New Year = New Focus

Now that we’ve survived the Mayan Apocalypse (turns out someone forgot to carry the one somewhere in the math) and flipped the calendar to 2013, it’s time for some new goals in my writing world.

When I left my job in 2010, the point was for me to work on books, novels in particular. Of course. leaving my job meant I had to find a new source of income (either that or become a succubus on my husband’s bank account). That income came in the form of writing. Logical, yes, but it turned into a whirlwind of projects and constant search for new projects – searches that often yielded no income.  This left very little time to do the writing I wanted to do and I felt incredibly scatter-brained when I did try to write.

So, in December, I decided to re-organize my brain and figure out the age-old writing dilemma of how to earn an income while still finding time to write.

The conclusion was to only spend my money-earning writing time on things that will actually earn money. This means no magazine queries, no essays that I hope someone will buy, no writing specifically for writing contests, etc. I mean, if I’m going to write for free, it might as well be on my books, right? Instead I’ll be spending my money-earning writing time mainly cranking out article for a website that pays well and reliably*.

This plan will mean no more postings about my latest magazine articles and contest wins. To fill that void, I’ll be letting you know a little bit more about what I’m up to both in my writing life and out there in the real world (such as my new endeavor in beekeeping).

So stay tuned, 2013 will hopefully be a productive writing year!

* If you’re interested in getting links to these articles, I’d suggest following me on Twitter (@tammie_painter) since I typically tweet links every day (or so) to these articles.