How was your writing week?

[blazeofglory]

I have tried to write something this week but all to no avail for the reason that I had hectic moments and so many other things occupied my mind. Office work is oftentimes is really occupying and tiresome and with hectic work schedule and lots of assignment it is really hard to kind of devote to writing at all.

And as such this week has been a week of un-productivity speaking through a creative standpoint. But I between tight schedules composed some verses and versification is really a very exciting job that kind of gives lots of excitement.
Creativity has been totally a thing of entertainment to me and cannot delight in other things so intensely compared with creativity in point of fact.

[skib]

Hey skib... By the sounds of this ^ post, looks like you write comedy.

hehe . . . I try, anyway! Sometimes it pays off having an awkward sense of humor.

[Jozanny]

It sounds like you need a good break. I hope you can have one.

Poverty in England is treated much differently than it is here. Your prime minister John Major comes to mind as someone who benefited through how Britain constructed its safety net. In the US, poverty is punished, especially if disability is coupled with it. An example would be say a mother of three earns 100 dollars baking sweet potato pie. Her food stamps would be cut, so she learns taking any kind of initiative will hurt her.

I've dealt with this bipolar insanity inherent in US socialism all my life, and so no, I don't have the resources to stop and go see my brother for a few days. His house doesn't have the tools I would need, and I don't feel like paying for them since I gave him a loan when he lost his job.

[DanielBenoit]

Had been having a crap week ever since losing all my work and I've only written one poem. I've been working on a screenplay though

[Jozanny]

Had been having a crap week ever since losing all my work and I've only written one poem. I've been working on a screenplay though

Well kid, since I am sort of your unofficial litnet mentor, learn something from an old fool. Prep yourself for a good career, seriously. It isn't that I didn't work, I did, but what I did wrong was not take career planning seriously. I should have listened to my father, but I was obstinate and passionate and going to be a great poet and all that.

I suppose, if I do not want to be too hard on myself, that when I am *on* or in the zone, I am a not bad confessional poet who knows her good points well enough, but I have never been financially secure, ever. I have been upper middle class; I've been destitute; I was a career professional who crashed and burned, and right now I am hanging on to my economic self-determination by my fingernails.

I cannot return to fieldwork, and trying to get accredited to teach would be unrealistic. So all I have right now is that I've been a competent journalist in conjunction with the literary publishing. You will not have my problems, I'm not saying that, but there is no glory in calling yourself a writer. Very few earn a decent living at it, and it also takes luck, and that is an unknown variable.

[DanielBenoit]

Well kid, since I am sort of your unofficial litnet mentor,

Lol
I am honored

learn something from an old fool. Prep yourself for a good career, seriously. It isn't that I didn't work, I did, but what I did wrong was not take career planning seriously. I should have listened to my father, but I was obstinate and passionate and going to be a great poet and all that.

I suppose, if I do not want to be too hard on myself, that when I am *on* or in the zone, I am a not bad confessional poet who knows her good points well enough, but I have never been financially secure, ever. I have been upper middle class; I've been destitute; I was a career professional who crashed and burned, and right now I am hanging on to my economic self-determination by my fingernails.

I cannot return to fieldwork, and trying to get accredited to teach would be unrealistic. So all I have right now is that I've been a competent journalist in conjunction with the literary publishing. You will not have my problems, I'm not saying that, but there is no glory in calling yourself a writer. Very few earn a decent living at it, and it also takes luck, and that is an unknown variable.

Yeah I know what you mean and I'll take your advice to heart. Since most writers live on scraps and do need a real source of income, I've decided that independent filmmaking is an appropriate choice; a means of some income, while not compromising my artistic endevors. Whatever my means of income, I just don't want to end up having a job which pays, but does not allow me to express my creative ends.

[Granny5]

I haven't written anything except a couple of posts this week but I've thought about some things. I have been in hibernation for so long. But I've decided to try my hand at something again. Don't know what just yet. Maybe a short story or maybe expanding a short I already have. But I do vow to visit daily, well at least on my days off, and hopefully get some inspiration from the wonderful writers here.

[Haunted]

Since most writers live on scraps and do need a real source of income, I've decided that independent filmmaking is an appropriate choice; a means of some income, while not compromising my artistic endevors.

Isn't independent filmmaking and writing in the same predicament? How does one pay oneself a regular paycheck while filming all day without knowing if anyone will buy the film? Perhaps the production is backed by an angel investor, venture capitalist, or a big fat trust fund?

[DanielBenoit]

Isn't independent filmmaking and writing in the same predicament? How does one pay oneself a regular paycheck while filming all day without knowing if anyone will buy the film? Perhaps the production is backed by an angel investor, venture capitalist, or a big fat trust fund?

That is true, but filmmaking certainly pays more than writing would, even though there is plently of money to go into it. Of course all of this is in the long term, one does need a regular job to start off with, until filmmaking pays enough in which it does become the equivelent to a regular job. This is something that writing can almost never do, unless you're Dan Brown or something of the like.

[Haunted]

That is true, but filmmaking certainly pays more than writing would, even though there is plently of money to go into it. Of course all of this is in the long term, one does need a regular job to start off with, until filmmaking pays enough in which it does become the equivelent to a regular job. This is something that writing can almost never do, unless you're Dan Brown or something of the like.

Before selling 2 million copies of The Lost Symbol in the first week of release, before selling 80 million copies of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown had a day job — schoolteacher.

[DanielBenoit]

Before selling 2 million copies of The Lost Symbol in the first week of release, before selling 80 million copies of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown had a day job — schoolteacher.

I wasn't talking about that. I meant that if you are willing to sell out by writing cheap mystery novels, then yeah, you are going to make some money.

[Haunted]

I wasn't talking about that. I meant that if you are willing to sell out by writing cheap mystery novels, then yeah, you are going to make some money.

Take it easy. There's no need to attack another writer just because he is successful and writes something outside of your genre. Such an attack is also an attack on the readers, which includes some fellow Litnetters and myself.

My take is, aspiring and frustrated writers could possibly study and learn from ANY bestselling authors how they captivated millions of people. One reader can be wrong. One hundred readers can be wrong. One million readers can be wrong. But not 80 million readers.

[DanielBenoit]

Take it easy. There's no need to attack another writer just because he is successful and writes something outside of your genre. Such an attack is also an attack on the readers, which includes some fellow Litnetters and myself.

My take is, aspiring and frustrated writers could possibly study and learn from ANY bestselling authors how they captivated millions of people. One reader can be wrong. One hundred readers can be wrong. One million readers can be wrong. But not 80 million readers.

Even though this is besides the point, and getting quite off-topic; I didn't mean to offend anyone who enjoyed his novels, just not me. . . . . .

Sorry

[Jozanny]

I haven't written anything except a couple of posts this week but I've thought about some things. I have been in hibernation for so long. But I've decided to try my hand at something again. Don't know what just yet. Maybe a short story or maybe expanding a short I already have. But I do vow to visit daily, well at least on my days off, and hopefully get some inspiration from the wonderful writers here.

I can help if you like. I am not famous but do have a consistent track record and I know a great deal, and there are markets that cater to people over 50.

If it seems that I go into a mood sometimes, I am sorry that I let that come out. It is only that I have been very poor, sometimes struggling for meals, long before the 08 crash and the steep recession scarring us now, and if I become that poor again I have real problems with returning to what some of us used to know as the traditional day job; this is not just Jozanny being a lazy spastic. My state has taken away support resources I used to take for granted in order to hold a job, and I now have chronic symptoms tied to my underlying condition, so it is ironic now that I have to be the writer I always wanted to be able to call myself, and I am, but I don't know when I will find my next assignment, or my next sale, and I'm stressed.

In the online writing community I used to be in I felt excluded at times and that led to problems, but that won't happen here, as I've felt accepted pretty much in this forum, but I still have down moments now and again.

I would like to add one other thing: In terms of writing as a business model, arguing about Brown's qualities as a writer isn't what you should be looking at, but what he did to actually make himself financially successful. He no doubt had to pitch himself and his projects to more than one literary agency, secure his royalty for the sale of his copyright, and make sure his agent got him the best possible deal on the film and the screen play.

These are not easy things to do, and they need to be learned. I know this is a literature network, but as I have stressed from time to time, publishing is a business, despite Ursula K. LeGuin's protests to Poets & Writers. Your truth to your own vision has to be weighed against your ability to sell. James Joyce nearly drove his publisher for Ulysses out of business. She survived, but without her we might have been absent one Irish modernist.

Back on topic: my week has been a little hit or miss, but I am close to menopause, and have to ride this horse without estrogen therapy .

[Sancho]

Menopause! Hey, is it hot in here?

Ya ever have one of those days when everybody else on the road has decided, independently, to get in your way? I call them, ‘pull out in front of Sancho days.’ So there I am, driving along, minding my own business, cranking some Zeppelin, and enjoying a Mickey-D’s Fillet-O-Fish sandwich. The guy behind me has a small hat size and a huge diesel pickup and is visibly annoyed at my technique of driving the posted speed limit. I know this because his bumper is only inches from mine and I can see him gesticulating wildly and shouting something at me. Although he’s close enough for me to hear him, I couldn’t really make out what he was saying because, as I think I mentioned, I had some Zep going at a glorious volume. Anyway, he finds an opening, stomps the diesel, passes me, pulls in front of me (barely), and slams on his brakes. My lightning-quick reflexes, along with my Japanese antilock braking system, saved the day. Small-hat-size man checks his handy work in his rearview mirror, and so I smile and flash a peace sign – I find that works better than the other sign.

The next person to pull out in front of me was a Georgia State Trooper; I only had to brake lightly for him. So there I am, me and the fuzz, rolling down a rural two-lane. He gets to a four-way intersection and rolls through it just like everybody else does there, and so – so do I. Now I’ve got a blue light flashing in my rear view mirror and I’m thinking: ‘Hey look, I’m the meat in a cop sandwich.’ I’m also thinking: ‘I wonder if the one behind me is planning on pulling me and the one in front of me over.’ I mean, we both rolled through the same stop-sign after all.

As it turned out, he only wanted me to pull over. So my writing project for the day was writing my name on the bottom of a Georgia State Traffic Citation. Fascists!