Entries Tagged 'Freelance Writing' ↓

“I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.” – King Solomon

One thing you can count on from me, when it comes to giving you freelance writing advice, is that I’m going to tell you hard work pays off. Freelance writing isn’t for the weak or the faint of heart; you need to plug away, every day, if you want to succeed. That’s a mantra I’ve recited since day one on this blog.

But sometimes, even when you do everything right, things don’t go the way you want them to go. A client goes out of business, or you get sick and can’t write for a week. Time and chance happen to us all.

It’s little comfort to know that this isn’t just the fate of the freelance writer. When you’re the one that chance and time are unkind to, it doesn’t matter that everyone else from the CEO to the street cleaner is susceptible to them, as well.

Time and chance can be more devastating to the freelance writer than to other folks. Most folks can miss a couple of days of work without worrying about losing their job; when a freelance writer misses a couple of days of work, they can lose clients, which has a direct impact on their bottom line.

Still, I wouldn’t be a writer if it weren’t for time and chance. I’ve been broadsided by fate too many times to count, in hundreds of little events, that have pushed me to the place I am today. It hasn’t always been wonderful; at times it’s been downright painful. But it has also made me who I am, and it has brought me some measure of success.

Success as a freelance writer has little to do with being fast or strong or wise or wealthy. Success as a freelance writer comes by meeting the challenges of time and chance head-on. It means taking the bad along with the good, taking the famine alongside the feast.

There is an advantage that freelance writers have over some other careers, however. As a freelance writer, I have a heck of a lot more flexibility. It’s easier to make adjustments when life happens. That’s the trade-off.

OK, I’ve got three quick housekeeping issues today. If you’re not interested, skip down to the header below and get right to the good stuff!

1. First, get on over to my post at Freelance Writing Jobs Business Tips on 53 Sure-Fire Ways to Lose Clients. That, or just subscribe to the feed and keep update on all of the useful tips and advice for your freelance writing business.




2. You should also vote for Angie’s Pangie’s blog over at CD Kitchen. If you don’t know, Angie Pangie is my beloved wife and an amazing cook. Take my word for it, she deserves your vote.




3. I also wanted to remind you that Thursday is the last day to secure your seat at Copywriting Success Summit 2009 at the early-bird discount rate (a $200 savings, 40% off the regular price!).
   
   

   This is the premier online event for writers (from beginners to veterans) who want to generate better-quality leads, win higher-caliber clients and earn more.
   

   If you want to grow your writing business, you’ll want check this out. Grab your seat at this online event before the $200 discount ends. And don’t forget they’re also including all of the sessions from the 2008 summit at no added cost.
   

   Go here now: Copywriting Success Summit 2009

All right, let’s get on with it, shall we?

Michelangelo and Freelance Writing

You probably don’t realize it, but Michelangelo didn’t want to paint the Sistine Chapel. You see, the artist who created the Pieta and David saw himself as a sculptor. Like any artist at the time, he knew how to handle a brush, but his passion (and most of his income up to that point) had been due to his proficiency as a sculptor.

Not only did Michelangelo see himself as a sculptor rather than a painter, he’d never attempted painting a fresco.

It wasn’t Michelangelo’s idea to paint the chapel. It was a scheme, initiated by Michelangelo’s enemies, to trip him up. They thought he’d do a bad job and be discredited. At the very least, they knew his work would be off the market for several years while he worked on the Sistine Chapel. They managed to convince the Pope that Michelangelo was the right artist for the job.

Now, if you lived in Rome in 1508, you couldn’t tell the Pope, “No thanks, I’m a sculptor.”

Inexperience wasn’t the only obstacle Michelangelo faced, however. To paint a ceiling, the artist has to be positioned on his back on top of a scaffold, for hours on end. The scaffold raises the artist within just inches of the ceiling.

For four years, Michelangelo painted in this way.

The details of Michelangelo’s ordeal were chronicled by Ascanio Condivi, one of Michelangelo’s students, and eventually his biographer. For more from Condivi (and the source material for this article), check out Eye Witness to History. Here’s a bit of what Condivi had to say about what happened after the Sistine Chapel was done:

“After he had accomplished this work, because he had spent such a long time painting with his eyes looking up at the vault, Michelangelo then could not see much when he looked down; so that, if he had to read a letter or other detailed things, he had to hold them with his arms up over his head. Nonetheless, after a while, he gradually grew accustomed to reading again with his eyes looking down. From this we may conceive how great were the attention and diligence with which he did this work.”

What does all of this have to do with freelance writing? I don’t think I have to paint you a picture. Here are the lessons I walked away with from Michelangelo’s tale:

• Expanding beyond our comfort zone just might open up new opportunities. Don’t be afraid to try new kinds of freelance writing, especially if you’re new to the game.
• Don’t let your enemies or detractors get to you. Chances are, history will forget their names anyways.
• Being the best freelance writer you can be sometimes means keeping your gaze upward, whether you want to or not.
• Dilligence in the face of difficult or tedious work often yields amazing success. Don’t believe me? Just take a look:

If you’ve spent any amount of time online looking for writing tips, you’ve probably come across the essay 13 Writing Tips by  Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club (and several other novels, as well). In that essay, Palahniuk offers some excellent advice for writers. As with many novelists, however, much of his advice is aimed at the budding novelist, such as tip number ten: “Write the book you want to read.”

However, I’d like to take a look at his first writing tip and tell you how I apply it to freelance writing. Here is that first tip:

Number One: Two years ago, when I wrote the first of these essays it was about my “egg timer method” of writing. You never saw that essay, but here’s the method: When you don’t want to write, set an egg timer for one hour (or half hour) and sit down to write until the timer rings. If you still hate writing, you’re free in an hour. But usually, by the time that alarm rings, you’ll be so involved in your work, enjoying it so much, you’ll keep going. Instead of an egg timer, you can put a load of clothes in the washer or dryer and use them to time your work. Alternating the thoughtful task of writing with the mindless work of laundry or dish washing will give you the breaks you need for new ideas and insights to occur. If you don’t know what comes next in the story… clean your toilet. Change the bed sheets. For Christ sakes, dust the computer. A better idea will come.

As much as I love my business, there are times when I don’t feel like writing. There are times I downright hate writing. I don’t hate it the way that I hated configuring Cisco routers near the end of my IT career, but there are moments when I’d rather be doing just about anything else.

So, I do what Palahniuk recommends, after a fashion. When I’m really struggling with staying on task, staying motivated or just keeping from being totally perturbed at what I’m writing, I write in shifts. I set the timer to write for 90 minutes, and i plow through. When my 90 minutes are up, I stop for fifteen. It’s sort of my reward for being a good little writer.

During my free time, I might read a book, play on Facebook, play a video game or even take a 15-minute catnap. The important thing is to disengage – get free of my writing for a few minutes – so I can come back recharged.I’m not looking for “new ideas and insights” in the way that Palahniuk talks about. I’m just looking for a distraction – something to take my mind away from the writing for a little bit.

I guess there’s one more thought to add to this mix, too. I’m at the place in my writing business where I don’t have to take every project that comes along. I can turn down a project, or pass it on to one of my writers, if I think it’s going to be too monotonous or boring.

So, what about you? Do you use built-in “egg timer” breaks in your day? Do you need them with every project, or just with certain ones?

I’m happy to announce that today is my debut post over at Freelance Writing Job’s Business Tips for Writers.

In recent months, FWJ has expanded from a single blog into a thriving blog network, and I’m excited to be part of the team. I’m taking over duties for Men with Pens’ own James Chartrand, so I realize from the start that I’ve got some seriously big shoes to fill. I trust you won’t be disappointed.

If you’ve never been to FWJ, make sure you stop by the main site and familiarize yourself with Deb and the crew. Also make sure to subscribe to the Business Tips for Writers feed while you’re at it. I’ll be posting twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Thursday.

Do you know what you would do if your freelance writing business tanked tomorrow? Chances are you’ve thought about it. Every small business owner, somewhere in the back of their mind, has a Plan B. Maybe you figure you’ll go back to school and finish your degree. Maybe you figure you’ll take a job in your former career (if you have one).

Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of this, of course. But there’s another kind of contingency planning that’s worth thinking about:

What will you do if you succeed?

I’ve written many times before about the fact that this business can have its ups and downs, and that you’ve got to refuse as best you can to participate in the downs. That’s essential if you’re going to stay in business. But this other aspect – the up times – deserves some attention, too.

Strike While the Iron is Hot

Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about. Maybe August was a slow month for you. Then, BOOM! September 1st hits and you land a gig that will carry you the rest of the way through the month, and make up for August’s leanness. You jump into the project, fat and happy.

Something happens, though. Plugging away at this new gig, you back off on your marketing efforts. You slack off on follow-up sales emails, or you leave off checking the freelance web sites for a week. Human nature is such that success brings contentment, and contentment can, unfortunately, sap your motivation.

Being prepared for success means not being lulled into complacency by your success. It means working just as hard every day at growing your business, whether you’ve made gangbusters that day or whether you’ve made bupkus.Take advantage of your success and keep the momentum going.

Today’s Success is Tomorrow’s Seed

There’s another aspect to this idea of planning for success, one that’s much more concrete. The fact is this: a successful business knows where it wants to go. Whether you want to be the Queen of Long-Form Sales Pages, Bloggerman or CEO of Web Writers Inc., you’ve got some idea of what ultimate success is going to look like.

If you’re going to hit the big time and really reach those goals, however, you need to have a pretty good idea of how to get there, and it should involve being successful today. Today’s successes are the seeds from which those goals will ultimately grow. Leverage today’s success to make tomorrow even bigger.

You can do this in many different ways. Maybe you can actually shave a little bit of money off the top of a payment to do some advertising. Maybe it’s as simple as adding a particularly good piece to your portfolio. Whatever it is, you need to be always thinking about “how can I use this success to power the growth of my business?”

The Inner Monologue

There are enough other folks out there writing about the power of positive thinking, the dangers of negative self-talk, and how you can’t let fear hold you back. These things are all true, and you’ve heard them before; I don’t need to rehash it here.

I will say, though, that you need to let success increase your confidence. Just as much as losing a sale is an ego blow, making a big sale can pump you right up. When you experience some success, be OK with it. Accept it. Let it work against all of that self-doubt you’ve got going on. Don’t get cocky or arrogant, but allow yourself to take credit for your success.