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Writers Worth: Kicking First

Posted on by lwidmer

I’m a Sharon Hurley Hall fan. In fact, I sort of stalked Sharon for years on social media. I was there, hanging in the background, hoping to get a chance to reach out. Why I was nervous about saying hello is beyond me, and now that I know Sharon, I realize how silly it was…

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Writers Worth: Is Fear Getting in the Way of Your Worth?

Posted on by lwidmer

If life gives us a do-over, I would want to come back as Emily Fowler. She’s vegan (okay, I’m vegetarian — close). She’s tattooed (I’m too fickle to get a tattoo — what if I change my mind?). She’s pink-haired (this week?). She’s about to be a new mom. And she’s British. Geezuz, do some…

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Writers Worth: Removing the Mind-Killer from Client Relations

Posted on by lwidmer

Some friendships are purely coincidental. Such is the friendship that Dana Ford and I share. A technical writer by day, he dons the garb of Super Friend in his off-peak hours. We bonded over fathers and loss. We also bonded over all sports Pittsburgh-related, sharing snippets of “Can you believe that call?” or “Where was…

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Writers Worth: Snipe Hunting and Other Scary Freelance Things

Posted on by lwidmer

Mary Schneider has already overcome a lot of fear. She reached out on this blog, on social media, and made friends. She pushed down the fear of rejection and built connections and friendships. She opted to work hard at her freelancing instead of waiting for success to come to her. And she’s pushed past a…

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Writers Worth: Fear of Reaching Out

Posted on by lwidmer

Marketing Monday. When it lands amid this Writers Worth Month, it’s going to focus on you overcoming fear in some facet of your marketing. Today’s Marketing Move: Lose Your Fear of Reaching Out For every writer who is actively locating clients, there are probably three times as many who would stick skewers in their arms…

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Writers Worth: Fear of Freelance Writing

Posted on by lwidmer

Let me tell you about Joy Drohan. A number of years back, Joy reached out and thanked me for my part in a joint webinar Jake Poinier and I had held that Joy had attended. We got to talking (with me, we always get to talking). She’s now my accountability partner, and — I’m admitting…

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Writers Worth: That Other F Word

Posted on by lwidmer

Cathy Miller is my phone buddy. It’s not unusual for the phone to ring and for Cathy to be on the other end. We’d spent many years in what I call a Writer Gang — Jenn Mattern, Yo Prinzel, Cathy, and me. It transitioned easily to phone calls. And boy, do we talk! Typically we…

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Jake Poinier on Facing Freelance Fears

Posted on by lwidmer

I consider myself lucky — I’ve met Jake Poinier and have shared caffeine with him. We were in Arizona for family reasons, and I remembered Jake was in the area. I sent an email. Before too long, we were sitting outside a Starbucks on a gorgeous day in April, talking as though we’d known each…

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Writers Worth: Controlling Both Sides of Fear

Posted on by lwidmer

Join us on Twitter today at Noon ET for the first of two Writers Worth Month chats – Use hashtag #WWMchat to take part! — One of the first people I met in this writing gig, both online and in person, was Devon Ellington. And I felt like I’d met a long-time friend. She’s a…

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Writers Worth: Fear and Competition

Posted on by lwidmer

Welcome to Week Two of Writers Worth Month! Even amid our annual celebration, there’s room for a Marketing Monday or three, don’t you think? That’s because marketing never ends, particularly as we’re learning to overcome fear. This Week’s Marketing Move: Lose Your Fear of Competition How many times have you said or even thought something…

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  1. Paula Hendrickson Avatar
    Paula Hendrickson

    Okay. I’ll admit it. When I was first starting out I was one of the first freelancers to write for a locally-published national trade magazine. And for some (possibly OCD) reason, I kept a running tally of bylines in each issue. I wrote a list of names and added their latest bylines to whatever total they’d had the issue before. I usually had the highest total, but every so often another writer would catch up.

    I have no idea why I did that – it’s not as if they accepted queries. The editors made the assignments, so it wasn’t as if seeing another writer catching up to me motivated me to send in more ideas. It was probably a way to placate a beginner’s insecurities: they wouldn’t assign me so many stories if I weren’t good. Whatever the reason, it motivated me to be thorough, dig deeper, and turn in clean copy that ran almost verbatim in most cases.

    I know it was a silly thing to do. I don’t remember when I stopped doing it, but it may have been when the publisher replaced the entire (all female) editorial team with an all-male editorial team led by a former local sports writer who was in over his head. I gave the new guys a shot, but “fired” them after a few months of dealing with their new dysfunctional system.

    Reply
    1. lwidmer Avatar
      lwidmer

      It’s not silly, Paula. It’s what we do to validate our efforts, I think. I used to do something similar — I’d browse the issues and see who got the cover feature. Even if I had three articles in that magazine to someone else’s cover story, I had to resist letting it bother me. After a while, I realized cover stories weren’t really the do-all-end-all goal. Payment was. LOL

    2. Paula Hendrickson Avatar
      Paula Hendrickson

      I don’t know why people get so hung up on whether something is a cover story or not. I’ve never been paid a bonus when one of my articles made the cover, so it’s just an ego thing. But saying you wrote the cover story sure sounds good.

    3. lwidmer Avatar
      lwidmer

      I remember a coworker who’d been at the company longer than I had. He stopped in my office doorway and was all worried. “I have the cover story next month! It’s so much pressure! How do you do it?”

      I resisted the urge to say “I stop complaining and sit my ass down and write.” But I did tell him something similar. It’s just a story, and if you worry it to death, it will be your last.

  2. Jake Poinier Avatar
    Jake Poinier

    You just jogged my memory on a long-ago lost competition. I’d submitted my name to be in contention for some project, can’t remember what. But here’s the fun part: The woman who rejected me accidentally cc’d me in an email to her team–and said something not-so-nice that I could have taken offense to. Instead, I was very pleasant and thanked her for her time & consideration, while letting her know I’d been cc’d.

    Reply
    1. lwidmer Avatar
      lwidmer

      Good for you, Jake. I think the response itself, with her own words attached, were punishment enough. By being gracious, you underscored her lack of the same.

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