This copyrighted article is free for you to use as content in opt-in publications, or on your Web site. When you use it in opt- in publications, or on a Web site, please include resource box.

However, please do not charge for it. Please DO NOT include it in CD compilations, paid-subscription sites or in publications for which you charge.

**

Summary: If you're a writer or other creative person and despair of ever getting paid for your work, here's how to start.

Category: Small Business, Marketing, Writing

Words: 900

Start To Make Your Creativity Pay

Copyright © 2003 by Angela Booth

** Note: while this article is primarily addressed to writers, it applies to you if you're doing anything creative.

Can you make a living as a writer, artist, designer or other creative soul? Yes, you can, if you learn a few tricks.

The most important trick is to learn to think of yourself as TWO people. The first is creative person who writes, paints, photographs or designs, without a care for anything except creative work itself. The second person is a sharp-eyed, clear-thinking marketer.

In many creatives, sharp-eyed marketer is in embryonic form. Fear not. You can nurture your inner marketer.

Here's how to start to make your creativity pay:

=> 1. Start small: downplay your creativity

Your ultimate goal may be a book on New York Times bestseller list, or your own show in a major gallery, but start small and build your confidence.

While you're doing that, downplay your creativity at home and among your friends. Why? Any number of reasons. The chief one is that your creative endeavors are as important to you as a new baby is to proud parents. While you're a taking first hesitant steps of your creative career, you're sensitive. You're likely to get badly blocked if someone whose opinion you value says wrong thing to you. This doesn’t mean that you're completely unsocial. Get a writing or painting pal, take a course, or join a group. But among your nearest and dearest and closest friends, silence pays off.

Starting small means small sales, not working for free. There are times you may choose to give your work away, but in beginning of your career you need validation that only money can give you. So write fillers for magazines (fillers are small articles, of 200 words or less), advertisements for your local bank, or copy for greeting cards. Write a short story or two, and submit them for publication.

Anything you write, that you get paid for, will boost your confidence. When you're confident enough to disregard ill-informed opinion, you can share your aspirations freely.

=> 2. Be passionate, not desperate

This copyrighted article is free for you to use as content in opt-in publications, or on your Web site. When you use it in opt- in publications, or on a Web site, please include resource box.

However, please do not charge for it. Please DO NOT include it in CD compilations, paid-subscription sites or in publications for which you charge.

**

Summary: Writing blocks are usually related to some form of anxiety, or to a lack of information. Here's how to conquer them.

Category: Writing

Words: 800

Blast Your Writing Blocks

Copyright © 2003 by Angela Booth

How many words do you write a day? Some novelists manage 2,000 words a day or even more, but most writers feel they've done a good job if they can turn out 500 to 1,000 words.

If you're writing zero words a day, you're blocked. Writers get blocked because they're anxious, or because they don’t have enough information.

=> Dealing with anxiety

Anxiety can show up in various forms, either physical, mental, or emotional. You may feel tired, or have a head-ache. You may decide that you're bored with what you're writing, or so depressed you can't think. Or maybe you convince yourself that you're just too busy (the lawn needs mowing, and you should spend time with kids). You'll do your writing tomorrow.

The anxiety block is hard to manage because you often don’t realize that it is a block. You have terrific reasons for not writing. No one would expect you to write with a migraine, would they? And you really do need to mow lawn.

The only way I've found to manage this block is to be tough on myself. I set myself a daily word target, usually 1,000. I may not reach that target, but before I go to bed, I MUST write 500 words. Every day.

Paradoxically, I've found that even when I'm not in mood to write, or when I have a headache that would fell an ox, I feel better when I've written my 500 words. I often go on to write full 1,000.

The most pernicious anxiety block occurs when you're convinced your writing is worthless. This block may happen as a result of chaos in some other area of your life: perhaps with relationships, or illness, or finances.