lwidmer | Words on the Page

My Freelance Pros (and Cons) in 2021

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I’m out of the office all month. Did your throat just tighten up? The idea of taking time off at all usually gives me hives or agita or stresses me to the point it takes days to relax on vacation. But this time, I walked away easily. Very easily. Since April 2020, I’ve been working like…

Freelance Game Plan: 12 Ways to Improve Your Freelance Business

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Look at you — you’ve made it to December. You worked a long, hard year and you’ve come to the end of it hopefully in a better place than where you started. And now it’s winding down. Just for a moment, look over your shoulder. Look back through each month and see not where you…

4 Ways to Reinforce Your Freelance Boundaries

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It’s the holiday season. One down, several to go before January. Now is the time when client budgets are either spent or being spent rapidly. It’s also a time when clients make unusual requests. Some of those requests are boundary breakers. And it’s up to us writers to know when to say no. One example:…

5 Random Freelance Tips to Boost Your Biz

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When I interview people, I emulate Bryant Gumbel. In my head, I’m sitting in front of the person, and I’ve got my glasses in my hand, sort of dangling to one side as I balance a notepad on my lap, just like Bryant Gumbel. I’m asking the tough questions, and I’m ending the interview with…

5 Freelance Mistakes I Made (& what to do instead)

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I turned down a steady gig recently. Two actually. And I don’t regret it. The first one was a no-brainer. The pay was there, but the workload was a bit much for what was expected. I would have lost money — and time — if I’d kept that client. So I politely declined further assignments….

Freelance Writers Behaving Badly

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It happened again. Who am I kidding? It happens continuously. In forums, in email, in groups. People everywhere are committing the same sins that label them all. They act like lazy little shits. I was researching markets for a client pitch. A website I located had a list of markets for that particular niche industry….

Freelance Game Plan: Planning Your Next Year

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It’s November 2021. Do you know where your plan for 2022 is? I’m a big believer in every day being your best chance to plan your future. You could start today and plan for what next week, next month, next year, or the next decade will look like. And I contend that you should. Right…

A Zen Writer’s Guide to Reducing Stress

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It’s funny how sometimes you go along, mired in stress, thinking about work after hours, losing sleep (literally), and then it hits you: You don’t have to write like this. Since early April 2020, I’ve been swimming in projects. That’s 19 months of working nearly nonstop on what amounted to (and still amounts to) roughly…

Rocking a Freelance Niche (while staying a generalist)

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Even though I missed it last week, there was a good conversation going on Michelle Garrett’s Twitter #FreelanceChat. The topic turned to niche writing. It’s a common discussion point among writers because it’s a common problem. Should I niche or should I generalize? And like most discussions on the topic, the Twitter conversation split pretty…

The Freelancer’s Stress-reducer Guide

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It took three days for my shoulders and neck to relax. But they did. Vacations these days are tough to come by. Either you’re too busy to go anywhere or you’re out of work and can’t afford to go anywhere. Then there’s that pandemic thing… Yet it’s amazing what a week away, without electronic connection,…

Paula Hendrickson

Not sure how I avoided Zoom fatigue, but I can count all of work-related video chats I had throughout the pandemic on fewer than 10 fingers. And I only recall maybe 6 others with family or friends – all in the early days because the others couldn’t cope with not seeing people. Once they were Zoomed out or able to have socially-distance gatherings, they no longer needed video chats.

With work stuff, I’ve reached the point where I refuse to take on stress from others. Last week when a publicist repeatedly blew my deadline I simply said either they get me what I need in time for me to meet my deadline, or I turn in what I have. And that’s what I did, along with a note to the editor explaining why one out of 20 entires had no quotes. (When one publicist can’t get three sentences from one person cover the course of at least 10 days it usually means they forgot about it until the last minute.)

Today a source missed the call he set up. I graciously stayed on the “conference call” for 15 minutes in case he was running late (gotta love a speaker phone) – and emailed so he would know I would still be there. When eh didn’t show, I called his place of business. Call was transferred, but never connected with voice mail because the call got disconnected. I tried calling back again, and this time the call disconnected before it could be answered. I assume they’re having phone/internet issues, so I emailed him again saying I’d be available until Noon today (17 minutes away) or tomorrow afternoon. I let my editor know about the issues connecting with the source. What I won’t do is loose sleep worrying about it. If he wants free publicity by being quoted in an article, he’ll get in touch. If not, this article will be fine without him.

1. lwidmer
  
  I wish I had just 10 calls this whole pandemic. I have at least that many per month. I do restrict them to phone only on my side. Being “on” all the time is exhausting.
  
  Good for you. Yep, you cannot hold the burden for people who can’t be bothered. I’m like you — I don’t get why these people pass on free publicity all the time. It’s not as though in my line of work they’d be scandalized by something they said. Not too many people out there hanging on the words of a workers compensation expert. LOL
Paula Hendrickson

Update: The guy apologized for forgetting the call, asked if we could speak today,. I immediately replied asking if the same time was okay. No response. I took a risk and called this morning. the guy who answered the phone said he was in and would see if he was available; he was on the phone, but said I should call back in 20 minutes. I literally set a timer. Called back in 20 minutes only to be told he LEFT THE OFFICE five minutes earlier. Why tell someone to call back in 20 minutes if you know you’re leaving before then?

I sent him an email saying that if for any reason he doesn’t have time to speak to me, I’d appreciate it if he would suggest someone else at the business I could interview. Nearly three hours later, still no reply,

I emailed my editor saying I’d done trying to reach that guy. I’ve spent way too much of my time (which I’m not paid for) trying to get him on the phone. He might be the face of their brand and think he’s above needing to respect someone else’s time, but he’s not. I would happily NOT include his company in the article. And am preparing to do just that.

Paula Hendrickson

(Ignore the copious number of typos above. It’s been a LONG week.)

1. lwidmer
  
  Paula, I think you made the right move. Frankly, the “He left the office five minutes ago” sounded like a dodge to me. Just say he doesn’t want to talk if that’s the case. Stop wasting time, dude.
  
  I’d be over that guy, too. Perhaps a visit to his location sometime might get him to warm up to talking with you? I’m really not sure why people dodge free publicity like this. It’s insane.
Gabriella

Wow, Paula. You are very diligent–impressively so. I’d have thrown in the towel with the guy and told my editor I’d made repeated efforts to contact him and had no luck.

Lori, I’m over the top in stress these days. No travel due to covid plus all the stressors of work, plus people being on edge. I did the same as you recently–got away for a week at a lake house, and it was great but even felt too short.

I also knock off early each day. I do emails between 6-7 a.m., then go swimming and am back at my desk by 9. I work pretty much nonstop until 4, with two dog walks in there. But I refuse to work evenings and weekends. I’ve had people ask, and I don’t feel the need to explain; I simply say I’m already tied up. Why be your own boss if you have to work 24/7?

I’ve also cut the bad news. I read the news in the morning and then am pretty much done for the day. I can’t change much going on in the world today, and as we now know, what seems remarkable today won’t even be memorable in a month now that the news comes at us so fast. Why worry my pretty little head?

Anyway, thanks for airing this. It’s encouraging to know that I’m not the only one feeling stressed.

1. lwidmer
  
  Gabriella, we’re all tightly wound right now, I think. I hear it in the voices around me, see it on faces in the street, and on Zoom, people sound Zoomed out. It’s great to have work as a place to find some modicum of what normal might look like again, but damn. Like you, I’m not letting it become everything. We need to switch off, and we have the right to do so!
  
  You’re fortunate that you have that lovely pup of yours for companionship. 🙂 He makes me smile!
Paula Hendrickson

“Why be your own boss if you have to work 24/7” needs to go on a t-shirt.

I’m finally at the point where I’ll only even consider working evenings or weekends if I have a pressing deadline or took off a day or two mid-week.

Also, not sure I’m diligent as much as I don’t want any of those sources complaining to the editor that I never followed up with them. So I guess it’s my little passive-aggressive way of dealing with the “I’m so important I don’t have time for this” people—99.999% of which like thinking of themselves as big fish in a very little pond. Please. I’m a happy as a little fish swimming in a much bigger, better, and less-polluted pond.

1. lwidmer
  
  And as soon as I said it, didn’t I work this weekend? LOL I have a crazy week this week, and I wanted to get ahead of it. The article I wrote was about an hour-and-a-half out of a slow Sunday, and it’s already approved and filed, so not a bad thing to get off the desk.
  
  I like your attitude in general, Paula. I’ve never been nervous about interviewing sources, so their attitudes toward getting back to you would cement my distaste for self-aggrandized behavior.