my writing clients and adult MFA students deal with daily.

So, to the dear lovely young writer above—who I might add said this to me at a reading/speaking engagement for my memoir where I was (a) getting paid; (b) trolling for prospective clients; and (c) hopefully selling books: No, I don’t make a living as a writer. But thanks. Right now, it’s enough that I make a living among writers.

Now then. It’s Sunday morning and I have my (abbreviated) work day mapped out: edit four more essays in the manuscript of a client’s essay collection; finish the schedule for the three-day memoir workshop I’m teaching next weekend about 130 miles from home.

Then, maybe, if I’m not too tired, and if my husband is still mainlining playoff football, and if I have anything left in the tank, I want to work on an essay of my own I’ve been tinkering with for three months…

Image, top: Flickr/CreativeCommons - Trending Topics 2019

Ten Things Every Writing Routine Should Probably Have

Yesterday I discussed my beef with the standard advice that one must write every day (namely, that it just doesn't work for every writer!), and concluded with my opinion that a much more realistic goal is for each individual writer to establish a customized regular writing routine which works for that writer. 

I said there were 10 things I believe you should consider when establishing a regular writing routine.  Here are the 10 criteria I believe a successful writing routine ought to have:

1. Regularity & Duration.
For some, that will mean  a regularity of several days a week, if you have the ability to do so given your life situation, and a duration more than 15 minutes, but not more than a few hours, per session. For others, that may mean 10 writing sessions per month of a specific duration, but scheduled less predictably.  

2. Ease. 
A regular writing routine must not be a burden to maintain in the normal course of your life, or guess what? You won't keep to it, you won't write. When I say "ease" I don't mean make it so easy on yourself that there is no sense of urgency or commitment; I mean that if you make your writing schedule/routine so complicated and difficult, the odds of carrying it out are slim. Don't fight human nature.

3. Flexibility.
Yes, I think you ought to schedule in your writing time, just the way you do a doctor's appointment or the dog's walk. But a writing routine also needs to be realistic and flexible enough that when life's usual deviations erupt, the routine can be tweaked and  somehow maintained, not wither away.

4. Rigor.
Your routine must make a disciplined demand on you; in other words, you work (write) when the schedule says so. Sometimes that may be at an inconvenient time which may be the only time you can given life's circumstances; if you're a night person, that may mean accepting the rigor of needing to write in the morning because that's what your current life situation requires.

5. Enjoyment.
The time/place/action of the routine itself, AS WELL AS the work, should be enjoyable. You enjoy doing it, being there, carrying out the actual physical and mental acts of writing. Why bother if it's drudgery?  Remember, you write to enhance your life, right? (This brings up the need to deal with any "shoulds" in your head -- I should write more fiction, finish that essay, get back to that script...examine those shoulds and see if they match your real writing desires.)

6. Scene-Setters. 
A beverage of choice, the right background music, a non-cranky computer, lovely pens, comfortable chair, good light, the dog at your feet – whatever helps. And yet, let's not skip a writing session because your chair is lumpy, the CD is scratched, you're out of hot chocolate.

7. Solitude / Setting.
A physical place, and a specific time, when and where distractions are minimized; not always possible of course and some writers don't find this important at all. If you've learned to write in the stands of your kid's hockey game, terrific.

8. Writing goal(s) and wants.
Know why you are in that writing chair in the first place. This may take the form of something very specific – new chapters in a book manuscript, three essays on particular topics, the next draft of a short story; or it may be less exacting but still goal- and want-directed:  improving dialogue by trying some new techniques; fiddling with a new batch of poem ideas; turning a serious essay into a humorous one. In other words, think about what you want to happen, and what you are planning to have happen, when you next plan to write; this way, you won't be worrying over the prospect of an upcoming scheduled writing session and not knowing how you'll fill the time.

9. Measurement.
A way to know you were there, that you wrote and something came of it. This could be a simple tally mark on a wall calendar, or mentally or physically taking note of that session's page or word count, or just taking a few minutes to reflect on what you did (sketched out a new scene, revised a pesky passage).  I'm often surprised at writers who have no sense of tracking what they actually get done while at the keyboard/notebook. 

10. Accountability.
This is related to measurement, but introduces the element of being accountable to someone other than yourself.  The idea is to recruit someone, or develop/participate in some system, that forces you to say to the outside world, I'm a writer at work. This could be as easy as asking a writing buddy to expect a quick email from you on writing days: "Wrote today," or signing up for one of the many online systems that help users track progress on any task.

Did I forget anything?  What do you think also has to be part of a successful writing routine? 

The above is adapted from Week One of  *I Should Be Writing!* Boot Camp: Reclaim Your Writing Life).

Writing Quirks and Bad Habits

Writing quirks. We all have them. Sometimes a writing quirk is just a bad habit, one we should take extra care to extinguish – or at minimum become acutely aware of and question ourselves about. For me, one of my quirks is a tendency to get list-y: "Hello my name is Lisa and I am a serial comma and semi-colon abuser." Another I've mostly eradicated from my prose is the one-word paragraph comprised of the word still or yet.

Over the last few months I've advised students, editing clients and writers I coach about their individual writing quirks. A few involved dialogue tags: One writer loved adverbs (Bob said heartily), another seemed unable to use the verbs said or asked (Mary enthused; he entreated), and a third writer combined both (Sue heartily enthused; Joe entreated smugly).

Other bad habits I've seen recently include memoir writers beginning nearly every sentence with the pronoun "I"; overuse of one particular favorite (usually hackneyed) phrase ("and so with that," "not that it mattered"); starting a new paragraph every few sentences whether it makes sense or not; continually referring to an important secondary character in terms of their relationship to the main character rather than by name ("my mom" instead of Mother, Mama, Mom; "her brother" rather than Joe); and – one of my particular favorites – repeatedly using the exact same word or descriptor for an item that is central to the story ("the red dress" 10 times in one page; if it's not to make a poetic point, couldn't that item at least once or twice, be a frock, outfit, garment, piece of clothing, silky confection, or depending on its design, a sheath, gown, sundress, cocktail dress?).

Oh dear. Was that list-y of me?

Some writers are so overly enamored of a single word, they will find ways to use it far too many times in one piece; a few recent ones I've encountered: superior, blanch, quibble, obstreperous.

Then there's "it".

I once challenged a writer to do a spell check and count how many times he used it in a 1200 word essay. Answer: 46. My pet peeve with *it* is that very often the reader won't immediately know what *it* refers to precisely; or the meaning shifts, from one *it* to the next; and more importantly, that using *it* substitutes for bringing readers closer in to the story and further inside a character's head.

Example: It was a glorious day so John called in sick even though it would get him in trouble. It didn't matter. He'd already decided that it was no longer worth it. Fix: Monday morning's glorious sunrise convinced John to call in sick. He knew Mr. Morgan would make a negative note in his performance review folder, but that didn't matter. By then, John had decided he'd been humiliated by a demeaning job long enough and would no longer worry about the consequences.

Many writing quirks can be solved by awareness and practice with alternate ways of expressing ourselves. Sometimes I challenge a writer to produce something without a single adverb, or using only said or asked, or writing sentences longer than five words, or never longer than 12 words. Once, I limited a memoir writer to no more than three uses of *I* per page.

As for me, when I revise I am keenly aware of my terrible friend the serial comma and my tendency to want to list things. An instructor once told me: periods are free and for a while I kept a sticky note on my computer with that written on it.

Another way to kill your quirks is by constantly striving to be more precise, because many bad habits have to do with avoiding precision. Unless we are being purposely imprecise or ambiguous for metaphorical, style or poetic reasons, we need to work hard to help a reader see and understand our exact, specific, precise meaning.

Yet.

Some writing quirks are actually good habits, just gone a little (or a lot) awry. Think of the writer who is a master of interesting description: Terrific when we're reading about the main character's new house, or the place he's traveled, or the office she's coveted and is now hers; maybe not so great when we're asked (for no reason related to plot or character development) to read paragraphs of description of a pot, blouse or pencil.

One writer I worked with wrote stunning dialogue. But not every story she wanted to tell could be done best via conversation. Another created richly innovative metaphors; but after reading five in a row in a single paragraph, fatigue set in (for me at least). One writer whose work I otherwise particularly liked, took too much to heart the typically good advice about ending a paragraph with a striking or powerful image or word, and began ending every paragraph with a word that sent me running to the dictionary.

I would continue, but that might be list-y of me.

Still.

Labor Day for Writers

I’m thinking about Labor Day and what it means to writers, especially those whose writing income is not a reliable indicator of the labor they expend. Does Labor Day have a relevance for them?

Writers think of their efforts as a labor of love, and indeed we are often asked to contribute to various creative projects for no (or very little) pay because they have been conceived and executed as labors of love. (I sometimes think this phrase should be amended to labors we love.)

Authors, particularly first-time authors, think of the process of publication as giving birth and we all know what precedes a birth: labor.

We say we are laboring away at a manuscript, especially one that seems not to be giving much back in return.

So, writers, on Labor Day, think about it: value the effort, the craft work, the mental energy, the work ethos, the physical time spent at the task of writing. Maybe you are even today working on a poem, article, query, chapter, essay, blog post, short story, or other piece of writing. If so, take a minute to celebrate and recognize the labor it entails.

And while we are at it -- those of us who can devote more time than might ordinarily be available to our writing, or who were able to get the education necessary to launch writing careers directly because of someone else’s labor -- maybe today is a good time to say thanks.

P.S. And for those crazy, wonderful, exhausted writers who are participating in the Three Day Novel challenge this weekend -- get out of here. You have a book to finish!

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Tech Tasks for Writers, Literary Roads not Taken, Poetry in NJ, Memoirs & More

• This list, found at the 10,000 Words site (“where journalism and technology meet) is designed to keep recent journalism school graduates busy sharpening skills while job hunting. But I think it’s even better advice for anyone who graduated from J-school more than ten years ago (uh, that would be me). I groaned at some of the suggestions, but by tackling at least half, I’ll be more valuable to future editors and clients in any area of media or literary life. And I might add, it wouldn’t hurt any newly (or soon-to-be) published authors to try their hands at these skills for the sake of savvier do-it-yourself book marketing.

• Some rare literary insight over at Daily Finance: the career road not taken, tweaked for writer types.

• Working on a To Be Read list for summer? If memoirs are of interest, this list of 50 suggestions might be useful, from Library Journal, where I often find gems, and not just about libraries.

• Crowd-sourcing a book. Hmm.

• I live in New Jersey. (Yes, not far at all from those hideous Bravo housewives, but please, hold the condolences.) When people ask where in New Jersey I live, I say Montclair. Not because it’s true, but because almost everyone has heard of Montclair, the urban-like suburb, known for its racial-, social-, cultural- and economic-diversity, the liberal little cityburb full of literary types, media elites, artists and low-key celebrities, a hip hamlet with a thriving downtown, nightlife, and direct 30-minute train service to Manhattan. The tiny obscure town where I live, which borders Montclair? None of the above. Now, it looks as if Montclair has a good chance to be the new home of the Dodge Poetry Festival (the largest poetry event in North America), which is vacating its usual venue some 20 miles west.

• Write Young Adult fiction? Eileen Cook’s blog will be of interest, and be sure to check out her link list to find more blogs of YA (and other) authors.

• Read these Five Common Flaws of Memoir Projects. Actually, it’s not all about you.

• If you are on Twitter (like me @LisaRomeo) and you are a magazine junkie (again, me), and you want to add some magazines to your Twitter feed, you might find want to check this out.

Have a great weekend.