How Do You Make Money Doing This Stuff?

HOW DO YOU MAKE MONEY DOING THIS STUFF?

         I like to write. I LOVE TO WRITE. I HAVE to write! But it's occurred to me that once I have gotten the words from my brain to the computer screen, I would also like to make money with them. You know, the stuff that allows you to eat at some point during the day and somehow gets you to the next one.

         We've all heard about "starving artists" who barely made it from one day to the next, yet incredibly managed to keep their "art" alive so that it prospered long after they'd gone. I don't want to be one of those people. I want my "due" now, while it can be spent, while it can be enjoyed. I'm just not sure how to go about it. I haven't cracked the code yet, haven't found my way through the maze, or solved the formula for making money with writing.

         I had a weekly column in our local paper for almost a year. And, while I didn't make enough to live on, I did make enough to keep me in word processor ribbon and paper. Unfortunately, freelancers are like migrants, they take whatever they're given and are quite grateful for that. And often as unfortunately, writers aren't paid nearly enough for the time and effort it took to form the pieces they create.

         But we're into a new millenium and I no longer have stars in my eyes. Don't get me wrong, if I was living in a cardboard box, with rain seeping in where the many applications of duct tape no longer stuck and McDonald's was no longer a food memory, but a thought about farm verses, and society totally shunned me because I no longer lived up to any of its expectations...I'd still manage to find something to scribble on and something to scribble with and jot down my ponderings. Because I LOVE TO WRITE! (Of course, it would be a name brand dumpster box that I'd be calling home...we writers maintain some shred of class and dignity no matter what our circumstance.)

         The point is, however, I don't want to reach that point. And to avert this, I've gone the route of sending out work and getting back rejection slips. And I know failure and rejection are supposed to make you stronger. But I can't bench press any more now than I could when I first started writing. This "no pain/no gain" crap is for masochists. I want to write and I want to be paid for it!

         I've heard about writers who have turned out one work after another and the public has embraced them to the point that their next work is wanted even before it's been written. How did they do it? Were they standing at just the right latitude and longitude when one of the appropriate planets was adjacent to the moon at precisely the right moment as they typed their first word? Tell me the latitude and longitude and I'll wait for the planet!

It may sound like I'm greedy and like I'm impatient
And that may very well be the case
But my fingers are tired, my brain cells are throbbing
And all I want is my place.
(See, I'm versatile...just haven't found the way to be sellable yet.)