Its been nearly a year now and I still don’t make any money as a writer. I understood when I started that it would take a lot of work to make it. What I over estimated was how much work I would be able to put into it without any reward. It’s been hard to make it on my own, especially since I’ve lost my primary motivation: my wife. She always managed to say or do just the right thing to keep me going.

I decided last April, while I was still employed with a day job but after my wife left, that I wanted to take my writing more seriously and write professionally. I started by discovering what that means and what options I had. Then I looked online for ads looking for writers. I found and answered one. A few days later I got a positive response. I began the process of gathering info and wrote a couple of sample articles for the client. They liked what I wrote and asked for more. It turned out to be a large contract and they seemed willing to pay my fees. Then nothing. Communication just stopped. I haven’t heard from them since.

I’ve had potential clients contact me since then and I’ve also had people refer some to me, but they all ended up the same. In the end, none of them paid me anything. I did get a contract as a content writer for a month or so which gave me some experience (and cash) in that field, but ultimately, it wasn’t for me.

After that I sunk into a deep depression for a few months and the only reason I stayed alive and had any social contact is because my writers’ club had need of my management/technical skills. I had agreed to head the anthology committee for last year and the deadline for publication was the end of October. A couple of the more prominent club members made efforts to keep me focused. Quite honestly, on those nights when I wanted to just die or fade out of existence, it was my commitment to the club’s anthology that was the swaying factor. In my case, volunteering really did save my life.

The long road back out of that dark place started the evening in December that I read my own story at the book launch our club had at a local business. Standing in front of 25 or so people and reading my first ever published story really made me believe that I could be a writer. So much so that it only took one other person reading (I was the first reader) for me to return to enough of my former confidence to get back up in front of the audience and do the standard speech of thank you’s and accolades to my writing colleagues and the incredible support team that helped me out on that project.

Since then I have continued to write sporadically and search for my place as a writer. It’s still a long hard battle and the only rewards I have gotten so far are praise from the other writers in the writers’ group. (I must acknowledge here that I was employed as a content writer for a month and I have also been helping a friend with his paperwork for pay for over two years, but I wouldn’t have tried either of those without someone else first approaching me with the idea.) I have a website now and another one I’m still working on. I’m closer and closer to having all the tools that I need. The experience I’m gaining is tremendous so I know I’m still early in the game. But I get more confidence everyday as a writer and every week I write more and more. It’s coming, it’s something I think I can do, and it’s something I love. Here’s to doing what I love even if it means I end up living on the streets and eating out of garbage cans. But most of all, here’s to life, love, and all the friends I’ve made along the way.

If you want to talk about this or any other articles I have written, drop me a line and start the conversation.