The old saying 'get a job you like and you will never have to work a day in your life'!
There I was in perfect oblivion, studying the subject I love, English, so love the English. Trying a hand at writing books, articles, art, alot of web surfing, looking for outlets for this really big love for the written word and penmanship and all sorts of novel writing could vent out on.
And a thought hit me...sometimes what you love to do, might not always be the best way to get the rent paid, it's an uphill road and sometimes quite a lonely one.
But I have learned this in all this writing of book proposals and manuscripts and articles and C.V's and application letters that the only way to get there is to keep on trying. If you are sure of what you want, keep going. That might not mean not getting something to pay the rent and the bills while you try...but a dream is there for a reason.
Oh and before I forget...these are a few of my least favourite questions when trying to find a publisher or writing work...
1. What is your target audience? I am like....ummmm it's a children's story sooooo.....I know this one, I do!.... How about CHILDREN! Yes? Is that the right answer? By the way....I did not write all this down. 'Course not, I just thought it...what I wrote was a whole lot of words that basically meant CHILDREN.
2. What puts you apart from the others? What makes you noticeable? Why should we hire you? My answer...albeit I did not want to put any one else out of work, which that question clearly states I will do....ummm cos there is only one of me and maybe my view on things might be helpful to you. What I actually wrote was all of that just with really big words and lots of polite conversational phrases.
3. And lastly for now was the all important...how does your manuscript stand out from ALL THE OTHERS ON THE MARKET? Now I have read alot of children's books in my time, from the time I could read which was a good odd thirty years (wink, wink) ago until I obviously stopped reading children's stories and graduated to comic books, which I still read BTW, but anyway so recently reading bedtime stories and old kiddie classics are where I am right now. I did some web research on similar books as mine but obviously there was just too much info to actually compare eventually I just stuck to my guns and figured if my toddler awfully love it then there must be something appealing to the young mind in the story, but what I actually wrote was a whole lot of comparisons...!
Anyway. The dream is still alive will keep going til I get there and will blog about that too when it happens!
I just recently found a lovely website that offers a whole lot of journalist work so if you are a writer, editor, journalist or artist who also needs to pay the bills please see www.journalismjobs.com. Will post more should I find any worthwhile websites. :)
Thanks for reading keep on smiling. Only way to do it xoxo
