Circle the Wagons

"You don't work well when you don't have a specific goal or purpose you're working toward," says my boyfriend today. And he's absolutely right! If I don't have a specific goal that I'm trying to achieve, then I feel like I'm floundering. I have felt like I'm floundering for a little while now.

What to do next has been the question rumbling around in my brain for weeks. I've finished my book. I've sent it to almost 275 agents... What the hell do I do with myself now?

Write more. But what? A second book? Wow! What an undertaking!

I got a freelance gig that is frustrating because I'm making very little money writing articles on random stuff like fishing in Alaska or boar hunting in Europe or laser hair removal. None of which I care about. Not to mention the fact that I'm not as good at journalistic writing as I am novel writing. But whatever. All of this is the whining I feel like I've been doing while I'm floundering.

So today I took some steps in a great direction. First, I found an online class about how to write women focused articles for magazines like Glamour and Marie Claire. OMG! How interesting is that?! Plus, this course will help me get better at journalism style writing, which is a HUGE need of mine! And this course says, I'll come out of it with a portfolio of work I can send out to magazines and other potential employers. I surely hope so because I'm ready to make some money writing!

Secondly, I emailed this really cool friend of mine who is also a writer to see if she had any suggestions. She's an ad copywriter, so not exactly the same thing, but it's writing... Whatever it takes, right? Well, this friend of mine gave me a couple of really great suggestions including searching for a creative recruiter. This is something I hadn't thought about before. She also gave me some helpful websites where I can find writing gigs. Many, many thanks for the tips! This is a new direction for me to run in!

Thirdly, I started for real planning for my second book. It's time to get started! Let's just plunge in and do it! It's now or never. I want to be a murder mystery novelist, and there's nothing stopping me from accomplishing this!

"I am back. I am back. I'm getting my writing career back!" Okay, it's a bit of a stretch and exemplifies my extreme enthusiasm for the movie The Hangover. But whatever. I feel better. Less like I'm floudering. So here I go. Running in new, writing-filled directions. Woo hoo!

New Tactics

So I'm waiting for a yes. But I'm driving myself crazy because I don't know what to do in the mean time. I don't know what I thought would happen when I started querying agents. I mean I knew I wouldn't get a yes right away. I hoped I would get a YES immediately! But I knew I wouldn't.

So I need to rethink my writing career. Which I have no idea how to do. I have a freelance writing gig, but it doesn't pay much at all... I would rather write than do anything else, so I need to figure out how to make more money writing. And more money in general. And I need to get better at journalistic style writing. I don't do enough of it and haven't for a very long time to be as familiar as I need to be.

So how do I make more money writing? Any ideas? Anyone? Is that crickets I hear?

Life is strange sometimes. I feel like I ran as fast as I could and worked as hard as I could to get my book finished, so I could try to sell it. It never occurred to me that I would have to figure out something to do once my book was finished. Maybe it should have, but it didn't.

I'm ready to start my second book. I'm excited!!! My writers group is starting up again, so it's time to do LOTS MORE writing!!!

Loyal friends, if anyone has any writing career ideas or advice, I'm all ears. Or job leads in general right now. Thanks as always. Back to trying to conquer the world as a fabulous, famous writer!