How to Write for a Living

Series Summary

Good writing is an important skill that can be used in a variety of media. Whether it's writing a meeting agenda, a toast or a magazine article, the ability to effectively communicate to a large audience stems from knowledge and execution of proper writing techniques. With such knowledge comes an understanding of the distinct differences in writing styles between creative writing, journalism, technical writing and informal writing. In this free video series on writing, an experienced playwright demonstrates a variety of writing lessons. Find out how to write an arts proposal, how to write a poetry book and how to write a cartoon script. Get tips on teaching children to read and write and information on how to write and publish a novel. Interested in making a living as a writer? Find out how with the information in this free video series.

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Laura Turner, and today I'm going to talk to you about how to write for a living. In our society today it's a little difficult to do this, but the first thing you have to be is a diligent person. And you have to be determined. And you actually have to be prepared to any kind of writing that will make money for you, because if you just limit yourself to one kind of writing, you say I'm going to be a playwright, and that's all I'm going to do, you're going to find that you're going to exhaust a lot of your opportunities that - unless you get really lucky. And you're going to, you know, have to get another job to support your writing. But the point of writing for a living is to actually write to support yourself. So first of all, be determined to write. Be open to writing anything and be diligent about it. Next, write every day in order to get better. And the course of this takes a lot of diligence. I often find myself finding in spouts where I don't write sometimes and I feel, I feel very bad about that. And I say you know well, if I just wrote every day I would get better and it's true because practice really does make perfect in the sense that it makes you better. You're never going to be a perfect writer, you're never going to think oh, you know, I don't need to get any better. But you're definitely going to want to write in order to get better. So write every day. Read every day if you can. And of course if you're writing for a living, you're probably, you know, working from home, looking for opportunities, and hopefully giving yourself that free time to write so that you've got nothing else to hold you down. Find odd jobs that can keep the money flowing when you're writing. Open your mind to things that you can do, rather than writing that you want to do. So if you say I can write this column for this magazine online, you know, and I can't get paid fifty dollars to do that, do it. You know don't put anything below yourself. And then also secure a real job writing by being the best writer. So hopefully maybe you can actually find a job writing, if you're a playwright maybe you can find a residency with the theater, if you're a novelist you can get novels published, a short story writer, you can published in literary magazines, and things like this. And also finally making money is harder than it seems because jobs are scarce but it is possible. So always write toward that goal of making money because you are writing to make a living. So I really think that it's something that is very sort of out of reach but if you're diligent with it and you really open yourself to all opportunities you can actually make a living as a writer."