I know this blog is about writing and getting paid for it. Beyond that, I’m not sure what it will entail.
I suppose some of what I want to put here has to do with experiences I’ve had as a writer-for-pay that I hadn’t anticipated when I started out. For instance, when I first started I never would have guessed so little of my time would actually be spent on writing.
While many writers are freelance (and I have been a freelance writer), most of my writing gigs have been salaried - something I don’t see discussed often in writing circles either online or off. Being an employee may partly account for why so little of my time is spent writing (though it also holds true for freelancers but perhaps not to the same extent).
A writer on salary may be more common in Canada than in the United States. I’m not sure. When I was a copywriter in radio, I think this was so. From what I understood, in the U.S. the sales people generally wrote the copy, at least at individual stations.
At the risk of dating myself, I suspect I may at some time want to address changes in the writer-for-pay world that the Internet and Web have brought about. I’ve been online since before the Web. In fact, a little before the Web blossomed I was working freelance and trying to use the Internet. I was frustrated by how few people - and especially companies - were using it. The logic of it seemed inescapable. But back then it was “new fangled†stuff that would bring about the end of civilization, if it did anything at all.
Well, that has certainly changed.
Basically, I’m using this blog to catalogue my thoughts, comments, observations and so on about writing to pay the rent. If we’re lucky, something in it will be of use to you. We’ll see.
And for what it’s worth … I live and work in Canada, the part to the left (western Canada). And now I’ve moved. I live and work in Canada still, but the part to the right (eastern Canada).
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