Keep An Open Writing Mind

As I work toward my goal of writing for a living once again, I'm finding that there are a lot of things I need to remind myself.  The main one right now is that I have to keep an open mind in my writing opportunities.  I love writing in fiction, but I spent years writing articles to make ends meet.  So, if I work it just right, I could have a ton of opportunities at my disposal.

As a fiction writer, there are a lot of ways I can get my writing out there.  Writing a full-length novel is usually the first thing that comes to mind, but it's not the only way to go.  There are a lot of smaller lit magazines out there that pay for short stories and I have to admit that I'm a lot better at writing those than I am at writing novels.  I love a good short story.  Something you can sit down with, fall in love with the characters, and get to the ending in time to do a few other things in your life.

I've been doing some research into a few of the sites online that accept short story submissions and am finding quite a few of them.  I was pretty amazed, now just have to get some of mine put together and get them out there.  I've found that most of the sites I've visited have to do with the paranormal and/or horror genres and those are NOT my strong suits, but doesn't mean I won't give it a try.

As far as non-fic goes, I'm going to try and start doing short e-book pieces via Amazon.com.  I read a pretty cool little e-book about doing just this thing.  It's called Full Time Writer and Single Mom by Samantha Fegely.  It's a very quick read and she gives her readers ideas on how to go about making a full time living writing non-fiction for Kindle.  I figure what the heck, I'll give it a shot.  I've come up with some pretty cool ideas, but we'll see how it goes. 

I've also got a couple other ideas in the works, but those are just thoughts at the moment and I'm not sure how far they're going to go.  You know, those odd little thoughts that come along at 3 in the morning when you're kind of asleep and kind of not.  Ya, so we'll just stew on those for now.

So hopefully, I'm on my way back to getting paid to be a writer.  It's been a scary ride since I made the full decision to do this, but it's something I have to do for myself.  I can do this, I know I can.