The following post is brought to us by the talented Rebecca Laffar-Smith, from Writer’s Round About. I’m quite honored to have her make a guest appearance on the cyber highway! I’ve followed Rebecca’s writings and freelance life since she started her blog on Blogger. She’s since moved it to its current self-hosted WordPress home with a fantabulous new design. Her posts only get better, her words more inspiring. I’m sure you’ll relate to her writing journey she’s sharing with us today, so give her a big ole welcome and don’t be shy!

Rebecca’s Long Road to Writing

By

Rebecca Laffar-Smith

Writing began as a dream when I was very young. I remember writing a story when I was six, and I knew that I was destined to do this, forever. When the other kids were wishing to be firemen, I was a writer. They grew to want to be doctors, or lawyers, but I was a writer.

I was a writer through grade school. I was a writer through high school. In fact, I was so much a writer I didn’t think I needed school at all.

In ninth grade I shared my latest and greatest story with my English teacher. She took the story but I never heard her feedback in regards to it. What I did hear, loud and clear, was the big fat F on my report card a short time later. English had been my favorite subject. I was committed, dedicated, and worked hard to absorb all I could.

When I failed English that year I felt shattered. I questioned my dream. I wondered if I were fooling myself. Was I a writer? I couldn’t even pass high school English. How could I expect myself to build a career with language.

Even failing that class couldn’t stop me from putting words on the page. I wrote onward, dropped out of school, lost my interest in education and turned my back on the world. Words were my hermitage and eventually, words were my salvation.

Years later, having written in a closet for a handful of years I came into the online world. I’d no longer been chasing the dream of a career in writing. I’d slipped into motherhood, a wife, a friend. The passion for language never faded and as I grew online the words sprung forth. Creation sprung forth and my chase began again in earnest.

It’s been a hard road already. Every writer faces the bumps along their route. We each come to the page with our own fears and judgment. We each bring our past before our eyes when we write. We push away the doubting ‘others’, all those who thought us foolish, failed us without giving us a chance, or laughed at our attempts.

As writers we push onward because the words never fade. They’ll sit in the background while you ignore them but they’ll be there, waiting for you to take up your pen or take to the keyboard.

What was your long road to writing?

Rebecca Laffar-Smith is a freelance writer, editor, and web tech. Her blog, The Writer’s Round-About discusses various aspects of online freelance business. Subscribe to The Writer’s Round-About via RSS or email!

Photo Credit: http://www.everystockphoto.com

Following is a guest post from none other than Devon Ellington! She’s very successful and has a solid writing career. I know you’ll be inspired by her post and her success. Be sure to visit her blog, too. She tells it like it is and shares her real writing experiences. Can’t beat that!

NOTE: I’m working on upcoming posts and will focus on keeping fresh content coming (regularly). I have lots of news to share with you! Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe so you won’t miss any of my juicy updates. See that feed dolly over there? She was a gift from one of my readers! Ain’t she pretty? (More about her early next week!)

Without further ado, here’s Devon Ellington…

Don’t Lose the Joy!

By Devon Ellington

Writers who take the first steps on this path are always looking for the magic “something” that will make them published, well-sold, and well-received.  Writing full-time isn’t for cowards.  One needs an incredible amount of grit, stamina, and determination, in addition to all the creative and business aspects required to make this your business and your vocation as well as your passion.  There’s no one trick, no one magic anything, and everyone’s path is slightly different.

The caveats, however, include:

• Sit your butt in the chair and write. No excuses.  It doesn’t matter if you’re tired or your family interrupts you or you “don’t wanna”.  Write.

• Write every day or almost every day. Writing is like training for a marathon.  You build up stamina, you get into the flow, it gets easier if you do it every day.

• There will never “be” time. You have to “make” time.

• Writer’s block is a luxury only those who rely on another source of income can afford.

• Every project will cause you, at some point to ask yourself, “How badly do I want this?” Because every project will require you to say no to something else, whether it’s in your professional life or your personal life.  No one else can make that recurring decision.  Only you can.

Something that we often forget as we crack the whip on those who claim to want to join us on the writing path, or as we moan to each other about difficult clients or late-paying clients or whatever,  is Joy.  With the capital “J”.

Most of us got into this profession because we love to write. We love to feel pen moving across paper, or watch the words march across the screen.  We tell stories.  Even when we write for a business client, we’re creating a story to present the client’s product in the best and most fascinating light.  We bear witness, we seek justice, we figure out what makes human beings tick.  We’re fascinated by the world and by everyone and everything in it.

It’s hard to remember that on the days when you’re juggling multiple projects, Microsoft fails yet again, the toilet backs up, the cat pukes all over that brand new silk cocktail dress you planned to wear tonight, a client is six weeks late with payment, and all your own bills now carry late fees.

Yet, when things are at their worst, take a moment to remind yourself why you’re doing this.  What part of this process, even on the bad days, give you joy?

The worst days are the days it’s the most important to pull out your personal handwritten journal, or shoot off an email to vent to a friend, or kidnap your neighbor next door for an impromptu glass of wine in the middle of the afternoon.

One of the reasons we freelance is so we don’t get caught up in a typical nine-to-five lifestyle. I’m very disturbed at the number of people who’ve left the corporate grind for more freedom only to build a similar prison of their own design.

And another reason we freelance as writers is because we love what we do. So don’t forget the Joy.  And on the days when you feel like it’s buried at the bottom of the cat box, take the time to dig it back out.

You’ll be glad you did.

Devon Ellington publishes under a half a dozen names in both fiction and non-fiction, as well as supplying her business clients with outstanding writing.  She writes the Jain Lazarus Adventures, published by FireDrakes Weyr Publishing, and “The Literary Athlete” column for THE SCRUFFY DOG REVIEW.  Visit her writing blog, Ink in My Coffee:  http://devonellington.wordpress.com

Posted Saturday, October 25, 2008

Let me introduce Hope Wilbanks, a writing friend of mine. She has learned a very hard, very valuable lesson. Please listen up as she shares some amazing, heartfelt advice.

Even Writers Need to Back Up

Written By Hope Wilbanks

Photo Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/

We writers tend to be a creative bunch of people who think we are immune to nasty little buggers like website hacks and corrupt databases. It’s hard for us to even think about upgrading to the latest version of Word Press or downloading database backups.

What happens when you attempt to log into your writing blog, though, and are met with an ugly error message? Your pulse races. You panic. You don’t know what to do. At best, you might know someone who can help set your blog back on its feet. At worst, you delete everything and try to start all over–losing 2-3 years worth of content.

Don’t be a dummy.

Look, even we writers need to have some bit of technical savvy about us. Blogging is huge, and just about every writer I know has their own blog these days. If you’re going to be a blogging writer, then you need to be smart about it.

Backup your files and database(s) regularly.

If you are using a self-hosted blog (one on your own domain) you need to know how to do this. Word Press, one of the more popular blogging platforms, has some handy plug-ins that will simplify this process for you. The best plugin I’ve found is WP-DB-Backup. After you install this plugin and activate it, you can either download backups as desired, or set up automatic backups at intervals. The best thing about this plugin (in my opinion) is that it will email you the backups in a zipped file once completed. It’s an automatic process that you don’t have to even think about.

Think you’re not smart enough to do it alone?

You might not know how to backup your website, but that’s no excuse. All it takes is one hacked file or corrupted database and you’ll lose your entire blog forever, if you aren’t prepared.

If you don’t think you can learn how to manage your website on your own, or you don’t have the time, or you just don’t want to have to deal with it, then hire someone to do it for you. The cost of ensuring your website’s safety and stability is a small price to pay, in exchange for the peace of knowing that all your written content is safe.

About Hope

Hope Wilbanks is a writer who had to learn the hard way about backing up every website managed by a blogging system. You can read some of Hope’s self-improvement articles at http://www.nurturedsoul.com.