The Utmost a Writer Can Do
Patience is not my strong suit.
This is not new news. But it does mean that periodically I have weeks where I am anxious about everything, frustrated by slower-than-I'd-like progress and just everything.
I have this image in my head of my ideal future. It involves things like a cute little house with a balcony and a large library, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, a man with hair like Josh Groban, trips to London and a livable salary from my books. Every cell in my body is ready for this to happen. The livable salary part has to come before a lot of the other things, obviously, and I want to make sure I'm doing everything I can possibly do to make that happen, so I can get me one of these:
Here is what I think a writer can do on a day-to-day basis, and I what I try to do:Write. Obviously. Read. Fill your creative tanks in other ways too, i.e. art, film, gardening, other projects, etc.Network. I try to keep up on my social media profiles for at least a couple minutes every day.Submit. To everything. Contests, literary magazines, agents. I like having each of my stories out to at least two magazines, and now with my novel I am trying to have it out to somewhere around 5-7 agents at a time.Those are the things I have come up with. Sometimes life gets in the way of these things, sometimes in an okay way (Disneyland), sometimes in a frustrating way (double shifts), but I try to keep these as a rule of thumb. I believe I can always get better at these things, qualitatively and quantitatively.
But what else? I am trying to get a good schedule going with writing this novel. I'm loving my new friend library. I'm trying to keep up with the online stuff and now have my query with a handful of agents. What else would you suggest? Is there anything more I can be doing? Because if there is, I'm ready to do it.
Sarah Allen
p.s. Check out the latest on the vlog :)
This is not new news. But it does mean that periodically I have weeks where I am anxious about everything, frustrated by slower-than-I'd-like progress and just everything.
I have this image in my head of my ideal future. It involves things like a cute little house with a balcony and a large library, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, a man with hair like Josh Groban, trips to London and a livable salary from my books. Every cell in my body is ready for this to happen. The livable salary part has to come before a lot of the other things, obviously, and I want to make sure I'm doing everything I can possibly do to make that happen, so I can get me one of these:
Here is what I think a writer can do on a day-to-day basis, and I what I try to do:Write. Obviously. Read. Fill your creative tanks in other ways too, i.e. art, film, gardening, other projects, etc.Network. I try to keep up on my social media profiles for at least a couple minutes every day.Submit. To everything. Contests, literary magazines, agents. I like having each of my stories out to at least two magazines, and now with my novel I am trying to have it out to somewhere around 5-7 agents at a time.Those are the things I have come up with. Sometimes life gets in the way of these things, sometimes in an okay way (Disneyland), sometimes in a frustrating way (double shifts), but I try to keep these as a rule of thumb. I believe I can always get better at these things, qualitatively and quantitatively. But what else? I am trying to get a good schedule going with writing this novel. I'm loving my new friend library. I'm trying to keep up with the online stuff and now have my query with a handful of agents. What else would you suggest? Is there anything more I can be doing? Because if there is, I'm ready to do it.
Sarah Allen
p.s. Check out the latest on the vlog :)
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