How I Did It
Sometimes memes are nice, when they work as writing prompts instead of lists. There's one running about selling your first short story.
Mine is weird. I belong to Writing.com, only back then it was Stories.com. Back then you could still get quality critiques of your work, because the site wasn't the size of MySpace. I got a lot of critique that helped build me into a better writer.
And it happened, the way people think it might happen and it almost never does. Someone stumbled across my portfolio, found a piece I'd written and asked to buy it. It was the New Jersey Self-Assessment for eleventh-graders. You know those reading comprehension tests, where you read something and have to answer five questions about it? That year, the New Jersey juniors read my piece.
I was paid $75. Not bad for a first sale. I photocopied the check before I cashed it, intending to frame it, but of course I lost the photocopy. I keep thinking it'll turn up someday...
Two years later I sold NOCTURNAL URGES and the rest is history.
Mine is weird. I belong to Writing.com, only back then it was Stories.com. Back then you could still get quality critiques of your work, because the site wasn't the size of MySpace. I got a lot of critique that helped build me into a better writer.
And it happened, the way people think it might happen and it almost never does. Someone stumbled across my portfolio, found a piece I'd written and asked to buy it. It was the New Jersey Self-Assessment for eleventh-graders. You know those reading comprehension tests, where you read something and have to answer five questions about it? That year, the New Jersey juniors read my piece.
I was paid $75. Not bad for a first sale. I photocopied the check before I cashed it, intending to frame it, but of course I lost the photocopy. I keep thinking it'll turn up someday...
Two years later I sold NOCTURNAL URGES and the rest is history.
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