How Do You Support Your Writing Habit?

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Writers need to make money to support their writing habit.

Yes. It's a sad truth, but most writers need to work somewhere else while pursuing their writing. In fact, research shows that close to 80% of self-published writers and 54% of traditionally published writers make $1000 or less a year!

So why do we do continue to write? Because we love writing and have a NEED to write. It's an addiction, but, as long as we stop to eat and interact with others, one that's not harmful to our health.

For this reason, most writers work somewhere else or wait until they've retired to pursue their passion fully.

I work somewhere else. Luckily, for me, I enjoy what I do as a corporate trainer and instructional designer. What is an instructional designer? Someone who designs and develops training programs. That means I get to write for a living AND apply the information I write while doing the training part of my job. How cool is that?

This post is short today because of my "other" job, but I wanted to share with you a recent accolade I received in my training career. Several years ago, I was looking for something that provided residual income so I could focus more on my writing. About that time, a fellow trainer introduced me to Bigger Brains, a start-up online training company.

To make a long story short, I teach their Microsoft Excel courses as well as a few other non-technical classes. We started filming in a garage about five years ago, pausing when the trash truck came by or one of the dachshunds who kept us company needed to go outside. There are several, well-known companies already doing this, but Chip Reaves, the owner, had a vision of a different more engaging approach to online training, and it worked.

At the end of 2017, we received Elearning's award for Best IT Training of 2017. This is a huge accomplishment since we're still a small company (although we no longer film our videos in a garage). I'm proud to be a part of this team and get recognized for the work I do for them.

Thanks to them, I get to keep my writing habit and earn an income.

What kinds of jobs are you doing to support your writing habit?

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