Day 5 of the 7 Day Writing Challenge

This challenge has shown me that, if nothing else, I need to seriously rearrange my schedule.

When I’m supposed to be focused on client work I’m thinking about my fiction, but as of this point in time, my fiction isn’t buying me a cup of coffee, let alone paying any bills.

Sigh.

So of course, clients come first…as they should.

But I’ve also trapped myself with clients who don’t have the budget to pay me a “real copywriter rate”, so of course this means I’m trading more of my time to earn enough $$ than I would like.

My fault.

Entirely.

There’s a vast difference between telling yourself that you ought to earn $X amount of money for your writing and actually “believing” that you ought to earn $X amount.

So then, it all comes down to believing in yourself, in what you have to offer and walking away when necessary.

And that, dear reader, is the same trap that fiction writers fall into.

They think that just because they’re a “beginner”, that this is their first book, that they should give it away free.

They don’t value the time and effort they put into the book.

Is it a good story?

Who knows? It might be…it might not be…let the readers decide.

But one thing is for certain if the writer stops practicing his writing, he won’t have the opportunity to improve his craft.

And part of that practicing, in my mind, includes setting the price of a book competitively, but fairly, so that he feels as if what he has to share with the world is worthwhile.

So here’s to practicing my craft…and to preparing for NaNoWriMo.

I’m throwing the idea of doing it back and forth in my mind…as well as changing things up a bit and trying something new.

I’m going to try to combine my beloved “pantsing” with Nick Stephenson’s and Joe Nassise’s “Story Engines” method of writing. This program seems to be, in essence, Joe’s take on the 7 point story writing outline that I’ve seen lots of places.

I like how he explains how to figure out if a story will work or not…that’s something I struggle with.

So going to give it a test drive the rest of this month and see how it goes.

I’ll let you guys know!