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I may have been a little naive (though I prefer to say optimistic) about the amount of hard work required to start making money or building an audience from writing alongside all the other writing I'm currently doing.


I thought I could publish 2 Medium articles a week - that very quickly dried up - I've published 3 since making an account.


I thought I could land a copywriting client reasonably quickly - instead, it's taken a lot of hard work to get 3 cold emails sent out (with a load of work I've done for free) and I've had no response so far.


When I began I had a target of 100 Medium articles and 25 Copywriting cold emails sent. I could still do that, I just need to really really push to make it happen.

I've been thinking a lot about my changing attitude to writing lately.


The blueprint for how I saw writers working pre-teens was J. K. Rowling. It was through reading the Harry Potter books that it clicked that books were something people made, they didn't just appear, and that the love I had of telling stories could actually be a thing that I do.


But Rowling's career path isn't exactly the best example to base my own own. I think it set up a lot of notions in my head that the only way to really make money as a writer is to write something brilliant and to get lucky with the interest in it. So I resigned to creating a career that could support my writing on the side. Which is what I've been doing the majority of the past years, trying to increase the creative writing output whilst maintaining a job that pays the bills.


It's only in the last year or so a few different modes of thinking have really started to take hold. 1. That it is possible to make real money from writing and 2. That writing is closely tied with personal development beyond wanting to be a better writer.


Over recent years I've leaned into writing a lot more as a way of dealing with my own anxieties, headaches and confusions - a way to bring clarity to my thoughts and to create the opportunity to rethink. And it's only in this year that I've revisited efforts to make money from writing, scoping opportunities to get good at and make money from sales copy.


As it stands my output goes into a lot of different areas. The important thing I've come to clarify is the mode that each of those areas exists within.


My daily journal - for my own wellbeing

My daily creative fiction - for my creative development and potential long term career

My writers diary - for freely logging my thoughts around this writing practice

My Twitter, Medium and Threads - for me to experiment with ideas and see what people respond to, potentially creating an income in the longer term

My blog (that short fiction site) - for me to explore and create a space in the niche of short fiction, potentially supporting a longer term income stream but mainly for my enjoyment

My copywriting - for me to make an income in the shorter term


Being aware of what each area is for I think is really helping to clarify my mindset around it, and helping me to paint a better picture of what a full "writers life" might look like.

I'm been trying to raise my daily output again lately. Not just within creative fiction but with writing more generally. The main difficulty is switching between the writing projects that are for me and the writing that's orientated towards making money.


At present my routine is close to the below:


07:30 - 08:00: Show up at desk for writing exercises

08:30 - 10:00: Fiction writing

13:00 - 16:00: Find time for other writing (digital and copy work)

21:00 - 21:30: Journal before bed


Right now the difficulty is having a very productive morning and then feeling too much of a writing burnout to carry on with other writing in the afternoon. I read a Nicolas Cole article on Medium about his output of 10000 words a day and one thing that did stick out to me was the difficulty in switching voices. Which I think is part of the problem I'm seeing.


I'm trying to write creative fiction, digital non-fiction and sales copy back to back. That's a lot of mental gear-shifts. Maybe I need something to relax and reset between each voice. Or a way of getting into the voice of each format - maybe some reading or research will help to get into the voice of copywriting for example.

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