For the record...

I thought I would jot down the progress I have made in the last month toward my new goal of writing for magazines. This way, I can actually see that I am making progress and I will be held accountable now that it is actually in writing.

As I suspected, this is a very daunting task. Many times in the last several weeks I have thought, this is just going to be too hard and the chances of ever getting printed in a magazine are really slim...why waste my time? I have also wondered if all the other journalists who have lost their jobs in the last little while are also flocking to the magazine industry as well...this of course does not leave much room for little miss dana.

However, I keep inadvertently getting little pick me ups along the way. For instance, I was chatting with my mom about our regular goings on and we were remembering what the last lecture guy said - something about walls being put up to see how badly you want something and if you do, you just have to figure out a way around it. This is definitely something I want very, very badly and have been dreaming about for many years, but I knew going into it what a hard road it would be along the way.

Anyway, as for my progress...I have finished reading my pile of books about writing for magazines, how to establish yourself in the freelance writing world, etc. I even took notes! This is quite a feat since I do not prefer reading information type books. I would much rather sit and read a good murder mystery novel.

Last week I sat down and listed out about 20 magazines I would be interested in writing for (mostly children's magazines), then went to their websites and began printing out writer's guidelines. Due to varying reasons, the list got widdled down to about 10. I then ordered sample copies of those magazines, and as soon as they arrive, I need to read, read, read, and then read some more. I have learned that writing for magazines is only part writing. The other part is marketing your product, and I just so happen to have a degree in Marketing! So, I am doing all of my market research up front - devouring the magazines to find out what kind of stories they accept, how long the stories are, how the stories are written, etc.

I am also starting to accumulate ideas I'd like to write about. I'm giving myself another month or so to do my research of the magazines and write up the perfect query (writer's lingo for a letter sent to the magazine listing your ideas, what research you have done, and samples of writing clips).

Once that is done, I can start sending out my queries to the different magazines. The only catch is that I can only do one at a time (it would be very bad if I sent out my ideas all at once to 10 magazines and more than one accepted the same idea, well bad from their perspective...at least I would know they liked my work!)

The waiting then begins. I have been prepped from my books about how to accept rejection, since that is a writer's main stay at the beginning. In fact, each book had a chapter on how to accept the rejection letters...this was a moment when I was wondering what I was getting myself into. However, all the books pointed out that even though there is only a 10 to 15 percent chance of ever getting published (hehe - not very good odds)...you'll never know if you are going to be one of those accepted writers down the road if you never try. They also so kindly pointed out numerous writers who were rejected time and time again, but persisted and eventually came out on top of their game.

As I read on my Aunt Linda's blog, "You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however." - Richard Bach