Putting the Artful into Day Job

There's been altogether too much "day job" and not enough "artful" going on around here lately.


While my pile is getting more beautiful, it's still an awful lot of rocks. But part of the creative process is sorting and tossing and hoping you keep what you should. Today, I do believe I came across a really good one.


If you're a writer, you must check out FundsforWriters , C. Hope Clark's amazing site for writers who actually want to make money. Hope spends her time ferreting out grants, foundations, contests, and publishing venues of all kinds for writers--specifically because we can't--and offers them in regular newsletters and e-books.


Please note that she refuses to list any venues that don't pay money. In other words, no booby prize of three free copies for a 5-page essay. Thank you, Hope. Her hour-long interview on The Writing Show is also worth listening to, with tips not mentioned on the website. 


By the way, I'm not affiliated--just impressed, and very, very happy to have found her!


Well, back to the quarry.

Piling Rocks Instead

Okay, maybe building an empire was a little overblown at this point. Maybe for the moment it's enough to build...well, a pile.


I was sorting through some old articles yesterday with the idea of uploading them to Bukisa so that people could read them and my millions could come pouring in. And I ran across an article I wrote a few years ago and I thought, "Hey, this one's really good."


It occurred to me that if I put it on a content website, I might not be able to get it published anywhere else--like with a real publisher. So I've decided to send it to a magazine. The subject covers day jobs and creativity (big surprise), and I'm wondering where it will find a home. Maybe an art industry journal like ArtCalendar, where I was published once before, or perhaps an open-minded business magazine.


Writing query letters  is a task that's bewildered me for years, not least because of the oddball topics I write about. Sad to say, there doesn't seem to be any way out. Freelance article writers have to write query letters. Bleh. Let's hope they don't turn out like these . 


You should see my To-Do lists. They're at least as long as yours. I want to do everything at once, and I want it all done now so I can sit down and weave beads.


But time is chronological. This is a slow planet and I'm particularly slow. Building a pile is about all I can manage these days. An uploaded article here, a query letter there, and wa-ay over there a translator application form.


In the end, my pile will look like something. Not an empire, maybe, but perhaps a well, or even a fountain. I'll just keep putting one rock on top of the other and stand back to have a look when the last one's on top.


Still, it'd sure be a lot easier with one of those nifty tripods.

Building the Empire

Wikimedia's great. I just learned about Sweden's Bernadotte Dynasty, which must have one of the nicest coats of arms I've ever seen.

However, this is not the kind of empire I'm building.

Especially not today. Today, I'm staying home with my cat. He's got the right idea. Lie down here, lie down there. I completed a freelance writing job this morning, so I have the luxury of taking a few minutes off.

That's what I told myself, anyway, but I keep gravitating toward the keyboard. Stuff wants to come out. Isn't that grand?

So yesterday I joined Bukisa, where I might just be able to earn a little bit of money by writing what I really love to write. Of course, $4 per 1,000 hits on an article doesn't sound like much, but you know, it's all cumulative. If you've got old articles or ideas lying around you might want to spruce them up a bit and post them. There's a networking element to Bukisa, so if people sign up under you, you'll benefit from their hits, as well.

Last night, I spent some time with my evergreen article, 11 Tips For Surviving a Day Job With Your Creativity Intact, and sent it on up. And I've got a store of others I can dig out and tweak. Bukisa accepts previously published articles as long as you own the copyright.

All in all, an interesting concept. Whether or not the website lives up to the idea remains to be seen. I'll keep you posted.

But today I'm calling in the generals and mapping the advance, i.e., my career plan as a writer. From the looks of it, we may end up in Sweden. At this point, I'm pretty much following my nose. And the light from above.

The First Bird

Prompted by a discussion on a writers list, I'm finally reading Bird By Bird for the first time, and now I know what all the fuss is about.

If you've been living on the moon and are unfamiliar with Anne Lamott, here's the blurb from the back cover:

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was  ten years old at the time, was trying to get a  report on birds written that he'd had three months to  write. It was due the next day. We were out at our  family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen  table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper  and pencils and unopened books on birds,  immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my  father sat down beside him, put his arm around my  brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy.  Just take it bird by bird.'"

I wish I could write a review of this wonderful book, as if the world needs another one, but I've actually been commissioned to write a review of a different book (yippee!) that I should be working on as we speak.

Instead of working, however, I found myself thinking about how important it is to sit down and write every day, and how I don't, and about what might happen if I did, and in a flash this came out: 

"Felicity, for the thousandth time, stop kicking the back of the seat."

...and is now the first sentence of a short story that's been rattling around in my brain forever.

The first bird. Hey! And the second bird, too, because a whole paragraph followed, unbidden.

As we all know, birds tend to fly away to be replaced by other birds, but capturing the first one, even for a little while, is like spotting the first robin of spring--sweet, hopeful, exhilarating.

And infinitely better than spotting the last witch of Halloween!