Sell my writing

I am so new at this. I’ve written some sonnet things and songs, but I have just started a novel. I have a lot of life things pulling at me so I am having a hard time staying at it. I want to finish it for my own benefit just so I can look at it, say “I did it!” and move on or keep going. I am not sure it would sell. But that would be a nice bonus. Just want some experienced sympathetic writers in my corner. May help me stick with it.

image: Lamentation, Martha Graham

“There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”
- Martha Graham

Speak it, Martha!

I write a lot but i don’t think it’s good enough to sell. I would prefer this as a career option but sometimes i get writers block and give up. Like now i’m writing a 3rd book of my vampire chronicles and i’m really stuck. The last few lines are rubbish, i wish i was a better writer.

Any advice anyone?

Also have no idea where to send my work too.

Don’t have time to devote to it right now.

This is not to say, “get paid to write”. I’ve done that for almost all of my professional career, churn out copy for other people who couldn’t otherwise express themselves. For me, it was like breaking rocks. Phrases would come out in convoluted chunks because they were not my words; the ideas were partly mine and partly prefabricated, and you had to force words until they fit and looked pretty. When you write like that for long enough, you lose your voice.

I want to see if my voice is something other people want to hear, if I can say something that comes from the darkest corners of my soul and have even one person say, “Hey, I’ve felt just like that. Thank you for saying it.”

I want to come up with an idea and form words of my own around it, until it looks pretty to me, and echoes all the very different voices swimming in my head…show it to someone who will say, “Yes, you must share this, the world is waiting.”

I’m working on an assignment for a women’s magazine that will take the next three months to complete: a story I pitched that wasn’t already in their table of contents. The editor was thrilled. It was my idea, and she was thrilled.

So off I go to work on a travel piece, to three places of my choosing. We’ve not discussed price yet; because it doesn’t matter. What’s important is it’s my piece and my voice. That’s enough payback for now.