Professional Writers Need Families

When I talk to writers who are starting to think about submitting their stories to editors and agents, I always ask if they are truly ready. Of course, these writers say they are. They talk about the time they spent on the stories. They talk about the edits, the critique groups and the countless hours of synopsis writing and query letter writing they did. But one topic, I find, never comes up.

This is the support of the family.

To truly be a professional writer, you have to have the total commitment of the family. This is not just the "you can do it" support, but the entire infrastructure to "allow" you to write.

Here are some things to consider. These are things your family has to be willing to do for you:

• A place dedicated to your writing.
• A dedicated time that you will have to write, UNINTERRUPTED!!!!
• The ability to go to conferences when available.
• The ability to do those online conferences that pop up unexpected. 
• The knowledge and commitment of the family to know they will now have to step up to take care of the basics around the house. 

These are things that many writers forget about. Remember, your writing before this big change was to write when you had the time. This is now a new job and if you want to do this professionally, this is now another job you are taking you.

You cannot be expected to continue your past regular schedule and then add in this very involved and time consuming schedule on top of that schedule. Something will have to give.

If you have been trying to do the professional writing thing and have found that the only time you can write is at 3 am, or you can only write for 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there, it may be time to have a chat with that family.

You deserve this and they need to be there for you.