Writer in Progress

It's hard making career decisions when you aren't even sure what a particular career looks like on a day-to-day basis.

Ever wonder what it's really like to be a children's writer? In this half-video/half-written-journal course, award-winning children's author Laura Purdie Salas shares 30 days with you. She shows you how she spends her days. She tells you which projects she's working on and for how long. She reveals what's working in her writing life, and what's not.She even shows you bits and pieces of the projects she's discussing.

This course is half looking over the shoulder of someone further along the writer's journey and gaining insight into the routines and approaches that can make you a better working writer. And it's half learning specific information about working with editors, speaking to educators, revising manuscripts, mentoring other writers, and more.

But this isn't a course that tells you exactly what to do. It's a look at what Laura DOES, in a one-month period. It's not necessarily what she should have done every single time, nor is it exactly what you should do. It's a look at how one full-time children's writer navigates life, finding a balance between writing to pay the bills and writing what she loves. As you follow along, you'll glean insight into what it really takes to make a career of writing, and hopefully you'll discern whether this is a career that might be right for you.

Writer in Progress is great for writers who are curious about how other writers work. It's terrific for figuring out whether you might enjoy being a full-time writer and whether you have what it takes. And if you're already writing full-time, it might just be a fun way to compare your own work habits and thought processes to another writer's.

Laura created this course because early in her writer's journey, she always found the most fascinating thing about writing conferences was getting to hear full-time authors talking to each other. Those little tidbits of life and gossip they shared with each other at the lunch buffet gave Laura the best peek into their lives. She wished she could perch in a chair behind them as they went about their writing life. She never got to, of course, and it would have been weird to ask. But now she's thinking maybe other people have that same desire--to look behind the curtain and see what it's REALLY like to be a working writer.

Here are just a few of the writing or writing-related tasks you'll see Laura work on:

• declining a speaking invitation
• preparing for a school visit
• revising a picture book
• checking on contract terms for a work-for-hire project
• pitching picture book ideas to an editor
• researching a nonfiction picture book project
• speaking at a conference for educators
• getting her first author's copy of her newest picture book
• struggling with wardrobe issues for a signing

So, this is not a craft class. This is not a step-by-step plan for how to set goals or revise nonfiction picture books or submit manuscripts. But you will learn a little bit about those and a lot more about the realities of being a full-time children's writer if you hang out with Laura through this course.