Inside Look

By Deri Pryor, Graduate Assistant, Bluegrass Writers Studio

How Seriously Do You Take The Business of Writing?

As writers we say it all the time, either shouting it aloud or whispering it in the back corners of our minds: “Boy oh boy, I wish I could make enough money from writing that I didn’t need a real job.”

I mean, really, who of us wouldn’t love to sit at home day after day, in our coziest clothes, doing nothing but indulging our imagination.

Here’s the thing, though: writing is a real job.

Success doesn’t happen by accident, and hard work doesn’t do itself. Anything that will support you financially is going to take effort and organization.

I’m not preaching from the pulpit here. When it comes to disorganization and laziness, I’m offender Numero Uno.

By Jen Parks, Bluegrass Writers Studio

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending my first ever Broadway show, Fish in the Dark, a play starring – and written by – Larry David, creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. While I’ve enjoyed watching both of those television shows, there’s nothing like watching a live performance – especially when Larry David and Rosie Perez are on the stage, acting right in front of you.

By Jacob Bingham, Bluegrass Writers Studio

                  I can't speak for all of us, but it often seems to me many writers go through a lot of trouble to be taken seriously. I don't mean we try hard to get people to read our work and respect it; that's obvious. I mean we try to invoke something other than a skeptical raised eyebrow from a relative who asks what we're studying in graduate school. We want them to think we aren't just playing.

By Deri Pryor, Graduate Assistant, Bluegrass Writers Studio

     We writers are a weird lot. We walk around with entire universes in our heads. We have late night conversations with friends we’ve created out of thin air, people as real to us as any flesh and blood acquaintance. We revel in the macabre, the bizarre, the fantastic, the difficult, the impossible.

     And a small part of us lives in the constant fear that if others knew what was behind our eyes they would reject us outright. How much more terrifying to immortalize those thoughts on paper, and then send it out into world for all to see?

     And yet a larger part of us wants to do exactly that.