How to Start a Writing Career

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Laura Turner and today we're going to talk about how to start a writing career. First of all, decide what kind of genre you want to write in and then decide whether or not you know enough about that genre to start writing. If you do not feel comfortable, say with you know how do I start writing a novel or how do I format a novel, I would either take a class, do some reading on that kind of writing and really figure out exactly what you need to do in order to start writing in that genre. Second, take everything that you can possibly find and read. Read all the novels that you can read. Figure out how these novels work, what you like about them, what you want to emulate about them, what you don't like about them and soon you'll start to develop your own ideas of what is good writing, what kind of writing you want to do. And of course also, what has been written, and what needs to be written. If you're finding sort of a dirth of a certain subject that you would like to be reading about you should obviously be writing about that. Next I would join a writing group or take a class and in this writing group you can actually submit your writing to your peers who are also writers and they can give you feedback on your material. It's always good to have somebody reading your writing. I remember the days when I was young and I wrote just for myself and often it was you know, pretty bad stuff because I never really gave it to anyone so that they could read it and tell me you know what is or is not working. Next, start submitting your writings to publishing houses or if you're a playwright or a screenwriter to the theaters and production companies. Don't be afraid to get yourself out there but do try to put out your best product. Don't send anything out that you believe you still have to work on because you will regret it later whenever you say oh Gosh I wish I had done another draft of this before I sent it. Or you can always self publish and you also really need to market yourself. Get yourself a website in which you list the things that you have done in your life as well as the writing you have done, as well as your other credentials. So that you can actually market yourself as a professional writer. You could even have a business card in which you list your website so that you can sort of get your name out there to people in publishing companies who want to read your writing. OKay, and my last bit of advice is just to rub your lucky horseshoe and good luck!"