Archives for November 2009

If you’re one of the American members of this community, you’re probably getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving. Pretty soon homes all over the country will fill with the smell of roast turkey and pumpkin pie. Friends and family will gather to give thanks. As I enjoy my first cup of coffee before the family wakes, it occurs to me that freelance writing is like thanksgiving sometimes. Allow me to share:

1. It takes planning

Though it’s not difficult to whip up a Thanksgiving dinner at the last minute, to pull off a good one takes planning. A host will plan a menu, contact friends and relatives, shop for the best ingredients and spend the day in the kitchen. A good piece of writing also takes heavy planning. There’s research and an outline and several drafts before the finished product.

2. Collaboration rocks

The best Thanksgivings are the ones where each guest contributes. Mom makes the turkey, Aunt Martha brings the green bean casserole and Grandma rocks the apple pie. Everyone brings something to the table. Writing is also kicked up a level when two or more people collaborate on a project. We all have our specialties and our areas of expertise, putting some great minds together makes for an awesome piece of reading.

3. It takes a lot longer to prepare than to devour the finished product

As mentioned above, both writing and Thanksgiving take lots of planning, but it takes a lot longer to cook and prepare than to eat the meal. It also takes a lot longer to plan and write than it does to read a book or article.

4. Everything tastes better the next day

Who doesn’t look forward to turkey and stuffing sandwiches during the days that follow Thanksgiving? Some people even feel the leftovers are better than the original meal. When you walk away from a finished piece of writing, and come back to read it the next day, you’ll no doubt make some tweaks and tighten up your sentences. A fresh eye and a new outlook always make for a better piece of writing.

5. It’s meant to be shared

If you were alone would you cook a full fledged Thanksgiving dinner? Probably not. The meal and holiday is about sharing. Writing is meant to be shared too. We want others to enjoy what we do. Just as nothing feels better to a host than to receive praise for her Thanksgiving meal, nothing feels better for  a writer than a good review.

What are some of the ways you feel writing and Thanksgiving are similar?

This morning inspiration struck while I was in the shower. I quickly dried off, threw on my robe and ran to the office where Mr. Ng was sitting at my laptop. “I have a thought!” I called out. “I need to write!” “I’m looking for work!” my husband called back, “work trumps thoughts. ” I rummaged around the office until I found a pen and Post It to write down my brilliant idea so I wouldn’t forget. Inspiration shouldn’t get in the way of an recently laid off man on a mission.

Have you ever noticed how you get the best ideas when you’re no where near a laptop or paper and pen? I have notepads in every bag and on almost every surface, but I don’t get ideas when tools are at the ready.

Plenty of ideas come when I’m sleeping, though. Yes, I have a notebook and pen on my nightstand, but to write down my thoughts is to turn on the light and wake Mr. Ng. I try to avoid this at all costs. Spending time with Captain Cranklypants isn’t conducive to a good brainstorming session. Instead I fumbled around and stumble around until I find a place where I can write without rousing the family, except by then it’s usually too late and I lose it. Sleepy inspiration is easily lost.

I’m not sure if you know this but the local police don’t take too kindly to side of the road brainstorming, even when showing good driving etiquette by putting on your hazard lights. I can tell you from experience, “Honestly Officer, I only pulled over on the side of this busy freeway because I needed to write down my ideas so I won’t forget,” won’t always fly. Inspiration is inconvenient and can cause tickets.

I remember riding home from a visit with the in laws in Queens one evening when inspiration hit. I had the perfect lead in to an article bouncing around in my head. I searched my purse, my son’s stash and the car to no avail. Not wanting to lose the sentence I repeated it over and over like a mantra. Soon my son was playing along. Mr. Ng in the driver’s seat wasn’t so amused. By the time I got home and wrote down my sentence I was over it. Inspiration is so inconvenient.

Then there was the time at a meeting of a local women’s group. It was the first meeting of the season and I, as the President, had door duty so I could greet our esteemed guests and members. On my drive over, a light bulb went off in my head and I wrote my idea on the palm of my hand during a traffic light stop. I planned on transferring my brilliant idea into a notebook when I got to the clubhouse, but  I forgot. By the time I remembered, I had spent an hour shaking hands and the words were gone. To this day, I’m not sure the Mayor knows what happened to her hand. Inspiration causes blue handshakes.

I can tell you I’m always prepared for when the light bulbs go off. I can also tell you the light bulbs mostly go off during the rare occasions when they I’m not so prepared. I’ve talked into a tape recorder at the supermarket, wrote on a napkin in a restaurant and even sullied the blank last page of a paperback book I was reading on the subway, all in the name of inspiration.

Inspiration is so inconvenient, but it’s ever so rewarding.

Pardon me while I reflect a bit…

2010 will mark my tenth year as a freelance writer. Though it’s a dream come true, it’s all rather surreal. I honestly thought freelancing would be a way to supplement my husband’s income until our son was in school full time. I didn’t expect I’d continue to do this full time a decade later , and I certainly didn’t think I’d have a popular, lucrative blog and booming social media business.

I read somewhere that someone attributed my success to luck and not skill. I disagree. It was a mixture of many things, but mostly hard work and the ability to adapt with my community. Though I consider myself fortunate, I wouldn’t write this all off as luck.

When I first began blogging it was only to provide job leads each day. The growing FWJ community clamored for more, and I began sharing my successes and failures as a freelance writers. My community at that time was mostly work at home moms and I felt some of them were making bad choices about their writing and I spoke up about it. Many members of the community called me on my negativity. Over the years I learned that writers take on projects for a variety of reasons. Some of them work at content sites for a hobby, some take a non-paying newspaper column because the enjoyment of sharing far outweighs the need for money, and some are having problems finding higher paying work and use lower paying opportunities as a way to supplement their income.There are also plenty of writers who are more than happy to do what they do and have no intention of seeking out other opportunities. To all of them I say, “rock on.”

I began to change my tune about the available freelance writing opportunities and the writers who accepted them. Though I never insulted writers for the choices they made there were times I was vocal about my disapproval.

So why am I telling you this?

Yesterday, I participated in a very upsetting comment thread at About Freelance Writing . In this thread, one commenter called writers for a certain content site “hacks.” After I called her on it, she took back the “hacks” comment and instead said they were demoralized and desperate. This isn’t the first time I saw someone who claims to want to help writers insult them in the process. In the past couple of months I read posts by bloggers who insist those who write for web content sites are “lazy,” a “laughingstock,” “sweatshop laborers,” and “untalented”…and those are the kind remarks. Though I did my best to be civil, I reacted emotionally and even wrote to Anne Wayman to apologize and said I wouldn’t be upset if she removed my comments. She opted to keep them.

I promise, I have a point…

Is this what it’s coming too? All of this “I’m so much better than you and if you don’t write what I tell you to write and earn what I tell you to earn you’re desperate and lazy” is upsetting. Why can’t we just live and let live? So you don’t approve of a writer’s choice, move on. All this pettiness and name calling among adults is, well, silly. I don’t know of any other career choice where supposed colleagues pick each other apart and belittle each other for their choices.

I have news for you. No one is right. None of these freelance writing gurus are experts. None of them can tell you the best thing for YOU to do because they’re not you. You’re you. We can all share what works best for us , but YOU make the ultimate decision. So for me to talk down to writers and say, “well you’re just wrong becasue you’re not doing it my way” isn’t only arrogant and unkind, it’s untrue.

Now, I don’t believe I’ve ever been what I call a “my way or the highway” blogger, but I think there are times I’ve been passionate in expressing my disagreement. Not insulting, but passionate. In ten years of writing I learned that we all make the choices that work best for our situations and not one of us is wrong. I will pass on the opportunities I don’t feel to be a good fit for me, and I will always present the best opportunities to you here. If you take on an opportunity I don’t feel is the right choice for me, I still respect your decision.

Does that mean I changed my tune about low paying opportunities?

Not quite, though I changed my tune about the way I look at each opportunity, especially since I’ve been meeting with or talking with the people behind many of these opportunities. I’ll always speak up about scams and unsavory types, but I’ll never, ever, look down on a writer for his or her choice.

Writers, if I ever made you feel bad about a decision you made, or if I ever talked down to you about a decision you made or if you ever felt insulted by anything I’ve written regarding your choice, I apologize.  I’m here to share and learn from you, not talk down to you.I removed a couple of threads I felt to be insulting and I’ll be more mindful about what I publish here in the future.

How have you changed your thinking about freelance writing and freelance writers since you started?