How HubPages is Helping Me Follow My Writing Dream

Since I was in elementary school, I have always wanted to be a writer. I won a poetry contest in the fifth grade due to a poem about my dog, a Golden Retriever named Brandy, and I think the writing bug has been with me ever since. It was one of those poems that start,

"I had a dog

His name was Brandy,

I think that he

Is really dandy..."

type of poems, which may sound rather corny, but for a 10-year-old, it was good enough to win an award, and start a dream!

Over the years, people would comment on my writing, and tell me it was good. I had a high school Poetry and Song teacher, Wally Lamb (yes, THAT Wally Lamb of Oprah Winfrey's book club fame) who was encouraging as well.

I wanted to major in English in college and write a book some day. I took many of those career interest surveys, and they all came back that I should be a writer, teacher, social worker, or minister! My father, being the realistic voice in my life, told me that I couldn't major in English because there would be no jobs when I graduated. He told me I would have to pick another career. Since he and my mom were paying for part of my college education, I was the dutiful daughter and chose Social Work as my major.

But I didn't stop writing. I wrote many poems and tucked them away in journals and notebooks over the years. As I got older, I found I enjoyed writing newsletters and tried to include developing newsletters in many of the different jobs I had over the years. I even developed my own newsletter at one point, with ideas to help moms save money.

My mother has repeatedly told me over the years that I should write a book. That sounded great, and that was still the dream, but I never knew what to write the book about. I used to stand at my kitchen sink, washing dishes while my children played at my feet, dreaming of the book I would write someday.I started writing a newsletter with events for kids and families, called, "Macaroni Kid." I had to find activities that were going on in my community, and add them to a calendar template which would be published online once a week. I could also include articles each week, about anything I wanted, but it fit into the newsletter best to write articles about families, parenting, motherhood, etc. I enjoyed writing the articles, more than discovering what activities were going on.

HubPages Helped my Writing Self Esteem

And then I found HubPages! Wow, what freedom there was in being able to pick what I wanted to write about. It was absolutely amazing to be able to write to my heart's content. And people started to notice. I started to have followers. People commented on my hubs, and for the most part, the comments were positive. This totally boosted my self-esteem and fueled the dream of writing that book. I found out about Google Adsense, and also the HubPages Earnings Program. I started to actually make money through HubPages. Not much at first, but each penny that I earned was thrilling. I feel like maybe writing could be an actual profession for me. And it's a very exciting feeling.

HubPages Statistics

At this point, after four months and 13 days, I hit 10,000 views! It was a thrilling moment for me to hit the 10,000 views mark. I am currently earning approximately 56 cents per day through the HubPages Earning Program and Google Adsense. I am averaging 110 views per day, and of course, I see the number of views soar each time I publish and promote a new hub. I have completed one 30 Hubs in 30 Days Challenge, and have another one coming up in 3 weeks. I am hoping to reach payout for both the HubPages Earnings Program and Google Adsense in June, but that's just a start. I have gone about this slowly as I have learned, from the rest of the rubbers on here, that success with HubPages is a marathon, not a sprint. And so, I trod along, reading whatever I can on how to write quality hubs, how to promote my hubs, etc. and slowly, but surely, I am making money on HubPages. And other hubbers, such as Jimmy the Jock, SMD2012, and SusieQ42 are all very encouraging to me, showing me the way to go to be able to make a living at this writing thing!

Working from Home

Another one of my dreams, besides writing a book, is to work from home. I have had a few careers, as my children were growing up, where I managed to work from home. And I loved every second of it. I like being able to work when I want, whether that's at midnight, or 5:00 a.m. But since I am a night owl, the usual time for me to work is anytime after 10:00 p.m., NOT the wee hours of the morning! But that's just it; when you work from home, you can pick when you want to work, and not miss out on the important things in life.

I was able to volunteer in my children's classrooms, go on field trips, pick the kids up from school during the day if I needed to, and would just complete my work at night. Or take a Friday off to do something fun, and write a report on Saturday. It was so liberating for me to work like that. I am not a good 9 to 5 person and am a worse 7:30 to 3:45 person which are my current work hours at a local high school. That schedule is a very hard schedule for a night owl to follow. And so, I want to be able to create my own schedule and work from home.

My new dream, which still incorporates my original dream, is to work from home as a writer. This will include writing online as I am doing with HubPages, and Text Broker (which I am just starting with), and also writing that book finally. And Hub Pages has helped me determine exactly what I want that book to be about. I will let you all know when it is published, but for now, I am very happy to be able to write on Hub Pages, each day getting one step closer to making my dream of developing a paying career as a work from home writer!

Thank you, HubPages, and all the hubbers out there who are so encouraging to those of us with the dream of writing for a living!