Getting Discovered Has Downsides

I've been writing since age 16, some 46 years. My first paying gig came in high school as a sports stringer for one of the local dailies. A spin after college as a writer with a large daily, a free-lance travel writer and then editor of several travel magazines, and five books later, this blog and the struggle to start another book point to the downsides of writing for others.

Bizsolutionsplus represents a business strategy to get noticed following a corporate career, which ended my bylined writing gigs. I got lost climbing corporate ladders and a doomed love affair with a regular pay check and benefits. Ten years working with suits ended in 1998, when I started a communications consultancy in Seattle. Business grew quickly, in keeping with name familiarity that had been building over years of bylined writing, TV and radio guest spots and then corporate work.

In 2003, that all changed as I moved east to become a VP of Marketing. No regrets, but the move represented a stark and surprising rift into which I slipped into anonymity.

The VP gig was short-lived. Out of the ashes of my soul rose the founding of L&G Business Solutions, a marketing and communications firm. Recognizing that writing was the quickest way to get known, I launched this blog, wrote my 5th book, and spread my free-lance efforts across the publishing landscape, including magazine articles, newspaper op-ed pieces and guest blogging at sites such as MarketingProfs Daily Fix. The strategy worked.

Today, I am busy creating words that get others noticed, the others being clients. From press releases, to case studies, to articles, to event planning, strategic and marketing plans, to direct marketing, to launching and managing social media and social networking efforts. My time is consumed running a virtual business that takes my writing, marketing and communications skills, melds them with the talents of graphic designers, web site developers, telemarketers and direct mail houses to offer client's a more personal alternative to my larger brick-and-mortar colleagues in marketing and communications.

The downside: I am so busy helping others grow their businesses by sharing our creative side that I have little time to write for myself. Once the readers of this blog could count on four-to-five posts a week; now it's more likely to be two. I haven't published a bylined article for more than a year, and I struggle to start my next book. While I continue to occasionally guest post at the Daily Fix and contributed to the second edition of the Age of Conversation, nearly all my creative time is spent doing for others, including an eBook scheduled to be published late September or early October.

Again, not complaining, as this is the fruition of my firm's strategic and marketing plans, which in themselves serve as calling cards to potential clients. However, the writer side of me screams. If you want to spend your life as a writer, free to write about your passions, you might not want to found an entrepreneurial start-up. The choice is always yours and mine to make.

Be warned, however, if your choice is a passion to be a writer. Writing is not for the insecure or those seeking to fatten their savings. It also isn't for those thin of skin. Writing is for those who need it as much as it needs them. We writers may spend time making other things grow, as I am now. But inside we know that filling in this space is temporary. Writers always return to what most feeds our lives: The words filling our minds, heart and guts.

I shall return to sharing my passions, giving someone else the helmsman seat of the firm's ship. It can't be any other way.