How To Become a How-To Writer

1)    Apply at a company who hires writers to create web content for sites like eHow and LiveStrong.

2)    Get hired, post your pic and bio, and be excited to start being a real writer.

3)    Scroll through their list of thousands of titles from which to choose to write about.

4)    Turn your nose up at titles such as “How to Etch a Human Head in Glass.”

5)    Select “How to Petition Your Parents” as your first title, thinking how easy and fun this one will be, seeing as you have five kids who petition you on a regular basis.

6)    Search the term “petitioning parents” since you have to provide references and laugh at your own ignorance when you discover that petitioning parents is the term used for immigrants interested in getting their parents into the country.

7)    Go back to the drawing board and settle on “How to Get a Birth Certificate in New York,” “How to Obtain a Pennsylvania Birth Certificate,” and “How to Get into the Running Zone.”

8)    Read all of the Style Guides and Requirements for writing the articles, research, write, re-write, research again, and finally submit them to a Senior Copy Editor assigned to the Newbies.

9)    Read the feedback and re-write requests on each article, detailing how many changes need to be made before the articles will be "acceptable."  Detailing how much the articles suck, in other words.

10) Grumble that you’re a published writer for Pete’s sake while you write, re-write, and research some more, all the while thinking that “How to Etch a Human Head in Glass” would probably have been an easier, less time-consuming choice than the ones you chose.  Sigh.

11)  Submit them to be picked over one last time.

12) Receive $15 per article.  Do the math and take considerable time to consider whether the learning curve will even out to the point that you’ll ever be able to make more than $3 an hour.

13) Peruse your articles online with a smirk, remembering how many times you’ve read other articles and thought, “I could do so much better than that.”  Decide you’ll give all writers a break from now on, especially the how-to ones, now that you’ve had to jump through the hoops yourself. [links are in the upper right of this blog – click on them if you dare and if you’re in a smirking mood]

14) Throw your hands in the air when your teenage daughter complains about making only $45 for babysitting two kids for six hours.

15) Determine that you’ll never ever make a real living as a writer.

16) Decide it’s okay because writing is what you love - even if you do have to get babysitting jobs on the side.

17) Remind yourself that you’ve just landed a gig as a regular columnist for your hometown newspaper the Stillwater NewsPress.  Smile.  It pays just enough to take your kids out for ice cream once in a while - something you love almost as much as writing!