Meandering on Monday with Janet Lane Walters #MFRWauthor

Meander 1 - I'm going to make some people angry with what I'm about to say but something in the new stuff from RWA (Romance Writers of America) really got to me. It's about what's considered a professional writer. When I heard 20,000 words, I thought every year this is a good place to start. But I was wrong. A writer to consider themself a professional writer it's 20,000 words in 3 (three Years) Excuse me. Being someone whose goal is 1000 words a day if the material is new and 3000 to 4000 thousand words a day when revising I had to look at what this means and how many words this will be written yearly, monthly, weekly and daily. Pulling out my trusty calculator I began.

20,000 words in 3 years comes down to 6667 words a year. How many people can meet this qualification. Probably most of them. Then we come down to the monthly quota. By dividing the 6667 by 12 the total becomes 556 every month. Again, if not paralyzed anyone can hit that quota unless they have no hands but then they could dictate the words to one of those voice programs. The total shrinks if one goes to the weekly amount. Taking the yearly total and dividing it by 52 and the writer only has to write 128 words every week. Hard to reach. I don't think so, Now we come to the daily total needed. Divide 6667 by 365, ignoring leap year since that will make the total less. The answer is 18. Eighteen words a day makes one a professional writer? I don't think so.

Even if a person wrote 100 words a day, all of them new they would come up with 36500 words and be at least half way to writing a  73000 word book. Add another and the book could be over  a hundred thousand words/

I like the idea that qualifying as a writer is not based on money earned every year. I have books released in 1998 that are still earning a decent amount of money every year. So moving money from the decision to call a writer a writer is good but dumbing down the number of words written every day is ridiculous. To me 20,000 words a year is the way to determine who is and who isn't a writer determined to become published. Though there are other issues brought up about a tiered group and who can vote and hold offices. So I leave this wrod of advice. To be considered a professional in the world I'm speaking about just keep track of those 18 new words you write every day.

Meander 2 - The New Jersey Romance Writer's conference was really great. The speakers were inspirational and the workshops were fun. Meeting other writers and people who want to become writers was great.

Meander 3 - Came home from the conference. Arrived around 11 AM. After unfreezing my brain from being over stimulated by great conversation, I sat down and wrote my 1000 words for the day and also managed to revise about the same number of words along with making dinner, watching television from 9 PM to !! Pm and realizing if I was aiming for 18 words a day I wouldn't have to write for 56 days. Write on.