Robbi Hess

How's your 2010 writing plan shaping up?

The new year is still young but have you made plans to begin your writing career? Have you searched out opportunities for freelance writing? Have you taken time to put "Writing" into your daily calendar? If not, what are you waiting for? There is still a week to come up with your plan for a 2010 writing career launch.

Demand Studios could be an option for your writing expertise. How about checking Craig's List under the writing/editing section or under Gigs for writing or creative? Is there a local newspaper that you feel could use more content? Do you have an idea for a filler? Fillers are snippets of information -- Top 5 or 10 lists; How-Tos; Quick and Easy (fill in the blank -- dinners, cleaning tips, ways to make road trips with kids fun, etc.)  Are you opinionated? If so, consider sending in a Letter to the Editor.

Once you see your name in print I can pretty much guarantee that will feed your need to see your name in print even more often.

Your first order of business should be to sit down at figure where you want to see your name appear, what your areas of expertise are and then schedule time every day to get that writing done. You don't need large, uninterrupted chunks of time to write -- take advantage of lunch hours at work or other snippets of time you can grab throughout the day.  You can't become a writer or a writing career without putting fingers to keyboard.

Cross country trip memories

I recently made a car trip in my tiny Yaris from Albion, NY to Arizona. It was me, my son, and the wonderful poodle, Henrietta. The car, though small, was actually comfortable for the trip and for sleeping in one night. Never in my life did I imagine I'd be sleeping in a car, wrapped up in blankets with a poodle on my chest in a truck stop parking lot, but there we were.

Truly, I imagined a trip from one coast to the other would be rife with places to stop and visit, signs reading "Welcome to...." or other such items to let you know you'd made it from one state to the next. We passed through St. Louis in the dead of night and it was the most brightly lit, vibrant city we passed through. Texas did welcome us with a "You are now entering Texas" sign but that was about it.

The road from here to there was long, dusty and not that exciting. As a writer, I anticipated having reams of paper worth of ideas of "things I saw on my trip." The most exciting -- and not in a good way -- was the hotel we stayed in one night. We had to find a hotel that would accept dogs, it was late, we were tired and got excited by a sign that boasted hotel rooms for less than $30. Believe me you get what you pay for, although I think they tossed the bugs in for free. eeewwww, not much sleep that night and in the morning, there was no hair dryer to be found. I called the front desk and discovered that no, they didn't offer that amenity. I imagined a hair dryer was a given in a hotel room -- I won't make that mistake again. But then, I won't stay in a hotel that costs $30 again. Lesson learned.

January 1 -- a fresh start?

January 1, 2010

Today I vow to post in my blog daily... okay, at least every other day. I know I have been slacking on this end.

I met my friend Joanne the other day at Panera Bread for breakfast and actually spoke the words, "I don't even feel like a writer anymore." It made my stomach clench when those words rolled out. Then I realized if I wanted to BE a writer or FEEL like a writer, then I'd better darn well write. Right?

Today I am going to sit down, assess my goals and start the year off right. Joanne and I said we were going to be each others' writing muse so that she would finish her book about her dogs and I would begin my online teaching of courses and actually work on my novel-in-progress. We hugged on it -- that makes it real.

So, forgive the shortness of this post but I have tea to brew and goals to plan.