Sell, Sell, Sell

A few days ago, a friend asked if I’d gotten into a routine now that I’ve been working from home (day 16). I said yes. That basically I do. I'm writing at least 4 to 6 hours a day and trying to stay off the couch. After a few rough patches, it’s been working just fine.

She said she understood that it’s probably challenging to sit at a computer every day and try to come up with something creative to write about. I told her that’s never really been my problem. Not that every time I sit down the words flow easily or that it even comes out perfectly the first time but usually if I have a day or less of lapse, eventually the words began to pour.

You see, I’ve been working on my writing(s): books, short stories, poetry and scripts for 10+ years and when I decided to finally leave my job, there was never a struggle on what I’d do first. I already had it mapped out:

a) Finish my romantic comedy (40 or more pages left to go)
b) Rework a ½ hour comedy pilot
c) Start querying for an agent (I’d use my 3 scripts and 1 spec already completed)
d) Work on the edits of the last 150 pages of my novel, and after that’s done;
e) Query literary agents (novel)

And after the above items are completed, I still have outlines for other book ideas and scripts that can take me into another 10 years, maybe even longer.

So what is the problem if I have all this writing just pouring out of me? I need to sell at least one of them. The words, ‘Sell, Sell, Sell’, dance in my head a lot and now that I’ve left my job, they replay in my head like a broken record.

This reminds me of two different films; the 1992 movie Glengarry, Glen Ross, a famous moving staring Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris and a very young, sexy, albeit heartless Alec Baldwin and the movie scene from Trading Places with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd at the New York Stock Exchange.

One focused on the art of real estate (the ABCs – Always Be Closing) while the other focused on the rat race of selling stocks. Although different story lines, in the end both are lecturing on the same topics; if you don’t sell, you will lose.

At this point, I can’t afford to lose. I’ve been working since I was 16 and in corporate America since I was 21. That’s, blank, blank years (apologies if you were expecting to see a number) of working and not doing what I love. So I need to sell, sell, sell. How will I do that?

To be continued…