Professionalism

What does it mean to you? Integrity? Self respect? Belief? To me, it means all of those things, especially as a writer. 2010 has seen me take great joy in accepting that I am a writer and becoming comfortable with telling people that. I don't usually make new year resolutions - spring always seems a better time for new beginnings - but over the Christmas break I got to thinking about where I wanted to take my writing career in 2011.

As you know, I earn a living from writing murder mystery plays and I'm more than happy to continue with that. Writing plays gives me immense satisfaction, especially when I hear how much enjoyment (and profit) they provide for my customers. I have four murder mystery plays lined up to write in 2011. I have several non murder mystery full length plays that I want to write and a couple of theatre groups I can offer them to for their debut performances. I also plan to write an e-book that I hope will make the experience of performing one of our murder mystery plays even better.

I have half a novel and plenty of ideas for future novels too. And of course there is this blog (and three others - I'm a blogaholic you know).

In 2010 I slotted my writing into the rest of my life, in between school runs, housework and other responsibilities. In 2011, I will take the title of this article, 'Professionialism' and apply it to my writing career by assigning each week day morning (after the school run) to completing my plays, my novels and my blogs.

In 2010, I was a writer. In 2011, I am a professional writer. Bring it on.