Comments on: Feels Like the First Time

By: Judith van Praag

Judith van Praag — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:31:09 +0000

Lori,
1. 1,000 Dutch guilders in 1989 for STYLE a glossy for men. Fee included expenses to travel from Amsterdam to Paris for interview.
2. At times I'll use Dutch syntax in English sentences (Word's Spell+Grammar catches that usually) and use of commas. We use them far more in Dutch, and in different places. Heard the same from Greek/English writer.
3.See #1 Client said I wrote a love letter of 2000 words that needed to be cut down to a note of 500. Is only funny in retrospect, back then I hadn't heard of "killing your darlings" and the editor gave me no clue.
4. Lorie, thanks for Clients from Hell! My faves R my Twitter Lists +Linkedin +NL newspapers.
5. Can't come up with The Best Book at the moment but enjoyed whole oeuvre of both Esther Freud and Linda Grant, each using their family (hi)story as inspiration for very different books.

Thanks for posting the questions. I got here thanks to a post by
Sarah Glazer at SheWrites.

By: Lori

Lori — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:47:06 +0000

Such great stories! I love this. It's great to see where we started and how far we've come.

Krista, we've all made similar mistakes. I once paid for a Guru.com membership for three months. I know. STUPID. And I LOVED The Cider House Rules!

You know, Yo, his "instructional" email could be the basis of a Demand Studio article....Muhahahaha!

Oh Paula, I love that you were the only applicant! Even with lots of applicants, you'd still be the winner. :)

Anne, I'm afraid to pick up that book now!

Damn Cassie, that's a decent first gig! I love "reformed prescriptivist." It sounds sexy. :) Also, I saw Lisa Scottoline's latest is coming out today - let me know how it is!

Ruthibelle, sounds like you had an angel in your life. What a neat woman to help you so much!

Devon, I'll be in touch for details on your funniest. :) And I'll pick up those books. My Cigar Girl came yesterday - thanks for that recommendation, too.

Jenn, I too do the prepositions at the end, conjunctions at the beginning. And I think it reads better. ;)

By: Jenn Mattern

Jenn Mattern — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:35:34 +0000

Oh, I also get crap occasionally for starting sentences with conjunctions. And I do that intentionally too! It's all about keeping the flow conversational for me.

By: Jenn Mattern

Jenn Mattern — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:33:14 +0000

1. My first individual piece I had to "sell" was on maintaining your office PC for a niche site. It paid $.35 per word.

2. I'm another one who take liberties with prepositions. And it's intentional. Much of the work I do is meant to be conversational in nature -- not stuffy and formal. In those cases it does read better that way.

3. My funniest client encounter was when I accidentally sent an email to a client that was intended for a guy I was seeing at the time. Damn that auto-fill in my email address book! Fortunately there was nothing too inappropriate in the email, and the client was a great sport about it. Then again he was one who told me I could work for a phone sex line if I ever went out of business (back when I was running my PR firm before writing full-time). So even if it had been too inappropriate, he probably would have been one of the last ones to mind.

4. My unwinding site is the DigitalPoint forums. I help moderate there, but I honestly have to be completely brain dead to appreciate it most days. It's what I check in on when I'm in between projects -- kind of like a way to cleanse the palate before the next one begins.

5. I didn't read much fiction last year... I'm a nonfiction / learning junkie. The best book is tough to pick though. I loved Peter Bowerman's new version of The Well-fed Writer, and there was an outstanding book on writing mystery novels, but I can't recall the title.

By: Devon Ellington

Devon Ellington — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:42:34 +0000

First Sale: In high school, I started writing about the school's music program for the local paper.

Worst writing habit: Trying to pack too much into a single, run on sentence instead of breaking it down into shorter, succinct ones.

Funniest client encounter: Can't be posted in public!

Favorite unwinding site: I wanted to say DAILY RACING FORM, but I write about racing, so I guess it doesn't count.

Best books I read last year were AMERICA LIBRE by Raoul Ramos, and 31 HOURS by Masha Hamilton. Lori, if you liked THE WORST HARD TIME, you'd like both of these.

By: Ruthibelle

Ruthibelle — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:48:01 +0000

First gig: Feature article for a newspaper. Dont remember how much i got paid... hmm..

Most oft broken grammar rule: using redundant adjectives.W What can I say? I like to describe...

funniest client had to be the cultural aware lady who took me on as a daughter and basically TAUGHT me skills of teh trade i had been somewhat dull on... I should have paid HER!

Networking: blogger, I browse random blogs and make tons of new friends in the process

BEst book last year: i cangt choose.. they were all really great!

By: Cassie Tuttle

Cassie Tuttle — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:13:42 +0000

1. My first freelance project was a light coypediting/proofing of excerpts of a legal treatise for a law firm in Philly. $1699. :-)

2. I don't believe I break any grammar "rules." And that's intentional. (I'm a reformed prescriptivist.)

3. Funniest client encounter is probably one of the e-mails I've received from an overseas group to whom one of my clients farms out some of the coding work. An example (after I sent the guy a copyedited chapter): "Thank you for this. I confirm safe receipt. We shall do the needful."

4. Favorite Web site when taking a break or winding down? Facebook, EngrishFunny.com

5. Best book I read last year had to be one of the half dozen or so I read by Lisa Scottoline. I love legal mystery/suspense.

By: Anne Wayman - About Freelance Writing

Anne Wayman - About Freelance Writing — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:47:15 +0000

1. I think it was a pamphlet to Hazelden – maybe $300? or maybe it was $10 for a computer story?
2. Grammar? They have rules?
3. Sorry, all my clients are serious… naw… I just don't remember anything funny at the moment – only laughter, but I don't know why.
4. craigslist
5. No clue, but right now I'm plowing through "The Family" and it's scaring me half to death.

By: Paula

Paula — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:22:57 +0000

1. If we're counting contest wins as first sales, then it was the $100 first prize I won in high school for writing an essay on the importance of small businesses. (I still think I was the only person who entered the contest since I knew nothing about the topic, did next to no research and still won.) But if we're counting actual sales, it was probably a feature article in a local weekly. I was thrilled to be paid $50.

2. Hopefully, it's the incorrect usage of "hopefully" at the start of sentences, but I fear it is the dreaded run-on sentence. (I'm sure you guys are more aware of my chronic mistakes than I am!)

3. Funniest client? Probably the Swedish businessman who contracted with me to write and place white papers about his product. He was also a mathematician, so the compensation for each placement was based on this ridiculously convoluted formula. He factored in the type of publication (consumer mags rated higher than trades, newspapers higher than both), circulation (paid and unpaid/pass-along were calculated separately), and the overall quality/reputation of the publication. Of course, that last one is very subjective. When he did pay, he paid well, but it wasn't worth dealing with his "simple" system.

4. Ravelry.com - a social networking site for yarn-obsessed knitters and crocheters like me.

5. This is bad. I don't read as much as I used to, thanks to thousands of pesky floaters. I've had them all my life, but they get more annoying each year. After a day at the computer I've got eyestrain, so reading is no longer relaxing. I can only read a little at a time before getting a headache, so I've been working at the same book for at least a year. Gregory MacGuire's "A Lion Among Men" (not nearly as riveting as MacGuire's "Wicked: Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" which I read years before the musical Wicked opened). The irony? Everyone assumes writers love to read, so Christmas 2008 I got five books. None of which I've even begun to contemplate starting to read.

By: Yo

Yo — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:10:05 +0000

1. Newspaper article, $40.

2. Hahaha, all of them until someone corrects me :) I use commas and ellipses constantly to try and FORCE the reader to pause when I want them to. Also, I read somewhere that there was never a real rule about ending w/ preps.

3. Either the client who told me he had never met a white woman with my name or the one who emailed me an analogy of the right way to perform certain... um... s**ual things. Don't ask, people just seem to feel really comfortable around me.

4. Something Awful, E Online, Perez.

5. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.