I wrote a blog post... and I got paid for it

Months and months ago I wrote a book. I was bed-bound with physical fatigue and I was in an ADHD hyperfixation kind of mood, so what better to do than write an entire book, right? The product was a 40,000 word memoir detailing my experiences growing up and growing into my disability and the way I've experienced the world as a result.

I've always wanted to write a book, to see my book one day on local bookstore shelves. I think it has been a natural product of being such an avid reader for so many years (20 years, give or take). I don't know if little me ever dreamt of being a writer per se, but I definetely knew that one day I would write my own book. I just knew it would be so. Like how you know your Mum will be there to kiss your little finger better when you get a paper cut. Or like how you know that wearing a princess dress always makes things better. Or how you know that one day grown up you will publish a book. Such is the natural course of life.

Unfortunately, it's not so easy in reality. "Grown up" me has no idea how to go about getting my book published. It's all well and good to have written a book, but what the hell do I do after that? Do I send it to publishers or to literary agents? Which ones? And how the hell do I write a cover letter for my memoir? When applications ask you to list previous published work, how do you write "none" without actually writing "none"?

After talking to Carly Findlay, a published author and fellow disability advocate, the next moves she suggested was to write regular blog posts (to get my writing out on the publicly available internet) and to apply for smaller paid writing gigs. Blog - check. The proof of that is in what you're reading right now. As for paid writing gigs, there wasn't much happening on that front. At least there wasn't, until now.

I am so proud to share that last week my first ever paid writing gig was published - a blog post on the Disability Rights and Culture (DRC) blog. I applied to write a blog post and was commissioned to share my story about how accepting my disabled identity has changed my life for the better. You can read this blog post by following the below link:

https://drc.org.au/being-disabled-changed-my-life-for-the-better-heres-why/

A screenshot of my first ever paid writing work - a blog post for DRC.