Why Most Writers Are 100% Wrong In The Way They Use Their Time

One thing writers often talk about is time. They think it’s all about working out how many words they can write in an hour, multiplied by how many hours they set aside for writing every day. 

They think that this alone will tell them how much writing they can do, how many articles they can write, and even how many books they can write in a week/month/year.

But they are completely wrong for looking at their time this way.

I’ve been a writer for over 20 years, and I earn all my income from my writing, so I know what I’m talking about.

Don’t get me wrong, knowing how fast you can write is important, but there’s one thing that’s crucial.

If you want to get more writing done in the time that’s available to you, you must protect your time. You must preserve your time. And you must not, under any circumstances, let anyone steal your time.

Let me explain what I mean.

When I first began writing, I had a full-time job and a family to look after, so I had to squeeze my writing in whenever I could, which usually meant writing in the evenings or at weekends.

Eventually, I managed to earn enough money from my writing so that I could change to a part-time job, and when I was earning enough from my writing, I quit my job altogether.

It was a long and laborious process, and the hardest thing was protecting my writing time.

It seemed like every time I wanted to write, the universe had other ideas. One of the kids would get sick or an emergency home repair needed doing, or the dog had to go to the vet, or a friend or family member would need my help with something.

There always seemed to be something to interrupt my writing time. And let me tell you, if you try and say to someone that you’re too busy writing to help them, they do NOT like it.

Friends and family were quite scornful and mocking about my wanting to be a writer. Even now, so many years later, no one ever wants to talk about my writing, and if I mention it, they quickly change the subject. It’s as though it’s taboo to mention my writing.

One day, when I was visiting my father, I saw a magazine on the coffee table. I opened it to one of the feature articles and said, “Look. That’s my article. I wrote that and it was published this week. See?”

My father’s wife leaned forward, closed the magazine, and said, “Right, who wants coffee?”

I was so hurt (and confused). I thought surely when I pointed out one of my published articles in a magazine they might have at least been interested or maybe even smiled. Instead they gave each other a quick sideways glance and pretended I hadn’t said anything.

And it’s this attitude that other people always seem to have and they think that your writing time isn’t important. So they think nothing of taking it from you and using it for their own gain. For a long time, people that I knew thought my writing was a joke, even though I was being published regularly, had set up and was running a writing website, and had thousands of subscribers. Try telling your friends you don’t want to go out drinking with them because you want to go home and write a short story and see what happens. They won’t like it at all.

This is why it’s important to train your friends and family to respect your writing time, and don’t be afraid to tell them that you’re too busy to talk on the phone, or to go for a coffee or to go to lunch. Once you start saying no to them it’s amazing how quickly they stop asking.

And when you’ve trained them to leave you alone, and you get to write more, the most amazing thing happens.

As you write more, it gets easier and faster. It’s just like anything we do repeatedly. It takes far less effort, and becomes quicker.

Having a strict writing schedule helps too because it not only makes sure that you have time to write, but once others know it’s your writing time and that it’s off-limits to them, they’ll leave you alone.

Don’t let others steal your writing time. They’ll never give it back. And it’s far too precious and important to lose.

P.S. Don’t let emails and social media steal your writing time either.

https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/MCWS1.html

This is better Than a Writing Prompt

Writing prompts are such useful things for getting our creative minds working. They also give us a starting idea of what to write about which is all a writer needs to get going.

But writing prompts are just that. A bump to get you started writing. Nothing more.

So, what if, instead of using random prompts, you look for paying markets and writing competitions and use them as prompts?

You don’t have to submit them, just use them as writing practice. There’s a lot of advantage of doing it this way.

1.    You’ll be practicing writing what the industry is looking for, so you’ll know what kind of writing sells         and what subjects/topics are currently popular.

2.    You’ll get used to writing to deadlines. Having a limited time to write can give you the bit of pressure you need to get your writing done. Writing to tight deadlines can also help improve your writing by not giving you time to second-guess yourself or to try and edit as you write, both of which are fatal to good writing.

3.    You can submit your writing if you want to and earn money. And because you’re only practicing your writing, it doesn’t matter if it gets accepted or not or if it wins a free competition or not. You’re just getting used to being a regular writer.

There really are no disadvantages to using writing markets and competitions as writing prompts.

It’s great practice, gets you writing regularly, and gets you used to deadlines.

Plus, you can submit your work if you want to, and even if it’s not accepted, you can find another market for it later. Or not.

And it can really get your creative mind working, which is what using prompts is all about.

Monthly Challenge Writing Series

https://cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/MCWS1.html

Why Successful Writers Make Plans

"If you don't separate yourself from distractions, your distractions will separate you from your goals."

~ Steve Harvey

I love reading about other writers’ goals and how they plan to achieve them. This is something that’s always fascinated me, probably because it reassures me that I’m not alone.

But what is a successful writing plan?

I’ve learned a lot about how other writers’ minds work and it can be inspiring to read about their successes as well as their failures. Mostly I love their tenacity to keep going no matter what.

Working as a writer is extremely isolating because I have to work completely alone and cannot stand the smallest disturbance when I’m “in the flow,” deeply absorbed in my writing.

Thankfully, the Internet, books, and podcasts, gives me access to other writers, and seeing them go through the same struggle I do gives me hope.

When I first began writing professionally, I went openly online talking about what I was doing. The reaction from some people (through blog comments and emails) was hostile to say the least, and I used to get upset about it.

But eventually I discovered that I wasn’t the only writer getting criticism. In fact I was far from it. I found out that even the most prolific and successful writers received hate mail. Most writers put it down to jealousy and moved on, so I did too. I still get a few haters now and again, but thankfully it’s easy to report them and block them.

It turned out that even hugely successful authors like Stephen King get people telling him how he could have written his books better, even though they’ve never written anything and his books are not only best sellers, but many have been made into high-grossing movies. He wrote about this in his book ‘On Writing.’ 

But trolls like these are the type of thing that can be distracting, especially if you’re just starting your career, like I was at the time. Back then, even other writers would tell me that I’d never make it as a published author because I self-published my books when no one else (or not many) was doing it.

Then the self-publishing industry boomed and I was already way ahead of the rest, who’ve since failed and seem to have fallen out of the writing universe, yet here I am - still!

And it’s probably due tot he fact that, like all the successful writers I’ve read about, I’ve always had a plan of what I wanted to achieve and how I was going to do it.

My original plan was to set up several websites and us them to earn money through advertising and affiliate marketing. At the same time, I was also doing freelance writing and submitting article ideas to magazines and other websites all the time. And it worked well.

My next plan was to write a novel, which I did . I self-published it (which took a lot of research back then to figure out how to do it), and when I started making sales, I wrote a book about how I did it so that others could do it too, and that’s when I got trolled by the haters. Yet at the same time, my books sales took off (and I swear the trolls helped me with marketing by talking about me all over the Internet), and my websites were all earning me a good passive income.

Since then my plans have changed a few more times because the online and publishing world have changed so much. I’ve always been constantly learning the whole time so that I can keep up with everything. Even now I’m trying to keep up with AI and how it’s making even more changes to the way I work.

My plan now is to write and publish as many books as I can, as well as still doing freelance writing.

But no matter what, having a plan is important because without one, how can you achieve anything?

How to Earn Money Writing Short Stories

It's enjoyable to write short stories. I love writing short stories so much that I often don't even know what I'm going to write until I sit down and start writing. I simply sit down and make stuff up as I go.

But is it feasible to write short stories and make money doing it?

If you know what you're doing, you can earn money from all of your writing. Over the years, my methods of making a living as a writer have evolved significantly, but one consistent source of income has been writing short stories.

Markets for Short Stories

To start making money quickly from your short stories, look for paying markets. Strive for well-paying markets that pay at least 5 cents a word. And never, ever pay to submit your work. You’re a professional writer and your time is worth money so you should be paid for your work. Whoever you send your work to will earn money from it,  more than they’re paying you (that’s how business works) so make sure you’re paid well for what you do and never pay to submit.

Types of Short Stories

Pick a genre that you’re comfortable writing in. No one can choose a genre for you because only you know the kinds of stories you like to write.

And you don’t have to choose just one genre. I’ve written horror stories as well as romance stories. These are two completely different genres but I enjoy writing (and reading) both.

Short stories can also differ greatly in length. Some markets want stories up to 10,000 words, which is great if they’re a high-paying market of 8 cents a word. Others want Flash Fiction of only 250 words, or Drabbles which are stories of exactly 100 words, which is only a couple of short paragraphs. 

Shorter story markets such as these can still be high-paying with up to $100 for just a few words.

A word of warning though; make sure that your copyright remains with you and that your story is yours to republish after a few weeks or a year.  These things will be in the the Ts & Cs of the publication you’re submitting to.

If you story gets rejected (and most will, it happens to us all), just keep sending it to other markets, even if you have to tweak it a bit to suit their guidelines.

Having your stories published in anthologies is great for marketing because those books will probably go on selling for years so it helps to  get your name known.

How Many Stories to Write

If you’re serious about earning  money, I’d suggest you write and submit one story a week, or one a fortnight if that’s too much. This helps writing and submitting to become a habit.

As well as submitting to markets that pay outright, there are also a few story websites (like Wattpad for instance) where you can upload your work and receive payments based on how many people read your story. I don’t have any experience submitting stories this way so I don’t know if it’s worthwhile or not, but many writers swear by it.

But you can keep submitting your stories to high-paying markets. Keep them on the market for at least a year. If they still don’t sell, or even if they do, you can publish them in your own short story collection and they can go on earning you money for years, which will increase year after year as you keep writing more short stories.

So keep writing and have a blast doing it.

https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/MCWS1.html