Focusing on Writing

I have decided that I need to start to focus my thoughts and energy only on writing, because not unlike a friend of mine who discovered her talent in Photography, I have discovered a talent for writing.  Since joining Odesk I have written hundreds of articles on kids stuff, birthday parties, activities, and so much more.  I did a quick 400 word article on the developmental affects of classical music on children under 2, and was told that it was the best copy that he had ever received.  I've written press releases for a lady who was by far the pickiest person I have ever talked to, and she loved it without changes.  That was a major challenge. 

I joined Writers Market recently, and had to start a blog on there to keep up with the daily writing.  I wish there was a local group of writers I could join!  The motivation would be nice to have. 

I've copied below my first blog post on Writers Market.

"If I said that I never thought I would end up writing for a living, I'd be lying. I've wanted to write, and thought about writing, for as long as I can remember. The boxes of papers I managed to save from my decluttering mother are filled with short stories, journal entries, and poems. In 11th grade I was failing almost every single subject in high school except for English, and to soften the blow of such a horrible report card, my English teacher sent home a note with it that told my parents I had a promising literary career if they could just get me to survive high school. I even failed typing that year, so that note was a Godsend. I wish my mom wouldn't have thrown it away.

When I was in University studying for a Psychology degree, I took random creative writing courses. I lost interest quickly, because most of the people in there were only trying to get quick and easy english credit, and I recognized a lot of 'their' short stories as plagarism fairly quickly. Unfortunately the professor didn't pick up on that, so I lost respect for both the class and the person teaching it.

After I received my degree, I put my focus more on marrying my long term boyfriend than I did on writing anything. We moved to Vancouver, BC, and married a year later. Shortly after I had my first child, then my second, then surprise! My third came along in 2005. In the middle of all of that, I thought myself a web tycoon and started a popular children's web site. I've since learned that I am not interested in web sites, web design, or anything to do with programming. I found myself using the site to start an online weekly gossip column where I would dissect celebrities. I had more fun doing that than anything.

Long story short, the web site started declining when a company I hired turned out to be a bunch of scammers, and I lost interest in the site and the business in the way only someone who was truly burned can. I focused on my kids, and spent 2 years seriously depressed.

Last November, at age 37, I found out that unexpectedly I was expecting again. The pregnancy of #4 hit me right between the eyes, and has put me on a crash course of absolutely refusing to back down from what I want. If I have given my life over to my children, and I will be spending the next few years drowning in coffee, diapers, and screaming, then I will also be spending it doing exactly what I want to do with my life: writing.

I started freelancing on Odesk after asking someone on Craigslist where I could actually make money writing. They directed me to Odesk. My first job was video editing, but I soon found that the person who hired me wanted to get me to create web sites. Although I know all of the ins and outs of web sites, programming, and design, my heart starts to pound and my hands get moist when I think about working on them. You could say I have post-traumatic web stress, brought on by my 2 year legal altercation with the scam artist web design firm from downtown Vancovuer. I worked hard to get that Bachelor of Psychology, and I put it to good use by diagnosing myself.

I put the brakes on the web designing, and focused strictly on articles and web content. Press releases are also a favorite, and they come very easily. I've written ebooks, and entire web sites worth of content on kids, kids activities, and birthday party ideas. I've written book desriptions, letters of intent for graduate school, and a look at the developmental affects of classical music of children under 2. It's been fun, but I feel ready to move beyond Odesk to something else.

I'm currently 2 chapters into a novel I'm writing about a woman with post-partum psychosis. I've been writing this novel in my head for about a year now, because I can really understand how someone can tip over the edge from motherhood. "