Two for Two

It just occurred to me that today is the day the latest issue of the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society comes out, so I dashed over there to check out the latest issue -- hoping, of course, to see my name as one of the authors.

Much rejoicing! They bought another of my articles!

They are printing it in two parts, so the next half will come out in two weeks, but I'm more than okay with that. This was the scond article I sent them, so I'm batting a thousand so far -- two for two! Woo-hoo!

Neeedless to say, I'm psyched. I'm definitely starting to think I've got a shot at success here. Admittedly, these are non-fiction articles, and I've been writing non-fiction for years now. Fiction is a whole 'nother ballgame, and that's what I really want to break into. On the other hand, pick up any copy of The Writer or Writer's Digest and well over half the articles are about non-ficiton authors. I don't really feel non-fiction is inferior to fiction, nor do I think it's necessarily easier to write (or sell). But I've been doing non-fiction for a long time, so the real challenge for me is in fiction writing. Nevertheless, as I've mentioned in previous posts, freelance non-ficiton is a different beast from the non-ficiton I was writing as salaried work. As I said then, with freelancing your skill as a writer is evaluated on every single piece -- there are no chances to say, "Well, it wasn't my best work, but it was okay." Having "passed" two of those evaluations in a row -- and my first two attempts, at that -- is something to get excited about, I think.

Cheers!