Do you know me? I am one of those people who always wanted to be a writer.
The ones who announce that desire, but year after year, never set word to
paper?
Ever since I was a kid, I'd thought about how great it would be a writer. I started my first novel in 1975, at the age of fifteen. I pounded out two pages (single spaced!) on my electric Smith-Corona typewriter, purchased with my Christmas money. A much better investment than the television I purchased the year before, I was sure, because, after all, I was going to be a writer.
For the first six years of the twelve I owned that typewriter, those two pages were the only fiction produced on that typewriter. When I was twenty, I took a writing class offered by a local magazine writer, and produced almost an entire short story. Of course, I never finished it, never sent it for publication. I didn't even keep it! It was the last bit of fiction produced on that typewriter.
Years passed. I finished college, finished law school. But every now and then, as I wrote briefs and legal opinions, I'd think about how great my life was going to be when I was a writer.
By the time
I hit 30, I was thinking about writing a novel a little bit more often. I took a
class at the Free University about romance writing, and then another on screenwriting.
I actually spent a few hours plotting a book out, but never started on chapter one.
In 1994, I got temporarily serious. I went to a few meetings of a romance
writing group. I went to a retreat, and had a marvelous time. I won a free dinner at
a restaurant when I came in second place in a newspaper contest asking participants to
finish a romance scene. I started a novel, and kept at for the three or four times
my critique group met. I wrote and rewrote that first scene.
Never really finished a chapter, but now instead of thinking about writing a novel, I was
thinking about finishing a novel!
Notice a pattern here? Yeah, me too. In 1997, it finally occurred to me that if I really wanted to be a writer, then by golly, I'd have to write. So I wrote a short story for the newsletter of Denver Mensa, a social club to which I belong. It was published in the newsletter- all submissions to that newsletter are published. But that story also went on to win the 1997 Individual Achievement in Fiction Award from American Mensa, Ltd. That same year, I started work on yet another romance novel.
But I kept working on this one.
Having a short attention span, I also wrote short stories. And in March of 1998, I sent my very first submission, a 1000 word mystery, to a real paying publication - Women's World. I received $500 for it. So yes, I am one of those infuriating people who sold the very first time I tried. (But don't hate me -- Women's World declined each of my subsequent submissions). Since that first sale, I have sold two more mystery and twenty romantic short stories to paying publications (alas, all paying less than WW). Nine have been in trade paper anthologies, as will another eight more later this year.
I finished that first novel at the end of 1998. Last year, after a few rewrites, it, and my second completed novel, Cruising for Love, were finalists in the Golden Heart Contest. The second book took the prize. It is sitting at Harlequin Mills and Boons, having been requested by an editor.
The title of this article is the key to writing success. And yes, I do have it - or at least the key to the most formidable of the locks crowding that door. The biggest barrier to writing success is failing to write. Being a writer is a terrific fantasy. But it is an even better reality. But the reality must begin with you.
Last year, at the Pikes Peak Writer's Conference, I heard Kevin J. Anderson, a prolific science fiction author (and excellent speaker, too!), talk about the popcorn theory of writing success. He urged writers to stopping trying to pop one kernel of corn at a time, and to instead dump the whole package of popcorn into the hot oil. Openness to opportunity and new ideas led to his well-deserved success.
I am a firm believer in that theory. For years, I had been imagining how great that popcorn would taste, while never taking the stuff out of the cabinet. But once I actually started popping my corn, the stuff has been spilling all over the place.
I have had many opportunities come my way, and when opportunity knocks, I answer the door. I am finding success in fiction writing, but I do not confine myself to that arena. I write nonfiction as well as fiction, and the nonfiction work opened new vistas for me - I have been invited to speak at writing conferences. And while at those conferences, I not only take advantage of the workshops to learn more about my craft, but I talk to the people I meet. Not just editors - also other writers and other presenters. I have learned about terrific opportunities - other conferences, other types of writing.
I don't turn up my nose at chances. How many of you responded Diana's requests for articles? I have a good 30 or so nonfiction clips, but I am always happy to have another.
My goal is a simple one - I want to stop being a lawyer, and write full time. I am not yet close to replacing my legal income with writing income - but I am miles from where I was when I was not writing at all. I am getting there.
So stop
thinking about it, and do something about it. Write. Anything. Submit
your writing. Keep writing. That's the key to writing success.
Tami's most recent writing success was her first place win in the historical romance
category the Paul Gillette Writing Competition. Visit her website at
www.tamicowden.com
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