Dedicated to the Success of Aspiring, Stalled and Struggling
Writers
August 22, 2007
ISSN
1543-8090
*****
"I do not want to die... until I have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that
was placed in me until the last small twig has grown."
Kathe
Kollwitz, O Magazine, September 2002
*****
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*****
IN THIS ISSUE… - From My Desk
to Yours: The "New" WriteSuccess
- Article: Writing Stalled?
Think Small!
- Setting Your Sites
- WriteSuccess Resources
- WriteSuccess Stories
- Calls for Writers
*****
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issue of WriteSuccess is Sponsored by…
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*****
FROM MY DESK TO YOURS: The "New" WriteSuccess
Hello:
Yep, it’s me, back from cyberspace, ready, willing and
able to revive this e-zine and totally revamp the WriteSuccess site.
After publishing WriteSuccess biweekly for five straight years, I think I finally needed a break (although it was many months
before I admitted that to myself). Part of me wondered if I still had anything new or helpful to offer my readers. Part of
me wondered who was I, a sporadic writer myself, to think I was in any position to offer encouragement to others. And part
of me just felt completely over-extended—having a full-time day job, backing my partner John in his demanding seasonal
business, and trying to keep up WriteSuccess left me little time to pursue anything else, including my own writing goals.
My mission this time around is *not* to try to be all things
to all writers; first of all, that’s not even humanly possible, and second, with so many other resources out there for
you to tap and explore, much of what I used to provide here was redundant. So when I started thinking about what form the
"new" WriteSuccess would take, I asked myself, "What are you good at? What could you offer writers that they
can’t already find in a million other places?"
The answers
came easily. From my day job as a supervisor, I consider myself an excellent coach and problem-solver. More importantly, so
do those who work with me. And when I reviewed back issues of WriteSuccess, I found that my articles mainly focused on helping
writers overcome obstacles to their own success. That, I decided, would be the focus of WS going forward.
I also can claim expertise as a long-term aspiring writer in my younger years, and as a struggling
writer off and on even now. Like most of us, I’ve had a tendency to be my own worst enemy. One time or another, I’ve
wrestled with pretty much every excuse for not writing, from not having enough time to not having any of what I would consider
viable ideas to fear of rejection. I now see these excuses for what they are—masks for the true underlying reasons as
to why, during certain periods of my life, I do little or no freelance writing.
So the "new" leaner WriteSuccess will now concentrate on the following:
- Helping aspiring writers get your ideas from your brain to the page
- Providing stalled and struggling writers with resources, encouragement and motivation
- Combing the Web for sites and resources you can use to help you reach your writing goals
- Celebrating your successes as you break through your blocks and get published
For you seasoned writers who may still be on this mailing list during my two-year hiatus, this e-zine may not serve
your needs. However, you’re more than welcome to stay on, if only to get your own shot in the writing arm, discover
new resources, or offer pearls of wisdom from the been-there, done-that.
I look forward to WriteSuccess’s second wind. Here’s to your writing success.
Mary Anne
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ARTICLE:
Writing Stalled? Think Small!
By Mary Anne Hahn
When your novel or nonfiction book idea looms large, overwhelming you to the point
of writing paralysis, or when you can’t seem to scrape together even an hour of alone time to research your article
or put down a rough draft of your essay, try jumpstarting your writing by concentrating on miniature projects instead.
Today’s fast-paced, sound byte environment has created
a tremendous need for short pieces, with markets clamoring to fill their pages or Web sites with informational, educational
or entertaining tidbits that can be read in minutes. From recipes and fillers to humor pieces and books reviews, online and
offline publications have a constant demand for fresh, new and short material—a demand that you can fill even when your
life allows you only snippets of time to write.
Moreover, these short
pieces often pay an incredible amount per word. It took me less than 10 minutes to craft a tightly-written tip for Family
Circle Magazine that brought me a $50 check; Woman’s Day has a similar tips page that pays the same rate. Although Reader’s
Digest leading the pack as the most well-known (and competitive) market for fillers that pay top dollar, hundreds of other
lesser known yet equally hungry markets exist, if you know where to find them.
Even the time-consuming task of locating these markets has been done for you. Rather than comb through your
Writers’ Market, publication by publication, to find out who’s buying what, author C. Hope Clark has put together
a number of specialized market books for the time-pressed writer, including:
- Get Paid to Write Book Reviews
- Short and Sweet—Markets
for Your Fillers
- Cooking Up Recipes—Markets for Your Recipes and
Food Tips
- Quick as a Flash—Markets for flash fiction 100-500 words
- Just Hit Send—Markets that You Can Query via E-mail
These volumes come as ebooks, so you can pay for and download them within minutes by going here: http://tinyurl.com/2gep2r.
So until you get
the time, energy or motivation to tackle your larger projects, why not keep your writing and paychecks flowing by hammering
out short pieces? You’ll find that what little time you have to write will be time well spent.
