The Write Stuff

I’ve been a writer for more than 30 years. As such, people ask me how to start a career in writing.

The answer is always the same -- start writing. Use any of a number of free blog-hosting sites and start writing. One might not want to publish right away but start writing -- start getting the words out of your head and on to the screen. I find too often for my ego’s sake, what sounds clever in my head is anything but on the screen. But that also keeps me from churning out dreadful content.

Writing is not hard. That is, unless you want to monetize, and that’s when things get sticky.?

The blessing and curse of the internet is that anyone can start a blog, which means there are probably millions of sites fighting for attention. And I have no idea how you go from tapping out your thoughts online to making money doing it, other than to say you better have something to say and say it well.

And this gets back to the discipline of writing on a regular basis. Stephen King didn’t sit down one day and start cranking out best-sellers. It takes time to find a rhythm and a voice. Especially when you’ve never written anything other than a check or a grocery list.

Early in my career I heard that all a great writer needs is a dictionary. All the words I’d need were in it. My job was simply to choose the ones I needed and put them in the right order. Hilarious, right? But true.

So here’s Professor Jim’s advice for would-be writers. Start writing. When you get tired Google “how to monetize your blog”. Oh, and don’t forget that dictionary.

Class dismissed.

[Jim Osterman is a freelance writer and can be found at [email protected]]