For nine years, I was a freelance writer, writing coach, and writing teacher. My work was published in numerous magazines, and I published one non-fiction book and a magazine writing workbook. Since math teaching is my first love, I decided to return to it three years ago. I kept writing though for myself and attending my local spiritual writing group.

A month ago a woman who is a member of my local state writer’s club branch contacted me and asked if I would be interested in teaching a writing workshop for them. She had seen me speak on magazine writing at one of their meetings years ago, when I was in the thick of promoting my magazine workbook, and had enjoyed my talk.

I was honest with her and told her I’d been out of the writing biz for several years so maybe I wasn’t the right person for the job. She asked me to still consider it and, if I felt I could do it, they would love to have me. Then she told me what my compensation would be: $500 for teaching a four-hour workshop. They would also provide coffee and lunch, I was free to sell copies of my writing workbook, and they would make any copies of handouts I needed for the participants. Wow, you better believe I would consider it!

I thought long and hard about teaching the workshop and about how good a job I could do as I didn’t want to sell the club short. I looked through lots of my old teaching material from when I had taught writing classes. I knew I had enough material and, with some development of new workshop exercises, could put on a productive class. I happily accepted the offer. I was nervous since I hadn’t taught a workshop like this for years, but I thought the challenge would be good for me.

Even after I thought I’d left the professional writing world for good, a lucrative opportunity arose for me to build on my writing successes. You just never know how the efforts you make as a writer can come back to benefit you down the road.

Melanie Bowden has published articles in many publications including: Shape Magazine, Catholic Digest, and Jugglezine. She is also the author of Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me? True Stories of New Motherhood and Get Your Articles Published! You can visit her web site at: https://www.melaniebowden.com

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