My Path To Becoming a Professional Writer

In my desire to become a professional writer I did the first thing most people probably do, I opened Google and searched how to become a professional writer. While many blogs were very useful and gave me excellent advice, I felt there was something missing. Many authors keep a running blog of what it's like being a professional writer, but there was never a blog or journal I could find of what it was like becoming a professional writer.

I wanted to see what trials a writer goes through as they climb to the top. To know what barriers had to be overcome to produce good stories people want to read. How long it took before their dedication to writing and submitting finally paid off.

This blog will hopefully serve that purpose for others on their own paths to professional status and ideally will also inspire me to be a more consistent and organized writer. I have been writing various works on and off for a little over two years, but have had little success. With this blog I'm hoping that it will help me keep myself more acocuntable with my writing, and thereforee more productive, and maybe give others an insight into the beginning writer's lifestyle as they work to become a professional writer.

The first nine months of this goal will be a little more unique that most as I am not currently at home writing at a small rickety desk in Cedar City, Utah. I am currently writing from a living room table in Poitiers, France.

My wife was accepted to a study abroad program at ESCEM, a university partnered with SUU. While she's here working on her dual degree program in Marketing, which will hopefully bring her closer to her dreams, I am here starting the path to my own dreams. We decided that the next nine months will give me ample opportunities to jump start a writing career.

I also have an opportunity over the next nine months to experiment with what typ eo fwriting lifestyle I want to live. Do I want to be a casual writer who pecks away at the computer when inspiration hits? WIll I be the writer who haunts the local coffee shop and punches out words while I sip a hot chocolate? Or will I be the writer who treats his writing as a hybrid between a job and a hobby?

I decided on the latter as I hope my writing will become a career and support my family one day. So I've commiteed myself to a working space and writing part-time in the hopes I can make my dreams come true. Is it a little presumptuous to assume that I will be a full-time author or that people will even be interested in my story as I struggle to make a name for myself? Probably, but I feel that being a writer is itself a little presumptuous, we assume others care about what we've written down.

-Benjamin D. Baker