How I Became a Writer

Hello World! October 16, 2010

Welcome to my blog!

After several years of trying to claw my way up the corporate ladder, experiencing office politics at their very worst and generally realising that working in an office for the rest of my life just isn’t for me (better late than never, hey!) I have finally decided to follow my dream of becoming a freelance writer. This was never something I seriously considered as a full time job before due to certain limiting beliefs (I won’t be good enough, no one will want to read or pay for my written word and what my family and friends would say, blah blah blah).  But, I am slowly putting those demons to rest and taking the first, albeit small steps to becoming a writer and most importantly being able to work to my own schedule, and in my own surroundings.  Just making this life changing decision has been a breath of fresh air in my life so far!

Apart from providing you with observations of daily life, anecdotes and comments on news stories, the aim of this (daily, weekly, monthly?) blog is to track my career move from a fast-paced corporate environment to being able to support myself purely by freelance writing, proofreading and editing.  I will offer insight into how I’m progressing, tips for other people with similar aspirations along with links to useful resources, any pitfalls I encounter and hopefully, in the not too distant future, snippets of work I get published.

Along with this, there will be the inevitable detour from time to time when there isn’t much of interest to report – in such hard times I promise to bring as much humour and thought provoking insight into my ‘normal’ life as possible – after all, living as an expat in Asia provides a wonderful source of inspiration for writing and now I finally have an outlet for such stories – be warned!

Whilst doing some research on becoming a freelance writer and where to start (and yes I did literally type into Google “how to become a writer”), I have already found some amazing resources. The most inspirational one so far though has to be the blog / website / ebook by Tom Colvin (http://becoming-a-writer-seriously.com/wordpress), who at 67 years of age realised that despite being a teacher as a profession for most of his life, his passion was in fact writing and he had little time to waste in publishing his works. I am still trawling through the hundreds of useful links from his site and have joined his blog subscription to keep up to date with what’s happening in the world of writing and publishing (his blog entry on ‘Products I can’t live without as a writer‘ is a great way for any new writer to get organised). The thing that grabbed me the most about this guy is that at his more mature age, he has not let the daunting world of technology stop him from pursuing his dream – in fact he has embraced it in such a way that it seems to have made him all the more determined. So if he can do it, someone like me who is (just) the right side of 30 certainly can. Good work Tom!

I’d welcome any tips or advice from other bloggers and writers as well as any suggestions for stories or topics you’d like to see here. I have some ideas on the kind of things I’d like to write about but, as the readers, I’d like to hear your feedback too.

Thanks for reading and hope to see you back here again soon.

Goodbye to all, whoever and wherever you are…