Kick Down the Door – Part 1 of 2

Finding outlets for your writing requires taking scads of chances, consuming the output of others in your medium/genre, networking, and making sure you practice your craft every day.

Here is how one recent opportunity unfolded for me.

I wrote a Father’s Day essay for a contest in the Hendricks Country ICON. I won. My essay was printed in ICON. On August 30^th, after noodling on it for two and a half months, I sent an email to the senior account exec with ICON. I reminded her who I was and asked her if ICON would be interested in a monthly book review.

She wrote me back the next day and said she thought this was a great idea. In fact, ICON had just hired an editor for Hendricks County and was increasing to twice monthly (vs. monthly) and needed more copy. She said she’d pitch the idea to the Owner/Publisher the next day – 01 Sept.

She did. They all liked the idea. They asked me to send a sample review on September 2^nd. On the 4^th I sent the sample.

I don’t know how to create-on-demand this kind of opportunity, but I think it results from taking scads of chances, consuming the output of others in your medium/genre, networking, and making sure you practice your craft every day.

Miss one of these and you’ll suffer for it.