It’s that time of year again – time to celebrate the value and skills you bring to your clients and the writing world. The Third Annual Writer’s Worth Day is next week – May 14th. All next week we’ll be celebrating by encouraging each other through worth-inducing tips, advice, and sharing of experiences. Please make…
Do You Have What It Takes?
We can talk all day about the feast-and-famine cycle, the unruly clients, the non-paying clients, and the aversion we have to marketing or billing. But at the root of it, we love what we do because it fits us. The cycle of freelancing is part of what we do just as our ability to work…
Mind the Gap
What’s the toughest part of freelancing? Sometimes it’s the work that doesn’t arrive. We talked last week about not playing a waiting game with clients, but this is different. There are times when no matter what you attempt, you can’t find clients or projects. So what then? If you’re a long-time freelancer, you’re used to…
Sick Days and Work Piles
Busy morning already searching down an odd statistic that I remember reading and saving, but can’t find (figures – I’m usually very careful to bookmark these things). I like being busy, but I’m fending off a cold on top of the recurrent sinus infection, so the world’s a chemically-induced fog at the moment. Spent a…
Monthly Assessment – April 2010
Maybe it was the dread leading up to April 15th, but this month seemed to drag for me. I was busy, but not with client work. We had company for ten days, then taxes in the middle of that visit. But the guests are gone (sadly) and the taxes are paid (thankfully). This month’s earnings…
Thursdays and Deadlines
I have a deadline tomorrow. Technically it’s a Saturday deadline, but I covet my weekends too much to spend them working. I’m here 8-5 every weekday. That should be enough. So I wrote the article and sent it to the editor yesterday. There were a few glitches – one of the contacts, an association, has…
Worthy Tip: Take No Prisoners
Maybe because I’m busy I have less patience, but I suspect it’s more because I’m tired of shoddy service. I found myself being forceful with someone on the phone yesterday. On April 19, I transferred money to my daughter’s account using POPMoney. (My bank has dropped the ability to send funds between that bank’s accounts,…
The Waiting is the Hardest Part
In case you missed it, I’ve got a blog post up over at About Freelance Writing. Go on over and give Anne Wayman some link and comment love. Quoting Tom Petty in the title, I would like to ask an open question – how many times in the past 12 months has someone contacted you…
Irritation Amid Hilarity
I’ve beaten the content-mill drum pretty loudly. You’ve heard me suggest that someone getting paid ten bucks or less is not a writer. Thanks to Irreverent Freelancer Kathy Kehrli, I now have proof. She posted a link to an article that is, well, not an article, but a ridiculous string of nonsensical sentences. An example:“A…
Random Friday Chit-chat
Happy Friday! After having ten days off, I was glad that this week was a nice, paced return to work. It kept me from stressing too much and allowed me to rest my foot, which is suffering a lovely dose of tendinitis. I blame kickboxing exercises on carpeted floors. I can almost pinpoint the very…