What’s on the iPod: Where the Streets Have No Name by U2
Still on temporary work sabbatical (meaning I’m not in the office) as I try to get projects completed before the holiday. Add to that my daughter’s college graduation next weekend(I’m so proud!), a holiday, and more marketing, and you can just take the white flag from my limp hand.
So while I’m typing away in another corner of the world, I leave you with the top five things that are getting in the way of your career:
1. Social networking. They’re only tools if you know when to stop. If you find yourself tweeting for more than ten minutes, step away from the computer.
2. Your home page. Do yourself a favor right now – switch from Facebook or Yahoo! to the generic Google search page. You don’t realize just how much those news items or friend requests waste time until you avoid them.
3. Inertia/laziness. But it’s so much easier to work for a content farm than market! you say. Way to kill your writing career before it gets going. Welcome to a lifetime of earning one-tenth of what you could be making elsewhere – and at about one-tenth the effort you’re putting into those $5 articles.
4.Blindness. Not literal blindness, but blindness to the opportunities in front of you. When was the last time you talked with an interview subject and followed up a few weeks later asking if they might also need writing help? Never? My point is made.
5. You. If you’ve ever not marketed or avoided a particular client because you’ve convinced yourself you can’t do it, congratulations. You’ve just shot yourself in your own foot.
What roadblocks have presented themselves to you and how have you overcome them?
17 responses to “Top Five Writing Roadblocks”
Here we go again with those great minds think alike, Lori – I switched to the generic Google page about 2 weeks ago. 🙂
I also planted a seed with a long-time client to write a book and let me ghostwrite it – fingers crossed. I have done a lot of ghostwritten articles for him and he is passionate about his work & I think very interesting. It would be industry-related, but it could get my foot in the door for ghostwriting books.
Now, we'll have to wait and see.
There you go, Cathy! Super idea, too.
I proposed a blog to the client I've worked with the longest. They're not biting. Lord, they should be. Theirs is a business that just screams for it.
Huh. It didn't even occur to me to have anything *other* than the Google page, though let's face it — the ¡fun! stuff is still just a bookmark-click away.
My first ghostwritten book resulted exactly what you describe in #4. Another tactic I use for #s 1 and 2 is to shut off my Airport for a given period of time. No internet, no distractions, no temptation.
Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, attributed to Mark Twain as far as I know, but you know how those things go: "A woman runs from Temptation, while a man walks away slowly, in the hopes that it will overtake him."
Have a great Friday & weekend, y'all!
LOL! Great quote, Jake, no matter who said it.
This time of year the biggest roadblock is shoveling. Do I take time from work today to shovel the 2" that fell last night, or wait until the real snow comes tomorrow, knowing it will be much deeper and harder to shovel (and a lot colder)?
Twenty-four hours ago I would have said shovel. But that Favorite Editor who didn't have the budget to assign any of my ideas for the next issue called late yesterday with a quick, fun, short assignment. (She and the EIC felt guilty that so many long-time writers didn't have assignments, so they squeezed in some little projects for us…That's about as a close as a freelancer gets to a year-end bonus.)
Decorating is another roadblock. I'm fighting the urge to put up the tree and all of the indoor decorations. With me, Christmas decorating is not a one-day project. So what if half the storage space in the basement is filled with Christmas stuff? It's a big basement!
How about Ego.
I've been talking to a journalist that writes a column in a local paper. She was talking about Freelance Writing for websites. I explained how I do it. I brought up researching the target market of a client. She says that you don't write for target markets. You write what you feel the piece should be.
I feel the piece should be what the client's target market wants to read. Am I wrong?
And she's speaking from a newspaper columnist's perspective, Wendy. You know Web much better than she does. You're talking from the perspective of a professional freelancer used to pleasing clients. She's talking from the perspective of a writer filling an order.
Paula, you just keep shoveling. Keeps you in shape and is great exercise. I'd LOVE some of your snow, though.
I think it depends on what the purpose of the writing is. If it's just writing for a personal web page or a blog, then you can write whatever you feel like.
If it's for a commercial web site and the copy is intended to get results, and a client is paying you for those results, it had darn well better be written with the target market in mind.
Lori – keep your eye on The Weather Channel this weekend. We're under a Winter Storm Warning or Watch, but the local forecasters still aren't saying how much they think we'll be getting.
Good point, Stacy. I can go on for days about nothing in particular. 🙂 But if that's a client's time and dime, I have to understand their market and their audience.
Paula, I'm utterly jealous of your snow. We had a handful of gorgeous flakes yesterday. Nothing seemed to hit the ground, which has been frozen stiff for weeks.
I listened to friends amazed that predictions are that we won't get as much snow as we did last year. Since we broke freaking snowfall records last year, that's a no-brainer. (the weather people around here are completely out of touch with nature, I swear.) But you live in the country long enough, you can feel it coming.
Love #2 — I forced myself to switch to Google as my home page several months ago for that very reason. Yahoo presented far too many distractions. My other personal roadblock is obsessively checking my e-mail. I'm fairly certain the world won't spin off its axis if I check less frequently, but I am just compelled to see if there are any new messages every 10 minutes.
I do pretty well on numbers 1-4, but #5 bites me all the time. However, I'm working on it! 🙂
Isn't it the truth, Suzanne? And I'm the same with email. Used to be my old Outlook would pop up a screen that you had to click on in order to keep working. The new one flashes a notice in the corner, which is so much better. I've gone a whole 30 minutes without checking. LOL
Me too, Jeff. 🙂
Wow, this post hits me where it hurts. I've been working one full-time job as a professor (and just been assigned the job of assistant dean) another part-time job as Vice President of a software company, plus trying to get my first novel published (thanks again for your supportive comment on the advance peek of the first chapter on Acrimoney), plus trying to ramp up some momentum again on my blog (and by the way, I just posted a new Dismaying Story), plus doing all the regular-life stuff with 3 teenagers … so it is REALLY hard to find the emotional energy to work on the new novel. I can squeeze in some time to sit down to the laptop, but by then I'm a wet noodle from all the other stuff I've done that day. And then I beat myself up because it feels like I am just making excuses. But I *will* persevere! :o)
Andrew, do you have time to even sit down? 🙂 Sounds like you're extremely busy. I love your dismaying stories – it's great to see that even the most complex-sounding life issues have solutions.
Here I am avoiding the mountains of work by commenting on blogs. You caught me! This is very true. And now, time to get back to work for me!
LOL! Caught in the act myself, Susan. 🙂 Have a nice week.