just curious... if you are, how did it happen? and for how long? and are you happy? is all of your income coming from writing or is it just a side thing?
I work in a consulting engineering business and I sometimes have to do some technical writing as well (maintenance manuals, development proposals, operator's guides, etc.) and I've been paid for that. But I've never been paid for fiction.
idle and minstrel... is "technical writing" the same as "copy editing"? and what type of experience are they generally looking for in that position. a recruiter called me about a really awesome copy editing job that i didn't get. and i just interviewed a few weeks ago for a copy editing job that i also didn't get.
No, it isn't the same. It's, well, technical. Like minstrel said: user manuals, guides, howtos. You need to understand the subject. I work for a software developer, so my manuals are usually those help files that nobody reads but are there with every program you install. I got the first job of this kind when I was still a student, with no writing (and no IT) experience to show, but they made me write an example as a part of the interview and apparently decided it was worth a try.
I got paid once, a long time ago. I bought myself a cup of coffee with the money I made. At this point, writing is just a hobby and not something I can live comfortably on.
in my old life, i was paid for newspaper and magazine columns and articles, short stories, poems, song lyrics, ad copy, and editing a regional magazine [before the advent of e-zines!], among other things... now i help aspiring writers for free and am paid for editing/rewriting/ghostwriting of short stories, novels, memoirs, and film scripts, plus intensive tutoring of writing students... the paid work i just resumed doing last year is at much less than the going rate and done only so i can help my 'baby' sister who's in constant dire need, since my only regular income is social security and i couldn't afford to give her the assistance she needs without taking on paying clients again... so, my current paid work has been about 1/3 of my income, could be much more if i charged normal fees and took on more clients... but i still give away my own work, as i've always done since i left my 'old life and self' and i still mentor aspiring writers for free...
that's grammatical gibberish... if you're going to respond to a post, please do so as a person with at least half-decent writing skills and not as a poorly-programmed robot... if you want to waste page after page of space with your egomaniacal gobbledygook in your own thread, go ahead... but it's very poor manners to do so in someone else's...
"... and why was that post removed?" Lucky wonders when she so clearly answered the question posed by the PO.
I'm making all technical documentation like user manuals in our company and I purposely leave some typos, so user accept his technology isn't perfect either and we are bunch of morons giving him just advices he can count on, most of the time. My way becomes kind of popular and our customers aren't claiming errors in manuals anymore, they are just happy to use technology effectively for their production. It would be really cool having prose like that one day, but it has to be good story before you can purposely leave some mistakes in it, I guess
I have a small problem with the ethics of this. I'll be honest. I'm glad you do not work in my company.
I get quarterly royalty checks. Sometimes they're enough to make a truck payment, but usually not. I used to get a little money here and there for short stories, but I've not written any of those in a couple years. It's certainly not enough to live on. Not even close. But it's nice to be able to cash the check and pay something like the electric bill and then take the wife out for a modest dinner.
Imagine that you get many phone rings just because some boss of the other company wants to enjoy his job. Right now, they are just doing their jobs and my boss knows I'm protecting know-how of the producer and customer this way as a bonus. In real business, its not like you go to school. People have their needs and they need to know they can trust you. But for sure, I'm lucky having some space for these experiments
I got paid once about 20 years ago for a script that was to be incorporated into a children's computer app where funny or surprising things happened when they clicked on different parts of the screen. I say 'was' because just after I cashed the check and checked with the company to see if they wanted another script, they went out of business. I carry the guilt to this day. I'd be paid something for my short stories, I'm sure, but only if I ever dare complete one.
Apart from my own work, I've been paid for script writing and script editing on many occassions, first working for a development company and then going freelance. I still do editing from time to time if the project interests me and the writer can handle my ruthless approach. I've also been paid to write a few articles for a small magazine in my Uni days, but that went under years ago.
Yes as a freelancer I get paid writing ad copy and blog articles and have for the past three years. I did it first for 1.4/word and now 2.8 to 3.5 cents a word. It can go up to 4.9 cents and 7 cents. Following last summer, I had to produce 25 200-word articles a week at 1.4/word. I did this for about three months and got burnt out. My average pay is $100/week if I work steady. I can make more now at 2.8/cents word. The ad articles are about apartment amenities in towns and cities throughout the country - reviewing restaurants, bowling alleys, museums and writing about architect and town sights, tips on green living, dog parks. I have a directory of over 500 articles describing city and town life situations. Writing that way helped me to decide to write for myself. I said, "If I can write at the drop of a hat for these concerns, then I can do it for myself." It also gave me some mean AP style training. I dropped back to my previous training in and love of creative writing. I have a strong background in poetry and have done theater reviews for community papers. My current project is to finish a book a stories, perhaps eight, to come out this year. I have good reins on four of them and hope to put up parts here. The book will be like my crowning thesis for myself, having had so much grad training chiseled by strokes from the life of an itinerary poet musician. "Investigating" various writing forums, I am new at this sight and hope to find out if it can be helpful in my writing and if I can meet some creative writing friends. I have strong conflicts with time and have not yet comfortably combined professional writing with creative writing. They require really different head spins. I must practice and pursue until I get it right.
congratulations on your writing success thus far, molark! are you planning to submit your stories for publication and hopefully have them published, before offering them to paying presses as a collection?... or will you be just self-publishing a collection of as yet unpublished stories? i wish you all the best, whichever road you take... love and hugs, maia
