So you want to be a writer?
I’ve been writing for a while. I got published in college three times, my Sophomore, Junior, and Senior years. These were all short stories and my Junior year, I was awarded Best in Fiction for the campus literary magazine. It would take years to learn that I actually wasn’t that good. Definitely not good enough to be the Best. I struggled with a couple attempts at fiction novels that got bogged down and eventually received that mercy killing of “The End” and never so much as an edit put in after that.
In 2007 I sold my first story to Tales of the Talisman for $10 and over the next few years, I sold some more stories to them. I sold a few more short stories to online magazines and even got some articles published by Fantasy Magazine. I wrote a book and finished it in 2014. It was fun to write and I actually did sit down and edit it. You can find it on Amazon. Anyway, I got a divorce and it really killed my momentum.
As much fun as the book was to write, it was much like that short story I won Best in Fiction with in college. It wasn’t that great. Like I said, it’s fun. Imaginative. But since then I’ve got ten years of experience under my belt. Anyway, I’m burying the lede here.
Blah blah 2019, I decided I wanted to go places and write about them for a living. I went to England and wrote about it. I went to the 1940s (Ball) and wrote about it. After a year of being in Love ™ COVID ended all of that laziness and romantic bliss. She was out of the picture and so was the rest of the world. And my full-time job. I was chiseling away with freelancing for a content mill for around $800 per month. I was trying to put myself over with a blog and social media and not doing that well at either.
I did sell a story to the now defunct Big Life Magazine. I wish there were some clips I could share, but it was in print. There are drawbacks to being published in a glossy magazine. Another bust of a relationship and a custody battle really rocked my world. Also there was a pandemic going on. After the pandemic eased up, I spent a couple weeks in Ireland for a self-funded presstrip, I found myself out of doors. Some legal bullshit among family meant I was out of a house.
(I said to bartender. I said, “Come over here.” Loook man!”)
So, I sold everything and bought a bus. I could freelance from the road as a digital nomad. It was pretty much the only option I had left. (And out the door I went). Now you’re caught up. I can get to the damn point.
Last year about this time, I sent out a pitch to a bunch of magazines about Skooliepalooza, a van life gathering of nomads in the Arizona desert. Perceptive Travel picked up the story. They gave me a chance, even though I qualified by the skin of my teeth. After that, my pitches got better. My writing got better. I was finding stories all over the place. I was enjoying what I did a lot more. I was brand building for an anchor client, traveling around the west, and getting more Yes than No responses to my pitches.
(One bourbon, one scotch, one beer)
In the last year, I’ve been under contract and sold eight articles. And nearly all of those stories have also used (and paid for) my photography. That’s not including the freelance gigs I’ve been getting and the website work I do in travel and tourism. These are publications. Magazines you can find on the shelf or at the very least a Google search.
The crazy thing is I’ve eased myself into this life like an overly hot bath. I never really expected it would work out like this. I am soooooo grateful for these opportunities and the work I put into every one of these stories feels good. It feels better than sitting behind a desk at a university for twenty years. Maybe my only regret is I didn’t have the chance to get started sooner (see aforementioned divorce). One of the hardest obstacles in my way has been imposter syndrome. I’ve written about it at length, but it is a dreamkiller.
So is worrying about how much money you are making while doing something you love. That shit will break you. Don’t do it.
The only good thing about feeling like an imposter is I know my work has to be that much better to get the respect it deserves. I no longer wing it with articles. I interview. I plot. I plan. I outline. I write drafts and second drafts and rip the whole thing up and start all over again. I agonize over my words sometimes. I take pictures with my heart first, my eye second, and the camera last. I absolutely LOVE what I do, but it’s far from glamorous.
Only now after nearly ten published stories in a year under my belt, do I feel confident enough to say “Fuck yeah.”
I’m working on a story right now, doing everything I can to research and hit the locations myself with the lens of what I want to talk about at the forefront of my mind. My life is taking me to locations, on assignment. I feel like imposter syndrome is some angry lunatic chasing my car and I’m watching them disappear in the rearview mirror as I leave town behind. Damn it feels good.
I sent out pitches today. Not only for future stories, but also for a book I’ve been working on for the last four and a half years. This one is more literary, and not fantasy, though it does have some elements of the latter in it that I couldn’t resist. It has been a slog and I still need to finish the end and go through one more time with my red pen. But this time, when I send out pitches for the book, if I don’t hear back, I will know it isn’t because I can’t write. It just won’t be what the publisher or agent wants. Which is okay. It happens.
I honestly love what I do.
Would I like to have a more semi-permanent life someplace? With hot and cold running water and an actual shower? An automatic dishwasher and maybe a washing machine? Sure! But I don’t know how that would impact my writing.
You see right now I have the unique opportunity to wean myself off the greatest opioid to the masses since…well, opium. Social media addiction is real. The constant dopamine you get from it is debilitating. For nearly the last week, I had to actually hike 100 yards up a cactus-covered hill just to get enough signal to check my email. Forget about doomscrolling. The first few days were rough, but I got used to it. I read. I listened to music. I worked on my own stuff. I took photos and wrote down ideas and took notes and did outlines. I downloaded podcasts about work related stuff and listened to them when I was doing the dishes.
Damn, I felt like a real writer. Life on the road has helped me become more disciplined. It has given me the opportunity to do things NOW instead of saying “Well this or that or the other happens THEN I’ll begin.” No. You have to do it now. You have to start now and you have to try to finish it soon.
So, what have I been doing for the last year? Writing. Because I am a writer.