Getting Serious about Writing as a Career

One of the purposes of this blog is to help fellow writers--and myself--to reach our writing goals. Tiffany Colter has a new endeavor that could help all of us, no matter where we are in our journeys. Today she's going to tell us about it. Here's Tiffany:

Robin,

First of all thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share my heart with your readers. Helping people reach their goal of becoming authors is my passion and I’m thrilled to be able to talk a bit about the journey today.

Many people ask me what a Writing Career Coach is. What I do is help people create a plan, a system, to go from writer to author. I like to tell people I help them go from “dream of writing” to “plan for publication”. That is really what I do in a nutshell.

Even if you’re not the planning type if you don’t create a plan you have no benchmarks to know if you’re progressing towards your goal. That is why I created my course, The Writing Career Coach Course. When I was starting out in writing an publication I was blessed to find the Christian Writer’s Guild. It was an excellent program that helped me hone my craft and grow as a writer. I still refer back to my binders periodically.

The one thing it didn’t cover in much detail when I took the course is the actual business side of writing. That is fine, because it was a course on craft. Many writers, authors, and musicians shy away from “business” because we focus on the art side, the creating. That is very important but as most successful authors will tell you, once you’re published the bulk of time is spent marketing your work while you write the next one.

I believe strongly that the way for new authors to get “discovered” is to create buzz and create a story worthy of buzz. That is why my website delves deeply in to my strength, marketing and business development, as well as pointing you to resources on developing craft that I personally value. I show people what it is I did, not what I heard works.

I’d like to ask your readers, what is your writing dream? Do you have a plan to get there? What are you doing today to move forward? What is stopping you from moving as quickly as you’d like?

When I’m not an author I’m the mom of 4 girls ages 4-8 ½. I recently went from being a SAHM and Homeschooling mom to working full time and letting my husband teach the kids. We both own businesses [my husband and I] and are helping our girls launch their own first “corporate venture”. We lead a very busy life which is why it’s easy for me to lose sight of my writing goals. It’s also why I do the daily reminders with my free monthly E-lessons. Some days all a person can do is spend 15 minutes reading a book. That will move you forward. Maybe you can only come up with two parts to your business plan. That’s fine.

I really like to look long term. Next to my desk is the first story ever published [besides stuff at school]. “Reflections on Cinderella” is beginning to yellow inside its gold frame but I look at it throughout the day [in fact, I’ve looked at it once or twice while writing this blog]. I will never forget the excitement when that was accepted for publication [the only payment being the joy in my heart] and I continue to be amazed at where I am now in my writing career.

It took a long time but once I created a plan and treated it like a business I felt like I went from traffic jam to autobahn in a split second. And while I now have dozens of articles under my belt and have experienced the excitement of picking up the phone and having an editor say “Mrs. Colter, you don’t know me but I’m with xyz publication and I’d like to talk to you about working as a freelancer for us,” I still go back to that first article, that first moment as a REAL writer.

And I have within me a burning passion to help others experience that moment.

Thanks again Robin for letting me blog here. I’d like to invite your readers to come to my website www.WritingCareerCoach.com there is information on my free E-lessons, my Writing Career Coach Course [as well as scholarships they can buy for others], suggested readings with links, and ways they can contact me.

I hope all of you will come over to my site and visit or drop me a line.

Your coach for the journey,

Tiffany Colter

Tiffany Colter, the Writing Career Coach, has written for local and national publications. She has students across the US and Canada and as far away as Australia. You can learn more about Tiffany at:
www.WritingCareerCoach.com
www.TheChristianPen.com
www.Shoutlife.com/TiffanyColter
greatcommission2@aol.com