Guest post by author Mike Jastrzebski

For the past seven years I’ve been living the writer’s life as a full-time writer, although this is the first year I’ve earned any income for my endeavors. How is that possible you might wonder?

To give you a little background, my wife, Mary, and I moved aboard our sailboat, Rough Draft, in September of 2003. It was Mary’s idea to buy a sailboat and take it south. We decided I would take care of the boat, work part-time, and write while she found a full-time job. We sailed the boat From Minnesota, down the Mississippi to the Ohio River, then down the Tennessee Tom-Bigbee waterway to Mobile, Alabama. While we lived in Mobile I wrote a mystery titled Dog River Blues, which will be released as an e-book in December.

Katrina chased us down to Florida when the hurricane wiped out both of our jobs and put our boat into a neighbor’s backyard.

Rough Draft in rough shape

Once we completed repairs on Rough Draft, we headed to Key West where we lived for 3 months. While in the Keys, I began work on Key Lime Blues, now available as an eBook on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords.

After Key West we sailed the boat to Ft. Lauderdale where we currently live. While in Lauderdale I wrote The Storm Killer, a historical thriller set in New York and Key West.

So here are my 5 tips for leading a writer’s life:

1. Sit down and write.
   Not everyone can take off and live on a boat. Not everyone wants to. But everyone can find an hour a day 5 days a week to write. If you do that for a year you’ll have the first draft of a 75,000 word novel completed.
2. Rewrite, rewrite, and then rewrite it again.
   The one thing I’ve learned over the last seven years is that you don’t write a novel, you rewrite a novel. There may be a few exceptions to the rule, but I don’t know one writer who writes a book and sends it off to an agent or publisher without rewriting it multiple times.
3. Take classes, join a writer’s organization, to writer’s retreats and attend conferences.
   I’ve taken many writing classes over the years and I can honestly say that I learned something in every class. Even if I didn’t like the instructor, I learned something. Even if I thought the instructor was a hack, I learned something. Even if I felt I knew more than the instructor, I learned something.

   I am a member of Mystery Writers of America. I attend the monthly luncheons and when possible I volunteer to help. It’s a great way to interact with other writers and learn from the experience of others.

   While it’s true that some conferences are better than others, if you check out the instructors and guests ahead of time you can usually figure out whether the conference will benefit you. If possible, volunteer to help at a conference. For the past two years I was the agent/editor coordinator for SleuthFest which is put on by the Florida Chapter of MWA. Now I will often run into an agent or editor I know at conferences I attend, and often sit down at the bar for a drink with them. This friendship doesn’t guarantee that they will want to represent me or publish my book, but if I pitch them, they’re usually willing to listen.

4. Don’t give up.
   And don’t let anyone else tell you that you can’t do it.
5. Follow your heart.
   Here’s a picture of just one of many glorious sunsets we’ve experienced aboard Rough Draft.

Aboard Rough Draft

Mike Jastrzebski is the author of The Storm Killer and Key Lime Blues. Read more about his journey on his website.