If you absolutely have to make a living and you need to do it right now, writing romance novels or anything else may not be a good career choice. You may actually need a day job while you toil away on your masterpiece in your off-hours. If you feel you’re a writer stuck in the body of an administrative assistant, you can set aside time each day to write.
Do you want to write in your spare time but find yourself putting it off? I’m as good a procrastinator as anyone. Probably better than most. I can always think of things to do to avoid writing. Dumb things, like reorganizing a drawer or polishing silver that I’m never going to use. It took me an embarrassing number of years to figure out a way around that. I made a promise to myself that I would write 1,000 words a day. It’s surprisingly easy, for me, at least. At just 1,000 words a day, I could write a novella in a month and a novel or a screenplay in a few months.
Do you kind of feel like you might want to be a writer? It’s probably never going to happen because it takes tenacity, unless you’re going to be the only person to read your writing. And you’ll need to grow a thick skin. All of us in the creative arts—writing, music, acting—face a lot of rejection. At best, it’s somewhat encouraging although a turndown. At worse, rejections can be indifferent or even nasty.
But writers today have advantages over scribes of days gone by. Think about what it was like to write romance novels before the Internet. Research now is at your fingertips, shortening the process immensely. Research? You mean you can’t just use your imagination to write a book? You can if you know what people wore in the 1500s and what they ate. And what the roads were made of, and who the important people were and what holidays they celebrated and where they bought their shoes.
Good writing takes time. But you can’t just sit there and wait for inspiration. If it can’t be your 9 to 5 job, think of it as your second job. And it helps if you feel compelled to do it.