What Phobias are Keeping You from Writing Success?

Writers are strange little creatures. We have habits, comforts, ticks and phobias (and I use this word loosely). They are no different than others really except a lot of our issues are work-related. We like a certain type of pen to use when we interview. We have a certain creature comfort like coffee, well-sharpened pencils, etc. We also have certain phobias that will sometimes keep us from working to our greatest potential.

Today I thought I’d open up the discussion on phobias and together we can come up with solutions to help each other get through and maybe be a little less weird - oh who am I kidding :)!

Perfection

It can become a problem when you take into account the quest of perfection or fear of not achieving perfection often leads to delayed assignments. A fear that the assignment isn’t perfect will have a writer either afraid to start an assignment or keep them from turning one in because of never-ending rewrites or tweaks.

One coping aid for a perfection quest is to make yourself start the article. Just start typing. Often when you start the rest will flow a little easier and you’ll wonder what was all the fuss. One trick for endless edits is to send your work to a friend - preferably a writer or editor - who can look over the piece and fawn over your smart and on point writing. Or at least they can give you a couple of spots to look at so you can satisfy that pesky “I know there is something wrong with it” feeling. Don’t use that last tip as a crutch though, you will need to be able to know when to stop on your own without always having an outside source pat you on the head.

Interviewing

Interviewing phobia can be intense. I have a problem with phone interviewing. Sure it’s easy and is often the only way you’re going to catch a source, but I hate the telephone. I have no problem interviewing, I have a problem lifting the phone off the cradle, dialing and waiting for the person on the other end to answer. Others may have trouble just talking to people in general, meeting for an interview can be kind of like meeting someone for a first date - intimidating and a little awkward at first.

In either case, interviewing anxiety often stems from either a lack of self-confidence on the writer’s part or an over active imagination. Interview subjects are usually a lot more nervous to talk to you and if you’re well prepared for an interview - a couple of ice breaking questions, boning up on background information, a firm grasp of basic interviewing techniques, you’ll soon find yourself over the jitters within the first few minutes of the conversation.

Not all of our fears/phobias can be worked out as easily as the ones above, but we can learn tips and tricks to manage them better. Don’t suffer through a fear, ask the FWJ community for help and learn how to manage it!

Got a phobia or a tip for overcoming one? Post it below!

Writing Tip of the Day: Build Your Niche or Name?

It may sound like the same thing. Building your name and building your niche, but in actuality they are two different things. While it’s entirely possible (and ideal) to do build both your name and your profile within your niche at the same time, it is also possible to do one while not doing much for the other.

So do you know if there is an imbalance in your “brand building?”

Review Your Work

What does your work say about you? Your niche? Are you stuck in the low paying gigs that contribute toward your niche, but aren’t doing much to get your name out there? Do you have solid clips that showcase your writing abilities, but don’t necessarily focus on your chosen path of work?

When you take gigs, be mindful as to where they fit in the overall design of your career. If you are really a travel writer, but spend all of your time doing tech work, you are not on the right path. All writers should stop every so often to assess where they are and where they are headed.

Review Your Social Network

What type of things are you Tweeting and Facebooking about? What things are you posting? Who is in your social circle? Writers need to consider if they are following, friending and contributing info according to their niche, also being mindful if they are also portraying themselves in a positive professional light.

Some genres of writing aren’t necessarily the strictest when it comes to decorum so tweeting about random things may not affect you much. But, if you are say a parenting writer, you may either want to have a personal Twitter account to discuss your favorite swinger’s clubs and use your professional account to discuss potty training techniques.

A few things to remember:

• Make sure your social networking contributes to your work. Follow leaders and peers in your field of choice.
• Make sure to tweet & post links to your work so others can see and follow what you’re doing.
• Make sure your body of work reflects the type of career you are working for and toward.

Got any tips on building your niche & name?

5 Ways to Kill a Good Article

There are times when an article just doesn’t seem to come together. Most of the time a writer will struggle through it, turning it over and over in their mind, getting advice and sticking with it as long as they can until they can get it to gel. There are other times, however, when a writer will have heavy fault in killing an article,  bludgeoning it actions known to be fatal to articles.

5. Procrastinating. It’s a killer! Last minute work can strangle the fun,  substance  and life out of a piece.

4. Poor sources. Sources that don’t contribute anything worthwhile to the article, quotes that are generic and information any 10 year-old can get from Google is like beating the article with a lead pipe in the dining room.

3. Poor transitions. Congratulations, you’ve just strapped your audience in for a ride off of several cliff hangers and while speeding head-long into several abrupt endings and jarring turns.

2. Lazy editing. You let the misused homophones and dangling participles slide because the editor’s going to catch them right? Right. And the air bag is going to catch you after you forgo the seatbelt.

1. Missed deadline. The readers may never know you missed a deadline, but they also may never know you had an article set to appear in the publication. Missing a deadline is like the warnings at the end of prescription drug commercial. “May cause editor queasiness, rushed work, dropped article and missed copy issues because of tardiness, also may cause article death. Not to be used in by anyone writing, editing or thinking about writing or editing.”

Got anymore article killers? Share below!

Go Against Type & Type Up Creativity

A lot of us get caught up in our niches or types of writing. Blog posts, business writing, parenting writing and it can get a little tedious. Not to say you don’t enjoy what you do, just that every so often it feels good to do something against type. Your type.

It pays to stretch your writing muscles and get creative by experimenting with different writing genres. It may be just thing to juice up your writing in your specialty. For example, technical writers don’t have many opportunities to write humorous pieces or fictional fantasy pieces. You may suck at it in the beginning, but there are always things that can be learned by learning about a new style or area.

Venturing into other areas of writing doesn’t mean you have to be in it for paying gigs. I’m not talking about writing for free, you know how I feel about that - on rare occasions is it smart - I’m talking about freebie classes at bookstores, online courses or just writing for your own eyes.

The idea is to let your brain breathe, wander and stretch without the pressure of deadlines and electric bills affecting the work. If you find you really like it you can always jump into the paid world later.

I’ve got an interest in poetry, good poetry. Poetry that goes beyond the black-inked doom and gloom poems of my angst-ridden teenage years. Oh you know you have some too, don’t laugh - at least not too hard! It gives my brain the opportunity to play with words and phrases that move me emotionally - not necessarily something you’d get from an article on potty training. That brain stretching helps me turn words and phrases in more ways than before and that helps in every area of my work.

What areas of writing do you have a non-professional interest and what are you going to do about it? Tell us below!

Article Writing Must Reads

I’ve been blogging away here at the Freelance Writing Jobs Network for quite some time now and have compiled a pretty helpful lot of posts. However I realize those new to the site or those who may have missed a post don’t have time to go through all of the posts because you’re too busy writing! So here are a few of my favorite (and most helpful) article writing posts so far:

• Press Release Writing Intro
• Research - More Than Just Google
• Kill Fees - Not a Halloween Tale
• Best Query Advice
• You Missed a Deadline - Now What?
• Say What? A Quick Guide to Using Quotes

Hope these are a helpful quick reference on your article writing adventures!

Making Great Transitions in Articles

Writers traditionally get stuck in a couple places in their writing: in the beginning when they are trying to discover or develop their lead (lede), in the end when they are searching for just the right conclusion and at transition points throughout the article when they are tasked with introducing a new idea.

A good transition is like a listening to a great band or DJ. The music just flows from one song to another and all you notice is how good the music sounds. Bad transitions can feel like walking into a pole in the middle of a sidewalk. Jarred, the reader looks up and asks, “Where in the world did that come from?” as they stagger through the next set of ideas.

Transitions can be tricky and at times you need to look over the entire article to see where information fits and if you can rearrange information in a way that creates a better flow and easier transition. Ask yourself, “Where does the story/article naturally progress? What would a reader ask next?” Taking a moment to look at it from a reader’s perspective could be enough to illuminate the article’s pathway and make writing transitions easier.

One can choose to make transitions by using headers and bullet points. Some ideas will not flow naturally from one to the other and headers and bullet points are clear indicators that the article is going to move in another direction - a road map so to speak. Here is an article on using bullet points properly: “Bullets Make the Point.”

Quotes are another option for transitions. A good quote can be just what an article needs to introduce a new opinion, subject or direction. Remember, you don’t want to throw just any old quote in an article. The quote has to contribute to the article, give it a boost, a human voice, etc. “Say What?” A Quick Guide to Using Quotes” is a good place to explore how to pick and use quotes.

Got any transition tips? Have any questions? Write it below, I’d like to hear from you!

Inspirational Writers for Inspired Writing

Tuesday I talked about some common reasons why writers find themselves in a writing funk. One of the reasons I cited was when writers have too much work they don’t have enough time to read other great work. Then the thought came to me - if you don’t have time to read other work, you certainly don’t have time to look for great work you should be reading. So here are a few of my favs in a variety of catergories and please add your own below!

Parenting

DadCentric.Com - Be warned, there is a fair amount of profanity at this blog site, but the guys at DadCentric are great with their message - parenting includes dads too. The blog is funny, insightful and well written and one of those rare parenting blogs that points out the discrimination in product advertising toward dads.

The Motherlode - This parenting blog is a part of the New York Times’s website and it’s author Lisa Belkin is one of the best out there. Timely and timeless discussion with wit, compassion and lots of humor, this blog is a great one for your blogroll.

Writing

Freelance Writing Jobs Network (This site) - Several distinctive blogs with distinctive, expert voices and you may miss them! Some of you may visit some of our blogs, but let me tell you if you haven’t stopped in all of them you really are missing something.

The Renegade Writer - The spin-off blog to the successful book is chock full of ideas and tips about the writing life, specifically freelance writing.

Environmental

TreeHugger.Com - More environmental information than you can shake a stick at, a free-range, renewable resource stick I mean. Divided into helpful subsections and full of great photos, if you are going green, thinking about it or just want a source of great resources this is a great site. The best thing is topics get an overall treatment, then you have the option to ‘go deeper.’

Specialized

The SASCOM Magazine Blog - While taking a specialized look at the software tech industry the SASCOM blog is anything but boring and technical. The blog covers a wide range of topics from the Swine Flu outbreak to the environment, to leadership skills and how these seemingly unrelated topics coincide with the company, it’s mission and field.

I left out a gang of people I follow personally and those that have huge followings for a reason, I wanted to highlight some well known and lesser known places out there where writing rules. I know you all have some recommendations so list them below along with their subject matter and link!

Top 10 Reasons Why Your Writing is Suffering

Why aren’t I getting gigs? Why am I caught in this niche I have grown to hate? Where’s my career going? There are a lot of reasons why a writer’s work suffers and some are so common most writers have or will experience them at some point. Do any of them ring a bell?

1. You’re bored. There are times a writer needs to switch course or look for new ways to stay passionate about an familiar topic.
2. You’ve gotten lazy. Let’s be honest, sometimes freelancers slack off and don’t feel like doing what they are supposed to do. I’ve been there and it’s tough to get back on task, but take a look at that electric bill - feel like writing now?
3. You’re not reading enough. The more you write, the more money you make right? The more work you have can take away from the other things that make a writer great, like reading other great writers. It’s amazing the amount of inspiration one well written piece can provide another writer.
4. You’ve got too much work. It sounds like a good problem to have, but in reality too many projects can take away from the time you have to devote to the perfection each project. The result? Sloppy or rushed work and not too much to show for it.
5. You’re burned out. When’s the last time you took a break? Switched up the routine a bit? If you’re still thinking, you may need a breather, a chance to go off the grid for a day or so and recharge. Time to refresh is not a privilege it’s a necessity.
6. You’re lonely. Online social networking is great and you can make some wonderful friends, but you also need to get out there and make friends in and out the writing field. You need your writing friends to commiserate and appreciate the life you lead and you need non-writing friends to give a different perspective. A writer’s life can be a lonely one and it can drive you bonkers, don’t let it happen to you.
7. You don’t have any support. Are you battling deadlines, kids, bills and the feeling no one really understands what you do? You are in need of support - it makes all the difference in the world. When someone’s in your corner it can help you get over those hump days and it’s important to have someone to share the good times. Nothing like calling up a friend to relay the news of a hot new gig knowing they are just as excited as you are about it.
8. You’re not enjoying yourself anymore. An important indicator of having a great job is when you love what you do.  You don’t have to love it all the time, there are days I’d like to throw my laptop and favorite pen out the window, but generally I get a whiz bang out of writing. Recapture that magic and it’ll show up in your work.
9. You’re not charging enough. Raise your hand if you ever worked your butt off for a piece only to get the check and decide it’s just not worth it? Ok, hands down. What’s going on with your fee schedule? Should you really charge more and does your work justify it? This great article from James will help you make what you’re worth.
10. You’re not doing what you really want to do. You became a freelancer so you could travel the globe, or your local playground, finding tips and trends in a fascinating field. Six months later you’ve got SEO and tech work coming out of your ears. You keep telling yourself it pays the bills, but really a corporate job would do just as well if that’s all you wanted. Time to check your goals and develop a plan to get back to your dreams.

Getting to the bottom of what ails your pen is not only great for your career, it’s great for your health. People who are passionate about what they do live fuller and longer lives. Let’s get you back to living yours.

Thursday’s post: “Inspirational Writers for Inspired Writing”

Got any great tips on a common writing threat/malady? Have you dealt with one of these and overcome? Share below!

Scheduling Time for Your Articles, Part 2

Yesterday we looked at scheduling time to research information, conduct interviews and prep an article in the first part of “Scheduling Time for Your Articles ” today we are going to wrap up this mini-series with a look at writing and editing.

• Schedule time to write the article. Once your preliminary work is complete it’s time to write. Short articles you may wrap up the initial draft in an hour or so, longer feature articles or more detailed subjects may take you anywhere from a couple hours to a couple of days. You should know your writing style by now so you are the only one who can plan out the time. I will caution you, however, to avoid spending an entire day on one piece. When something takes all day it is easy to get bored or frustrated with it. A couple of focused hours over the course of a couple of days tends to give writers a better perspective on where the piece is going. Which brings me to the next item:
• Schedule time to edit. “I edit as I write.” I hear that a lot when tutoring English students or students who are having trouble with papers in other classes. I usually respond “I can tell.” (Don’t worry, I am nice about it. Never crush a student’s writing confidence, it takes forever to get it back.) When you edit as you write you can end up with disjointed ideas, compromised flow and miss a gaggle of things you would have caught if you had gone back over the piece with your editing pen. Editing time is just as importing as writing and research time. I always advise students, writers, whomever, to take a day or two away from the piece. Give your brain a rest and then look at it with fresh eyes, you’ll have a much better idea of what works and what doesn’t.

Does the article writing process have to be a weeks-long odyssey? Absolutely not, but each step should be taken whether the step take 2 hours or 10 minutes. Giving the writing process time and diligence is what produces great writers, great articles and generates more income which is what we are all hoping for right? It also helps eliminate those pesky writing rodents “Procrastination” and “Missed Deadline.”

Do you break down the writing process differently? What works for you? Share it with your fellow writers below.

Scheduling Time for Your Articles

How long does it take to write an article? Honestly, a good one takes as long as it needs to take. So how do schedule time for your articles?

It’s not enough to plug a due date into your editorial calendar, you need to carefully map out enough time to complete all the elements required. An article’s schedule is not just the time it takes to write an article, it also includes the time it takes to thoroughly research the material, interview sources, pre-plan your layout and edit the piece.

• Schedule time for research. This first step is key because it will not only give you background information for the article, it will likely point you to great sources for interviews. Don’t forget this research time includes researching the background and work of your sources.
• Schedule time for interviews. Whether in person or over the phone, giving yourself an allotted time to complete interviews not only keeps you on track, it keeps the interview itself on track. Knowing you only have 15 to 20 minutes to get the information you need, you will be less likely to let your interview subject roam the field before they give you the answers you need. Time is a great motivator for steering an interview.
• Schedule time to compile your notes and create your basic framework. Some people transcribe all their own interviews, others send them out to a third party, either way, you are going to need time for the information to be processed. I like to create an outline for most articles I write. After I go through the information I’ve gathered, I can begin to see the flow, what the headings will be and if there is still more information needed. Doing some sort of initial brainstorming or outlining is key because when you sit down to write the article, your words will flow easier if you know where you’re going. Stopping and starting to look for information is a sure way to waste time and get off track.

Tomorrow we will look at scheduling the rest of the elements of an article. Do you have any scheduling tips? Share them below!

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