I was twenty-four the first time I was paid for something I’d written.
It was a short article for Dog Fancy magazine about dog-friendly restaurants in Las Vegas.
I was paid $10, which was about half as much as my copy of Writer’s Market where I’d found the magazine’s submission guidelines. I couldn’t afford to buy that book, but I did it anyway, because it made me feel like a real writer.
I’ve learned a lot about writing since then.
But today I want to talk to you about something important I realized early on. Long before I used that $10 to fill up my gas tank. (You could do that in 1996.)
I realized something that changed everything.