thesaurus – Jennifer Lane Books

It’s true. Your character’s occupation is a GOLD MINE of storytelling potential.

Think about it: how much time do you spend on the job? Does it fulfill you or frustrate you? Can you separate work from home? Is it causing you challenges, creating obstacles…or bringing you joy and helping you live your truth?

Just like us, most characters will have a job, and the work they do will impact their life. The ups and downs can serve us well in the story.

Maybe you haven’t thought much about jobs in the past and how they act as a window into your character’s personality, interests, and skills. It’s okay, you aren’t alone. The good news is that The Occupation Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Jobs, Vocations, and Careers is going to do all the heavy lifting for you. (Here’s one of the job profiles we cover in this book: FIREFIGHTER.)

Resource Alert: A List of Additional Jobs Profiles For Your Characters

Some of the amazing writers in our community have put together additional career profiles for you, based on jobs they have done in the past. What a great way to get accurate information so you can better describe the roles and responsibilities that go with a specific job, right? To access this list, GO HERE.

(Jennifer Lane here: Check out the job profile I added for SPORTS COACH. The heroine and hero in my work-in-progress both work as coaches for rival universities.)

Happy writing to all!

Hi everyone! Today I have a special post as part of the Writers Persevere event that authors Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi are running for the next few days to celebrate their newest book, The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma. This book explores the difficult experiences embedded in our characters’ backstory which will shape their motivation and behavior afterward. Check out my 5-star review HERE.

To help them celebrate this release, many of us are posting stories about some of the obstacles we’ve overcome as writers. As we all know, this isn’t an easy path. Writing is hard and as writers we tend to struggle with doubt. Sometimes too, we don’t always get the support we need to follow our passion, or we have added challenges that make writing more difficult. Because people are sharing their stories this week about how they worked through these challenges to keep writing, I wanted to post about it, too.

~*~

I never intended to become a writer, but life is what happens when we’re making our plans.

I was lucky to land my psychologist dream job in 2000. Too bad it turned into a nightmare by 2007. My bosses didn’t value my work and made threats to my livelihood. At that time, I became hooked on the TV show, Prison Break. Its dark themes and conspiracy theories matched my workplace misery. Through connecting with rabid Prison Break fans across the world, I learned about fan fiction. What? Hacks writing stories about TV stories?

You guessed it–I became one of those hacks and started writing my own fan fiction. At first my writing stunk but my TV show buddies encouraged me to keep going. When reality sucked, I turned to fiction. I left my bitter job and started a new job at a friendly, supportive clinic that taught me a useful specialty. Inspired by fan fiction, I wrote thousands of words and then found a publisher to launch those words into the universe.

I’m now working on my eighth novel. In a strange twist of events, I returned to the old job in 2013 and version 2.0 is going swimmingly.

My emotional wound is a great example of how pain can lead to beauty and strength. Write on, friends!

~*~

Do you have a story to share, or some advice for others? You can join Becca and Angela at Writers Helping Writers from October 25-27^th, where we are celebrating writers and their stories of perseverance. Stop in, and tell them about a challenge or struggle your faced, or if you like, write a post on your own blog and share it using the hashtag #writerspersevere. Let’s fill social media with yourstrength and let other writers know that it’s okay to question and have doubts but we shouldn’t let that stop us.