Sharon: I’ve never found the market that suits me perfectly. When I do find it, I only hope they pay professional rates! I love your blog btw.

fazotamo: reverse engineering, that’s another good analogy. Have you checked out Duotrope? They may have “some” non-PC publications listed on their site. Good luck.

Marrilee: I love you way you expressed it, that we should be free in the way artists are, to create “sketches” only for our own exploration. Beautifully said! I do agree, really, I do, but I always feel guilty anyway when “sketching” like this, as though I am wasting my time.

vanieck: Thank you for your comment. I know that I’m not alone in this.

Good luck in your journey.

Sometimes we need to just explore things. How else will you discover new things, new techniques or styles?

Painters have sketchbooks, where they explore ideas without any consideration for public reaction; purely for themselves.

Why can’t we, as writers, have the same thing? Notebooks where we can explore that odd idea, test it out, play with it, learn from it.

Not everything we write has to be aimed towards something. We should allow ourselves to write for the sake of writing, to travel without a destination in mind. Otherwise, how will we discover something new, if we only keep to the same old path?

Nurture your brain. Write for love.

Nice to meet you. I hear you loud and clear, you have definitely struck a cord with me which compelled me to reply. You know, for many years I’ve wrote letters to friends, family and strangers of a personal nature. While writing not at any time did I think about publishing as my letters were purely private and inspiration at a time when they was needed. Only recently, in the last few years, out of curiosity, I wondered, if I wanted to get publish how do I go about it? All the advice available points to a kind of writers reverse engineering. First you find the publication, analyse the design, wordage, and then slot your written piece neatly in there. The difficulty, I believe, is finding the correct market or publication that suits the soul and essence of your work. My difficulty Dianegallent, is probably similar to your own; carving out quality writing time to do targeted research before the writing. As well as to make writing equal to breathing – something that is essential to your life. So you write automatically without a second thought.

I am yet to find a market that will accept my non-potty trained sense of humour; my reluctance to adhere to political correctness. As I think it’s a government conspiracy to control freedom of speech, people can actually cope with honesty if you don’t consistently lie. Unlike our pillar of truth and morality MP’s. Anyhow, I love writing too much to stop looking.

All the best and good luck.

Interesting point of view. I admire your determination on the road to publication.
I can’t write stories only for publication – I have to be passionate about what I’m writing or it comes out contrived. I figure that if I write the kinds of things I want to read then someone else will want to read what I like to write. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there is a market out there for every writer. It’s not a matter of changing your style to suit the market, but finding the market that suits your style.
Happy writing

but then again…the phrase starving tradesman has never entered our vocabulary