When it comes to a working writer, movies portray the author as either some sequestered away in a small cabin somewhere, doing nothing except writing books and fussing over story lines or they’re Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City, taking New York in stilettos and living the cosmopolitan life. I’m neither of those. I suppose I’m closer to the small cabin. My “office cabin” boasts funny chicken signs (courtesy of Purina’s Chick Days every spring and fall) and I live 15 miles from the nearest town, 2 miles from the nearest paved road. And yet, unlike the fictionalized authors I do more than tap tap tap on my keyboard. I have a homestead. I am an author coach. I work full time.

A lot of people will tell you that you can’t be a working writer or a professional writer if you work full time. I call bullshit. Look, a lot of us need the jobs because in America health care is tied to employment or maybe there’s a pension or 401K that’s there. Maybe they just like the work. Or like me, they need to continue to supplement their writing income with a job. The reason doesn’t matter. The fact that someone has a job doesn’t preclude them from being a working writer.

A working writer is someone who is actively writing, polishing, and publishing some form of written work. It could be blog posts or freelance journalism articles. It might be books or short stories. Maybe it’s technical writing, ghost writing, or marketing copy writing. The types of writing are endless, as are the various ways in which someone shapes a career.

My non-working days begin with me getting up, taking care of feeding the horses, chickens, and bringing SuperDuck out to his outdoor pen. Then, I take care of some work I do for routine clients as a virtual assistant and then polish off half of my writing goal. This takes most of the morning and I get away from the keyboard by doing homestead chores, outside chores, whatever needs to be done for a bit, until my body tells me it’s time to “rest”. Then, it’s back at the keyboard to finish off that word count and continue going through the to do list, of which there are many and they’re long. *smiles*

I’m a working writer. When I work at the day job, since I work from home, it’s a matter of focusing on my job tasks, but where I can snatch in a few words or a few paragraphs here and there until I get my day’s word count done. Then, I take care of the other items on the to do list.

Did I mention I’m also going to college full time? So there are papers to write (YAY! I like this part!) and assignments to complete, along with discussion board posts since they’re all online classes.

That’s my life as a working writer. If you’re a writer, what’s yours?

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