Jen's Writing Journey

Welcome to the new home of Jen's Writing Journey, the blog that chronicles Jennifer Roland's writing life and provides useful information for new and seasoned writers.

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Today, a lot of us are off work. A day off can be a good time for catching up on housework, relaxing, or catching a movie. Or it can be a day that you sample the life of a full-time writer, putting in a much longer writing shift than is possible on a day that you work.

In addition to making a huge dent in your word count goals, you can learn a lot about yourself.

• Do you get bored holed up in your writing area all day?
• Does your family intrude during your writing hours?
• Do you work better before or after you shower and get dressed?
• Is your writing space comfortable enough to put in a full day’s shift?
• Will you need to work on your motivation and discipline to be able to make the transition to full-time writer?

Working at home can be a huge challenmge, even when you are doing work that you love. Trial runs on holidays will help you develop the skills you need to be successful when the time is right for you to move into that lifestyle.

• Book Review: Writer Mama by Christina Katz Buy this book. It doesn't matter if you're a guy or a girl, a parent or a pet owner. Christina Katz leads you step-by-step toward writing a novel from ground zero. And she does it in manageable chunks that help you build your writing career around other responsibilities.Katz starts......
• Writing Roundup, May 22 A short and sweet pre-Memorial Day roundup. The Business of Writing So-N-So Recommended Me Referrals can be a great way to get an agent to look at your work--but only if they are done right. Here you'll find some examples of good and bad referrals. Main lesson? Make sure the......
• Book Review: Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott While stuck in the Fort Lauderdale airport yesterday, waiting for our flight to Houston, I had a lot of time to read. I finished this 1994 book, along with a novel and three magazines, during the travel odyssey.Lamott's reflections on writing and life are couched in real-world experiences that......
• Writers and Holidays Holidays are a funny thing for we writers. Many of us have day jobs, and many of us have the day off from them today. Yay! But, I will be spending a large portion of my day writing, networking, researching--you know, working. Labor Day will be like any other weekend......
• Home Remedies We writers talk a lot about different ways to save money on health care, Internet service, writing supplies, and so on. One way to save money is to make your own home remedies when you have a cold or mild flu. Now, you should not rely on home remedies if......

• Career Tip - How to Write For a Living Learning how to write for a living can be tough, especially if you are new to the field. The demands of living expenses, social expectations...
• A Report Critique Of The Accusharpe Knife Sharpener The accusharpe knife sharpener seems very clever and simple to use, thus I actually was surprised once I actually used it to find out it...
• The Key to a Strong Blog Analyze what brings readers to your blog, and then find a way to build upon that. When I speak with owners of medium sized blogs,...
• Save Time, Money and Space in Over 80 Ways If you're looking for handy gadgets, tools and various items that can save you time, money or space (or all three!) this list of more...
• Use Social Security Statement to Determine Lifetime Earnings The other day my annual dose of reality arrived in the mail - my social security statement, sent compliments of the Social Security Administration. In...