Fun post today. A little break from the writing-related discussions we usually have. Well, sort of a break. We were shopping for a microwave yesterday (and a hard drive, but this story is about the experience with the other necessity). The store clerk, a woman, greeted us, then assaulted us with reams of information. My…
Author: lwidmer
Technology Bytes
It’s a good thing I don’t rely on my laptop as my primary technology. I turned it on over the weekend and out came this noise. It would seem the disk drive is dead. Now how it died while I was on vacation, no one is saying. I suspect it was dropped, but I’ll never…
Losing Your Comfort Zone
In a weekend conversation, we were talking about the times in which we had grown in our lives and our careers. In his life, he took an interest and went after it. In my life, I went beyond my comfort zone into new areas. In both cases, we grew. In the case of careers, same…
Monthly Assessment – August
My word, has it been a month already? It seems like I just wrote my monthly assessment for July. Well, the calendar says it’s time, so here goes. It was a short month for me in the earnings department thanks to two weeks in Scotland – has it really been two weeks since I came…
Advice for a Fellow Freelancer
Sometimes we run up against an issue that we can’t see our way to solving. Such is the case of one writer, who asked for anonymity, and her current client. I promised her I’d ask my blog readers to help her figure out how to deal with this situation. I have my own ideas, which…
What We Can Do
I had a great phone conversation yesterday with another writer, Sally. (Hi Sally!) In the course of the conversation, she and I covered everything from crazy former bosses to the current state of freelancing. One of the biggest topics we talked about was the proliferation of awful job postings on the Internet. As we lamented…
Bringing Down the Velvet Hammer
I had to approach an uncomfortable topic with a client recently – I was ruminating about it with a writer friend, basically revving myself up enough to just get it over with. So when I wrote to the client to assert certain working terms we’d agree on, I copied the writer friend. He wrote back…
Here’s To You
I strongly encourage you to head over to Maria Schneider’s blog and nominate your favorite for her Top 25 blogging contest. And thank you to Georganna Hancock and Devon Ellington for nominating me. I appreciate the honor! The trouble with blog contests is they have to exclude someone. Seriously, how can you include all your…
Looking Like a Friggin’ Genius in Front of Your Clients
It was a small thing, but I passed it on to my client who now thinks I’m a genius. Why, she may even have an altar up with my Facebook photo on it…. Okay, I exaggerate just a bit, but I did impress the socks off my client and in return got a thank-you note…
Bidding Sites – How They Lure Us
I’m so glad to see so many of you who have turned away from bidding sites. I’m especially thrilled that Cheryl made the decision after the last Writers Worth Day. Cheryl, you’ll never regret it! We’re all intelligent people. We know it’s unwise to pay to access job listings. But we’ve done it. Why? Because…