If you are on a journey to become a professional writer, you need to understand one thing. Like any other profession, you need to graduate from the school of writing.
Professional qualifications can take anywhere from three to seven years. A bachelor’s degree in science typically takes four years; a law degree can take three years on top of that, and medicine up to seven years.
Graduation in writing can take many years, but four to five years if you are working on the craft full time.
But most of us are writing on the side.
That takes a long time to learn the skills of the trade.
Indeed, you don’t have to go to university to get the qualifications. You can learn the craft through self-study, but you become a writer by writing, and that, my dear, takes years.
You got to be writing a lot, and for many years, before your work gets anywhere close to publishable quality.
The major drawback of the self-study writing degree is that we don’t automatically advance one level per year. We can be a freshman for years. I know that because I have been a freshman for twenty years.
Randy Ingermanson, the writer who invented the Snowflake method of outlining, has devised a method to figure out where you are on the road to graduation as a writer.
Following his method, you can self-judge whether you are a Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, or Senior. Here are the criteria:
Freshmen are novice writers. They often have very fine content, but their craft is unpolished and they usually don’t have any contacts at all. Most Freshmen are convinced that they will never sell anything and they might as well give up. It’s fair to say that all Freshmen are very confused. That’s OK!
Sophomores have a bit of writing under their belts. They’ve improved their craft and probably also their content and they’re starting to get restless. Just how long does it take to get published, anyway? Why can’t those editors see that my book is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius and just publish the thing?
Juniors have gone even further. They’ve become strong writers. They’ve submitted some actual proposals at conferences. They’ve had an editor say those magic words — “Send me that proposal.” Their friends can’t understand why they’re not published. There is a reason, of course — they’re not Seniors yet. But they soon will be.
Seniors are those few who are ripe to graduate. A Senior is writing excellent stuff. Explosive. Powerful. Moving. But still unpublished. Seniors are worried sick that those mean editors are never going to notice them, that they’ll be submitting proposals forever. And then one day the phone rings. It’s one of those cranky editors you sent that proposal to last year and she wants to buy your book!
How to move from one level to the next
Randy advises not to jump levels. It is hard enough already. If you try to jump from Sophomores to the Senior level, you will frustrate yourself and eventually give up writing altogether.
His tip is to take your time to move from Freshman to Sophomore and work on the craft. This means writing a lot and writing for readers. Write in your journal daily. Start a blog. Participate in November Novel Writing Month. Join a critique group.
Once all that becomes a habit, you can work towards becoming Juniors. Start attending writer’s conferences and learn to write book proposals. Writing proposals is an art in itself, and you will need a lot of practice to hone it. And guess what, you will need to get critiques on your proposals too.
As a Junior, you strive for excellence. Both in your work and your proposals. You will need to build your contacts and broaden your horizons. This will mean meeting lots of people. Not just editors but writers too, as Randy says, ” knowing lots of writers is better than knowing lots of editors, and it’s a whole lot easier.”
And finally, when you have made yourself known in the writing circle, you become a senior writer. Then just like any university, you win the bragging rights to intimidate the freshmen.
But even at this stage, you need to continue to strive for perfection in your craft.
But your main job is to wait for the right idea.
And as soon as it strikes, you are to grab it with both hands and turn it into the book by using all that you have been learning so far.
Then my dear, an editor, who is a lifelong friend of a lifelong friend, will offer you a contract, and you will be an author.
If you have already checked and your lifelong friend doesn’t have an editor friend, not to worry, you can build a writer’s page on Amazon and self-publish your book.
Then will start the real journey of being an authorpreneure.
To know more about those, read my previous articles on the Authopreneur series.