Writing Pays

Writing is hard work and it pays little cash for many of us. More and more publishers are cutting fiction and poetry from their pages. Many ask to publish our work for just the byline, saying we are building a portfolio with them. For every John Grisham, Danielle Steele, Janet Evanovich, there are thousands of writers out there shoveling coal in the writing mine while working a day job.

Becky's contest picture

 But for me, writing pays in many other ways. This weekend it paid with a pair of socks for the coming winter when I won a 100 word writing contest at the blog of Becky Povich (Please read my win at www.beckypovich.blogspot.com). Becky sponsored a 100 word contest based on an autumn picture she had taken in Iowa. Of course it was fun to win the socks, book and other things in the winner's circle, but the work started paying when I had fun writing the piece--and it was fun! This is my second online win at a blog after winning another writing contest a few months ago with Donna at http://donnasbookpub.blogspot.com.


It is also fun and amusing to write the 100 Saturday Centus sponsored by Jenny at http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com. Becky led me to this one too. Every Saturday I say I will not get distracted by those 100 words Jenny prompts, but before I know it, the vacuuming waits, the lunch is on hold, or the mowing is accomplished while my mind is elsewhere writing in my head. These Centus prompts of Jenny's are plain fun, fun to read and fun to write. Try it sometime, but I warn you, they are habit forming.






Another fun writing experience this weekend was exchanging emails with Linda O'Donnell (http://lindaoconnell.blogspot.com). Linda and I both write poetry among other things, and Saturday we bounced some poems off each other. What fun to see another writer's work in progress, to see how their work takes shape. What pleasure to share your own work and see it through another's eyes, as together you work over the words, make them take shape.

I have never stood in a room with any of these women; I have never even heard their voices on the telephone. I had no mutual friend to link us. I found their blogs while searching for writing tips or writing links. So I consider that my writing or the love of it paid me with new friends, something money can't buy. Writing pays me sometimes in headaches, sometimes in frustration. But usually it pays with fun, friends, and a frolic with words. Sometimes it pays with publication plus a little cash, and sometimes the pay off is a contest win. Sometimes writing pays with new socks, but it pays!

*********Two copies of the October issue of St. Anthony Messenger just arrived in the mail. On the poetry page is a haiku of mine...yea, I tell you this writing can be fun!