Category Archives: freelance writing

freelance writing, Writing

What do they call that big change thing?

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Back in the mid-90s it seems everyone was talking about paradigm shifts. I can’t tell you how many business meetings I sat in and hear someone say, “We have to make a paradigm shift here,” or “We’re undergoing a paradigm shift.” I wasn’t quite sure what that meant other than a change in outlook, or maybe a change in philosophy. I made a mental to-do entry to look up “paradigm”, but never got to that part of the “list.”

Then, in the mid-00s, it seems everyone was talking about a “sea change”. I’m not actually sure how to spell sea, since I’ve never seen this term written. I heard this more from television, from pundits on the 24 hour news outlets. “We are about to experience a sea change in this county,” or some such drivel as that. I have never bothered to look up that phrase in one of the instantly available Internet resources, but I’m sure I could enter it in a toolbar blank and get all sorts of definitions. I suppose it is another euphemism for a big change.

Whatever a paradigm shift is exactly, and whatever sea change really is (or how it is spelled), I’m pretty sure I’m going through one right now in my writing life. The shift from writing novels and Bible studies has resulted in a big change in what I do in those few hours I have in a day to devote to writing. Yesterday noon and last night were devoted mainly to freelance activities. Oh, I managed to type some on the next two Bible studies I’m going to teach, all of 20 minutes or so. But otherwise I was freelancing both evenings.

Wednesday evening after church I worked on query letters for new magazine articles. I completed two, but decided to let them sit overnight before looking at them again then sending them off. Last night, however, I forgot about them and worked on getting my Suite101.com account set up. That was actually quite simple, so I went to the new member’s tutorials and managed to get through two of them (interrupted by a phone call) before I left the Dungeon and went upstairs.

This would normally be my reading time, from 10 to 11 PM, but I had noticed, or rather remembered, when typing in one of those Bible studies that I had already done a bunch of work on it that wasn’t with the papers I was typing. So instead of reading I began going through piles of papers–in my closet, beside my nightstand, next to my reading chair, in my portfolio–to find that earlier work. I found it, fifteen minutes later, carefully filed and indexed in a notebook I had failed to mark on the outside. That left me some time to read, and Team of Rivals is a little bit closer to being completed.

I want you all to know that I am not embracing this freelance thing. I’m pursuing it, dragging my feet, clinging to novels and Bible studies till my knuckles are white, all the time saying, “I’m doing this to build a platform so I can publish novels; I’m doing this to accumulate clips so I can publish novels.” I don’t yet know how this sea change, or paradigm shift, or whatever they now call a big change, will set with me. Two roads diverged in a wood. And I’m on the one I never intended to be on. I’m just afraid that knowing how way leads on to way, I shall never get back. Off to do another tutorial before starting my day job.

Engineering, freelance writing

A New Freelance Submittal

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This will be a short post at the end of a busy day. My flood plain study still refuses to cooperate. I’ve got all of the garbage out of my input file (I think), and have worked the six main analyses to perfection. I’ve even started the technical report. However, one additional analysis remains, of encroachments into the flood plain. This is a must. I’ve worked on it off and on since last Friday, but the computer calculated results are not within acceptable ranges. I’m doing something wrong, but can’t figure out what. Will continue to work it tomorrow.

I just made a freelance submission, to be a regular writer at Suite 101. This site doesn’t pay for articles up front, but rather shares ad revenue with freelancers. Others report that their articles generate about a dollar per month, but I don’t know if that is typical, high, or low. The contract will require posting ten 400-600 word articles every three months, which shouldn’t be too difficult. We’ll see what happens.

Edit on June 17, 2009: My application was accepted. Waiting on a web site glitch to be fixed to access and sign the contract. Interesting that I’m accepted to a somewhat regular freelance writing gig on the 35th anniversary of my starting my first job as an engineer.

That leaves me with freelance submittal as follows so far this year:

9 submittals
1 acceptance Make that 2
1 rejection
7 not heard Make that 6
0 withdrawals

Of course, six of those were my short story “Mom’s Letter” to six different literary magazines. And on the first query I submitted for a freelance article, the on-line query letter may not have gone through. I keep meaning to re-post it, just in case it didn’t go through. So, I’m not doing all that bad so far in 2009.

And, I managed to go the entire evening without playing a computer game. I’ll count this as a make-up day for the 40 I didn’t do during Lent. Only 39 to go.

freelance writing, Genealogy

The Proofs

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We left on our road trip last Wednesday morning, leaving no time for a morning check of e-mail. It was not until we arrived in Chicago on Friday that I checked e-mail and found the proofs of my article for Internet Genealogy.

For those who don’t write, I’ll explain. With freelance writing you generally don’t write the article until you have an assignment. First, after researching a magazine to see if the idea you want to write about seems to work for that mag, you write a query letter and submit it to the mag. If the idea and any specifics you give them seem to fit their themes and publishing schedule, they give you the assignment. For bigger mags this will result in a contract with certain performance requirements from the author. For smaller mags there may not be a contract, only a virtual “handshake”. Then you write and submit the article. At this point you have no guarantee that the article will be accepted and used. The mag may have given out more assignments than they can actually publish, knowing some freelancers might miss a deadline. Or they may wind up not liking your writing. So, although you have an assignment, that is not a guarantee of publication.

I submitted the article on May 26, I think it was, almost a week ahead of schedule. And I began a patient wait for the e-mail that said, “Yes, we think your writing is acceptable; and yes, we have the space, so your article is accepted and will be in our xxxx issue.” As a first time freelancer, this was a difficult thing. I fear that my article won’t measure up. So from May 26 to early June 5 I heard nothing.

Finally the morning of June 5 I opened my e-mail, and there was one received June 3rd from the the copy editor of Internet Genealogy, not saying my article was accepted, but rather conveying the proofs of the article–that is, the article as it will be laid out in the magazine. In other words, it was accepted, and will indeed be in the next issue of the magazine. Sweet!

I don’t know when payment will be coming, but I almost don’t care. The article was accepted.

Last night I began putting ideas for more articles on paper, planning to query the same magazine and other genealogy magazines with additional ideas. That will be my noon hour tasks today, to continue that process. Maybe I can get one in by tomorrow.

This freelance thing is fun.

career, freelance writing, Writing

Normalcy

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Everyone’s gone. The kids left with Ephraim about 3:00 PM on Monday. My mother-in-law left about 6:00 PM Monday. It’s back to me and Lynda again. Last night was quiet. After a supper of Sonic burgers on half-price night, I tried to balance the checkbook (off by $0.36, which I’ll find tonight) then went walking, about a mile and a quarter. Lynda didn’t join me, as she is still recovering from the effects of the stomach virus that hit her over the weekend. Then I entered about a month of finances in my budget spreadsheet. I was a good boy, and didn’t allow myself to check e-mail, work on writing stuff, or play any computer games until I had finances up to date. The checkbook is only part of it. Then read in Team of Rivals from about 10:30 to midnight, getting my ten pages read to the backdrop of a Clint Eastwood movie. Not the best way to read history, or get your needed sleep.

But I’m kind of wondering what normalcy is any more. As I’ve said before, I’m now working for about 68 percent of what I was making a little over a year ago, with no hope of any raises anytime soon unless I change jobs, something I don’t want to do; now is not the time. But I see some deflationary signs. Our weekly half gallon of milk costs 82 percent of what it did a year ago. The grocery bill has dropped some, maybe 10 percent. Our prescriptions continue to trend down just a little bit. Gas is going back up, but is still well below where it was when the salary cuts began. And we got rid of one car (that Charles had but wasn’t using), so insurance will go down.

Inflation is not gone, however, and I’ve had two recent negative hits to the budget, one small, one big. The small one is the cable TV/Internet access bill, which just went up 3.22 percent. How can they justify this increase when times are so hard? The other is our mortgage, which went up a whopping $120 dollars due to an escrow deficiency. This is due to the imposition of city taxes. We voted to incorporate as a city (sorry all you Rhode Islanders who have no idea what I’m talking about, but we have territory out here that is in the county but not in a city; so were we until) November 2006, and the resulting City property taxes are now kicking in. So we have to pay. And I’m good with that; I voted in favor of incorporation. It’s still a big budget hit, however.

So I’m kind of looking at my new move into freelance writing from a different perspective: not just to build a writer’s platform and demonstrate literary competence, but also generate a little income. Emphasis on little, because in two hours a night and more time on the weekend, I’m not going to earn much. Still, if I could get an average of $100 a month, which is probably within reach, I would make up for that budget-busting mortgage.

Is this the new normal? Rather than pursue writing withing the abundance of my day job, to now pursue it via the freelance route as a near economic necessity? Perhaps that’s a good thing. I can quit playing and become more serious. Time will tell.