When do I get rich?

This post is part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog hop. The first Wednesday of every month is Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. The awesome co-hosts for the the July 1 posting of the IWSG will be S.A. Larsen, AJ, Tamara Narayan, Allison Gammons, and Tanya Miranda!

My biggest, loftiest goal in life is to be a career writer.

By ‘career writer’ I mean making enough money from writing to pay my bills and also eat, feed my cat, and maybe get a new pair of shoes now and then–while NOT also having a day job. In other words, I want to sit at home and write and get paid enough for it that I don’t have to do anything but that. That’s tier one of the goal, anyway. Tier two would be all those things plus also having enough money left over for a little fun and travel. I guess tier three would be a golden Porsche.

Not really, I can’t even drive a manual transmission.

Am I anywhere near this goal yet? Let’s just say, I’m not writing a resignation letter to my boss anytime soon.

I’ve studied the business of writing, I know what it takes to make a career out of writing. I have to write lots and lots of stuff, get it published, promote the hell out of it, and then, someday down the road, MAYBE I’ll get noticed enough to pull in a decent wage from my sales. Maybe. A lot of writers who are big and successful today will tell you it wasn’t their first book that got even a portion of the reading public to notice them, but the fifth, tenth, sixteenth…

But what if it never happens? What if I can never comfortably pay my bills with writing? What if I’m doomed to a life of toiling away at a ‘real’ job and working my writing in around it, like I’ve done for years and years and years…can I spend my life that way? Can I be happy with that?

I can, I hope. I love writing and I’d still do it even if I never got another dime for it. I just like to hope that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, even if the tunnel is beneath the English Channel and I’m still on the steps in Kent trying to get to France. Just knowing that France is over there gives me hope.

What about you? Do you make your living, or even part of it, from writing? Do you want to?

In that same vein, right now my novel The Wicked City has been marked down to 99 cents by my publisher to give it a sales boost. If you like urban fantasy, suspense, and paranormal political intrigue, you can get it cheap (scroll down to the bottom of the linked page, it’s 99 cents at all those retailers). For every copy sold, 49 cents goes to me…that will get me on my way to wealth, right?

Filed under: IWSG Tagged: blog hop, me, writing