Finding your inner child, playing games with yourself

I'm a writer. I write sensible things, trying to get my words published, trying to make money. Making money with your writing is hard work, and it's not an easy thing to do.

If I only ever wrote serious things, articles about kennel cough for instance, it might get boring or gloomy. But I write about all kinds of things, like motherhood, pussy cats, dogs and kids.

Mostly I write to suit myself, following my own creativity, and that way I don't get stale. If I'm bored with my what I write, I bet anybody reading my words would be bored too. That would have to be my number one tip in making your creative writing better - write about what you're passionate about.

If you love the football, write about football. If you're passionate about politics, write about that. There are a million people already writing about these things, but you are unique, so your words will be your own. If you follow your passions, you will be writing with you unique voice.

If you just latch onto the latest hot topic, hoping to get it published, you'll have problems because you won't have a deep knowledge of the subject and so you'll end up saying the same old thing that's been written over and over again already.

If you go with what you love, you'll bring your own different angles into your writing, with fresh ideas and things that may never have been said about your subject of choice.

I've been a dog breeder for twenty years and I love to garden (well, I like plants - I don't like hard work ha ha), I've known many dogs and I've spoken to lots of people with lots of dogs. Because of this, I have very strong ideas about dogs, what has worked for me, what hasn't worked. I'm passionate about dogs, and so a lot of my writing is about dogs.

My most successful piece of writing in terms of money is one of my shortest pieces of work. I wrote the text for a child's school reader about seven years ago, about 200 words or less. I was lucky and the publisher I sent it too published it.

That text is "My Dog" - a simple little book that earns me at least $100 every six months seven years after it was published. I've earnt more from this book than most Australian writers would earn from one book, well over $2,000.

My point is, write not just what you know, but what you passionately care about. I'm passionate about literacy as well as dogs, combining the two paid off.

If you think about what you care about, and write about that, it could pay off for you too!