Guest Post by
Laura Thompson
Hi Readers,Today I am going to talk about the types of writing that you can do and the best methods to do these writings. I have visited several schools over the past year talking to students about becoming an author and answering questions about writing itself. This question came up a few times, “what type of writing could I do?” Well…there are quite a few, especially now with the ability to publish practically anything on social media so lets discuss.
Let’s start with books something that I know a bit about being a published author of a fantasy series entitled Elven Quest. So, writers could write something as large as a novel, these are considered books between 60,000-110,000 words. Novellas are typically 30,000-50,000 words. Short stories are typically between 1500-3000 words and flash fiction is usually between 300-1500 words. How To/Self Help books are typically between 40,000-50,000 words. Lastly, children’s books are usually 300-800 words. Of course all of this depends on the type of genre it is as well as the font size you are using. Typically agents and publishers like to see size 12 fonts. So in review, here are a few types of books you could write, novels, novellas, short stories, flash fiction, How To/Self Help or children’s picture books. Not included in here are also poetry books, memoirs, or biographies.
So what if you are not ready to sit and write an entire book or that is not something you are interested in? There are many other types of writing that you can do. One is blogging or journal writing for a website. Blogging is similar to writing a diary only you typically focus it on a certain subject like travel, cooking, writing, do it yourself, politics etc. And you show this “diary” entry to lots of other people online. It’s a great way to connect with other people about something that you are passionate about, as well as voicing your own opinions and experiences. The other great thing about blogs is that they can be set up for free using websites like Blogger, Blogspot, Wix and many others. They also do not typically need a lot of time spent on them. You can sit and write a blog in as little as 20 minutes if you’re fast. Or you can write them ahead of time and set them up to be automatically posted at different times on different dates. It is also fun to add pictures to your blog to appeal to people visually. I write a blog about writing and it is enjoyable for me to sit down and write something so short at times rather than working on my lengthier editing and writing of my novels. At the bottom of the page is a link to my site, I hope you’ll visit.
If you have something that you would like to teach others you could write presentations, workshops, classes or other self-help or personal development style teaching sessions. Everyone has events that they have been through or experiences to share. You could break these things down into a service that you offer for others. This is what I am doing now. With the help of a business coach I am setting up another side business, (other than being an Author and Freelance Editor). It is a Writing Coaching business. I have created a Facebook support group for writers or want to be writers called Wise Warrior Writers. There I will be offering virtual workshops and courses of all different varieties dealing with all kinds of writing blocks and issues like how to conquer writers block, how to stay invested in your writing goals, how to set up writing goals or how to fit writing into your life. I often give away free tips and tools and then offer discounts for my 5 day workshops as well as my longer six week workshops. I am now offering one on one counseling sessions. Join my Facebook group or check out my website for more info.
You could also start your own magazine or online newspaper and interview other people as well as writing articles yourself. You could have a physical location for this or you could simply set up a website and do this all online. There are so many ways to connect with others via social media now that I doubt you would ever be in short supply of people to interview. I also know many people that have created a book review website where they read novels and write reviews online. There is one author I know that also is well known for being a play critic, which means she watches plays and then writes reviews about them.
There are also different types of freelance writing. For example, grant writing, Non-profit writing, ghost writing, website/article writing for someone else’s website, essay writing and even business plan writing. If any of these freelancing writing jobs sounds interesting to you I would suggest doing a bit more research to see if you could qualify.
I hope this blog has been helpful to you in terms of giving you some ideas for how you can utilize your writing talents. I think we can definitely use more writers in the world, but maybe I’m biased because I am one. ;) Thanks for reading friends and remember my motto, writing=happiness ;).
About the Author:
Laura holds her Masters in Higher Education Counseling, has a BA in Sociology and has recently begun a Writing Coaching and Freelancing Editing business. In grad school she co-wrote the published ethical theory model entitled Key Factors in Making Ethical Decisions Model, a chapter in the textbook: Ethical Decision Making for the 21st Century Counselor (Counseling and Professional Identity) by Donna S. Sheperis and Stacy L. Henning. Laura currently resides in Massachusetts with her husband Daniel, and wonderful son.
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