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A former colleague of mine saw one of my articles that I wrote for my day job and emailed me today to compliment me on it. He quit working at the organization where I work now to work on his career as a novelist, among other things.
Anyway, I told him that in my spare time, I'm still pursuing fiction, and opined on the difficulties, especially in publishing short stories. He wrote back that while it's hard, the fact that I'm currently writing for a living should make it easier.
It's funny though -- I actually don't always mention in submission cover letters that I have a regular byline for a fairly well-known organization. (And as I've already mentioned, this blog is the only place I use a pseudonym.) I don't know why. I guess for whatever reason, because the content is very different, I feel like it doesn't relate, like it might hurt my chances for writing fiction rather than help. I also worry about whether it's a conflict of interest, although really, the organization I work for is a pretty creative place and many if not most people there have artistic interests on the side, like creative writing, music, and theater.
I don't know, maybe my experiment going forward will be to mention it in all cover letters for fiction submissions and see what happens. Right now I'm wondering if I've been very thick headed about this whole thing (and completely overthought it, or underthought it -- one or the other!).
I hope everybody's having a great week!
Thanks for reading,
LLB
Anyway, I told him that in my spare time, I'm still pursuing fiction, and opined on the difficulties, especially in publishing short stories. He wrote back that while it's hard, the fact that I'm currently writing for a living should make it easier.
It's funny though -- I actually don't always mention in submission cover letters that I have a regular byline for a fairly well-known organization. (And as I've already mentioned, this blog is the only place I use a pseudonym.) I don't know why. I guess for whatever reason, because the content is very different, I feel like it doesn't relate, like it might hurt my chances for writing fiction rather than help. I also worry about whether it's a conflict of interest, although really, the organization I work for is a pretty creative place and many if not most people there have artistic interests on the side, like creative writing, music, and theater.
I don't know, maybe my experiment going forward will be to mention it in all cover letters for fiction submissions and see what happens. Right now I'm wondering if I've been very thick headed about this whole thing (and completely overthought it, or underthought it -- one or the other!).
I hope everybody's having a great week!
Thanks for reading,
LLB
posted by LadyLitBlitzin at 7:51 PM
3 Comments:
A few months ago I told someone I've never been paid for my writing. Then I remembered that my first job out of university was writing speeches and press releases. Then I had a job where I wrote my own weekly newsletter and I contributed to a textbook. Now I write letters and press releases and website copy all the time.
But it just doesn't feel the same as writing a novel.
As someone who's only made a total of $50 of actual money out of writing, I'd say add it on. Although I don't know if it would help, I don't think it would hurt. The only way I think it might hurt is if you worked for a very political organization and the person reading the story didn't agree with the politics of your organization. But even that, I think, would be rare.
Thanks guys!
Yeah, it's funny... writing for a living doesn't seem quite the same as writing fiction for a living. Like, sitting at home, being an award-winning novelist, with all the time in the world.
And yeah, it probably does help. I work for a fun place. But if you guys knew the subject matter you'd likely glaze over really fast. :) However, I have to say, I do enjoy my writing for work -- it's definitely something I'm grateful for.
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