Article Writing and Your Psychic Friends

Pitching queries for magazines can be a bit like playing fortune teller. You have to be in tune to what the audience will want to read six months from now. In my post “Are you thinking about Christmas yet? You should be…” I talked about the long lead time for magazines, how writers need to use their insider contacts and hunches on trending topics to pitch specifics to mags and how they should look for new angles on evergreen topics.

What if you don’t have a talkative insider? To get a future cast, all you really need to do is talk to an expert. Experts and angles on evergreen topics can be found just about anywhere.

Keep your ears open.

Go where the people are – if you are interested in what college kids will be thinking and talking about next October, go to where they are now and soak up the atmosphere and information. Pull up a chair and your laptop in public places and eavesdrop. It’s not as creepy as it sounds, if you’re a real writer you’re naturally nosey and would be listening in anyway so you might as well use your natural curiosity to generate ideas and income. Use your Twitter and other social media to see what people are talking about.

Keep you eyes open.

Eavesdropping is fun and informative, but I have to argue people watching is more fun. I write a lot about parenting and kids issues and let me tell you there is nothing more inspiring than sitting at the mall in the middle of the day watching people with their kids. I get ideas about ways to keep kids safe, helpful tricks and time saving techniques from inventive parents, social interaction issues like “Should you discipline other people’s kids,” “Settling playdate disputes,” “When parenting styles clash,” and more!

Beyond people watching, watch for events in the field you’re interested in covering. I look for and go to parenting seminars, family festivals, lectures from experts, advertisements for new products and services, etc. Subscribe to free pr distribution sites and set up your filters to screen for topics geared toward your beat/interest or niche.

What’s past is prologue.

If you have your eye on a specific publication, often reading what they covered a year or two ago will give you a good idea on what they will cover in the future. Studying a publication is not only good way to find out what evergreen topics they’ve covered, you can also get a feel for what angle has been covered. Interview experts who proved they had their finger on the pulse of the future last year. When querying you can point to their knack for being ahead of the pack.

Got any tips for predicting publication futures? Tell us below!

Stumped for Article Ideas? Query Your Friends!

It happens to all of us every once in a while. You need an idea for a column, blog or  article and you can’t quite seem to come up with an idea that grabs your interest. Sometimes normal sources of information just doesn’t cut it. Sometimes you gotta have friends.

Soliciting article advice from friends is a great way to put your social networking skills to good use. Tap your Twitter buddies and your Facebook friends to help you come up with the next, best idea for your work.

Make sure you tap your friends who are not writers, they often give the best ideas and angles for a story. These are people who aren’t tainted by the writing process and the burden of reading so much in a particular niche. It is also an exercise in digging for the story because most of the ideas thrown at you aren’t in query, blog, or article ready form. Turn a general “What about health care” suggestion into a working topic by asking questions about people’s concerns, local health care issues, or something germane to your niche or target audience.

“What about health care?” can breakdown into:

• Pet Insurance Do’s & Don’ts
• Finding coverage for children
• Local health care advocate news
• Health issues in your state, city, school
• Where your local Congressman stands on health care

The options are endless and I guarentee you’ll not only be able to gather great ideas from your friends, you’ll be able to find some pretty good sources among them as well.

Have you ever used a social networking site to gather ideas for an article? Tell us 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!

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!

Writing on a Schedule

By Terreece M. Clarke

Sometimes your creativity needs security. It needs to know that you won’t pounce on it after it has a few off days nagging, pleading and begging it to get with the program and the deadline. Sometimes your creativity likes, dare I say, needs a routine.

Many writers benefit from a writing schedule. An editorial calendar in combination with a regular writing routine is like giving your creativity a work-out schedule. For instance, my creative bug – which looks much like a ladybug wearing Mickey Mouse ears – knew I would be writing on this topic today after my baby went down for her nap, the topic is on the editorial calendar and the preferred time to write is available. My fingers were itching to get to work and as soon as I saw that little head go down to sleep my mind had started to write the blog.

A routine not only keeps the creative muscle primed, it prevents injury. Ever break out in a sprint when you hadn’t run in weeks or months and wind up paying for it later? Ever pull a muscle lifting something heavy? The same thing happens when we apply creativity in a herky-jerky fashion, it may often fail us or become injured in the process – idea formation takes too long, it takes more effort for a  piece to come together, the recovery (editing) process is slower and more painful.

And just like with working out, your creativity will crave activity if you go off it’s schedule. You may always schedule Tuesdays as source interview days, but find yourself with nothing lined up for the day. Your brain is itching for some Q & A, why don’t you call up that expert or source from a previous interview and see what’s new?

Regular creativity work-outs build up a heavy flow of creative juices that spill over into every assignment and opportunity. Schedule it, write it down and behold the wonders.

Do you have a regular writing routine or schedule? Tell us about it.