Wasn't I a Writer?

I've been working on my taxes this week, and I can't believe the changes this last year. The biggest change was on that line that identifies my job. For as long as I can remember, the answer has always been "journalist." Until 2008, and my new job description is "teacher." Out of all the money I made in 2008, only $500, earned during the first two weeks of the year, was from writing.

I can't complain. It turns out that my jump from journalism to teaching came at the perfect time. My friends still working at the local newspapers report that their hours have been cut back to 35 hours (or less) a week. When I worked as a full-time reporter, I routinely worked well over 40 hours a week. A cut to even 35 hours, would have meant a loss of a good chunk of my income.

Another thing doing my taxes made me realize -- I haven't had any of my writing professionally published for over a year. This is unheard of. I began writing professionally when I was still in high school. When I was still an undergraduate, I landed a job at a local newspaper. For most of the last 20 years, I have had a byline on an average of 7 articles a week plus I did freelancing and other writing work. In 2008, except for those first two weeks, I didn't write a single thing for publication other than blogging here (which was few and far between) and on my own site.

Could I still claim to be a writer if all I'd written were comments about other peoples' writing?

And then today, I went to my post office, and I found a check. It was from BlogHer, and it was my first advertising revenue from my blog. It wasn't a direct payment for my writing, but it suddenly renewed my pledge for 2009. I am going to write again.

This semester ends May 2, and I will have a bit of last minute things to finish up, but I also have plans. I have that research paper about plagiarism that I want to submit for consideration in an academic journal. And I have my memoir, with approximately 30,000 polished words, waiting for another 40,000 or so.

I am a writer, and I have been sidetracked the last few years with teaching, and I know I no longer want to be a journalist, but I am a writer, and I need to remember writers write, but I am a writer who writes for an audience, and I can't let my audience down.

My niche is ________ (its a BIG niche)

When Heather posted that we'd gotten 'niches' as our theme for the week, I was studying for my last exam style assignment of the term. My head went down on my desk and I sighed.
Its not that bad really, but its kind difficult to point at my niche, given I'm deliberately diverse, indulgent, and to be quite honest, in pop culture circles, a bit of an oddity. In my OWN circle, not so much, but we attract folk like ourselves, so that's not - really a surprise either.
I'm deliberately diverse because I have stupid amounts of productive time on my hands - though I'm a full time student, full time mother, full time writer, I still get around 10k of work done, on my WORST weeks. Not including Uni work. On my good weeks I'm 10k at Uni and 25k or so at home.
I used to be 5k a day, rain or shine, needing it or not, but we moved so I lost that knack to do it consistently. Its slowly coming back though. The point being - when there are so many 'nice' fiction niches out there, would YOU want to stick to one? I'll also admit to getting slightly bored in just one niche. I might have been considerably more successful, but boredom is something that really bothers me. More importantly though, in non fiction and 'real life' circles there are certain areas that I'm an 'expert' or have information in that others might need - raising a child that may or may not have a conflict spectrum disorder (http://theoddchild.co.uk) - bi-polar disorder (http://bi-polarbears.com) and gaming, as a girl (http://irlfemale.com).
And that's where the 'indulgent' thing comes in. I am incredibly indulgent - and spoil myself like a child in a candy store when it comes to writing. I like to write as much as I can, on as diffuse an amount of topics, without losing the focus I already created for myself, because it keeps my writing skills sharp.
And as I said, I'm also an oddity. I'm equally at home in writing geek type pieces for tech sites, or gamers - and in the next breath (essay) I could be writing on parenting, design, artwork, the act of writing itself, Uni...you name it. I like being this way, it gives me scope for comfort, grace, and the sheer joy of sharing and being read by others. And ultimately, that's more important to me than a niche - knowing that somewhere I've entertained, supported, helped, amused or engaged my readers. And living in a thousand niches feels far better to me than missing that and supporting only one. So yeah, my niche is blank - a blank canvas, an ever filling cup. A blank page , that sometimes, mocks me. Its not perfect, but it is enjoyable, most of the time.
It has lead to problems however - I'm STILL trying to find a good bio that sums up who I am, what I do, and how good (or bad) I am at it ;)