Writers Unbound

I got the Thursday Thirteen idea from my fellow 451 blogger “JM” at the Book Stacks and Write Anyway… or perhaps Thursday Thirteen is a common blogging thing… I don’t know for sure! Either way, on to my Thursday Thirteen!

Thirteen Writing Prompts For a First Person POV

1. You live one house down from railroad tracks, and…
2. Your a MySpace addict, even though you’re 46.
3. You meet the man of your dreams and find out he’s 15 years younger than you.
4. Every night you write a novel in your head, and every morning you’ve forgotten everything about it.
5. You go to Atlanta for a writing conference, and discover such freedom from your responsibilities that you…
6. Your family pet slowly turns from black to white over the course of one week, and…
7. You meet your childhood best friend on a listserv. You’re delighted, but she doesn’t remember you.
8. You’re running late. You decide to take your children to school in your pajamas. Surely you’ll have no reason to get out of the car, right?
9. You’re 39 with a happy family and two children. You find out you are quite accidentally pregnant. You…
10. With a sudden windfall of cash, you finally get that facelift you’ve always wanted. You’re astounded when your friends react by . . .
11. You realize you’re neighbor has been spying on you. You decide to get them back by. . .
12. You’re daughter develops a special bond with an elderly neighbor. One day she passes on, and. . .
13. Your son decides to join the military upon graduation. You’re a pacifist…

Want some work as a freelance writer? Tired of all those location-based ads? Writers Work Wednesday will link to jobs I’ve scoured and found through my over 80 links to leads!

Will Writers Work Wednesday happen every Wednesday? Possibly and hopefully. One problem I foresee is that you can’t drip current leads a week ahead, and with my upcoming training schedule and vacation schedule, this is problematic.

But for today- on to the J-O-B-S!

Jobroll has a post from Nativespeaker.com needing proofreaders and editors for academic papers.

Insite Grant Developers needs to add a grantwriter to their team. This comes from Write Jobs.

CopyWriters Board has a post regarding a bilingual copywriting position.

 There’s a lead for a Writer for a publishing company over at WritersWeekly.

Freelance Venue has a listing for an article writer.

SparkNotes needs test items preparers. I’m not positive this is telecommute.

The Webby Awards is advertising for more reviewers. I have worked for this project two years in a row and love it!

Worried about competing with the 900 other people who have seen these jobs today? Then drop everything and apply now! One of my secrets to getting freelance positions is to always always apply ASAP. Even though you may be the very best candidate out there, you’ve got to remember that employers often get an avalanche of seekers. Even though they have good intentions, it’s highly likely they get worn out! (I would!)

Another thing to keep in mind is to tailor your response to each job individually. The effort shows!

Best of luck to you, and don’t worry— I didn’t apply for any of these; I’m full up for a week or two!

Hello Allena, thanks for the link and the frequent updates. I’m entering a contest and it asked if my piece had already been published. Parts of it have appeared on my blog. What do you think? There’s no additional clarification.

This is a great question, and I’m going to answer it for all the readers! I myself ran across this very thing recently when I entered the Erma Bombeck Humor Essayscontest on a whim. (Side-note: I found out about this contest through the fine writer’s community at WOW: Women on Writing.)

The Bombeck contest clearly defines what they consider published and unpublished. But, in a circumstance like yours, where no hints are given, we had to take our question to the experts at Writer’s Digest. The verdict ? “It’s considered unpublished if it’s appeared on your blog or someone else’s, though the rules are changing…”

A similar question comes along when freelance writers want to include samples on there site- a good practice- but worry that publishing samples on their site constitutes giving up “first rights” and therefore hesitate to publish the sample. At the same time, posting previously published materials on your sample site may be stepping on your editor’s toes- not to mention your contract. The solution to this last dilemma is simple: ask permission. Most editors will either allow your article to be re-posted , or will provide you a link to an internet version. 

As for the original question, I would go ahead and enter the contest with your piece. If you are very worried, an email to the sponsor may be in order.

Following are some questions I’ve ran into lately from various peers, online and etc.

• What the heck does FNASR mean? This stands for First North American Serial Rights. First of course indicates that this is the first time your piece has been published in North America. While well known as the U.S. and Canada, you should also be aware that Mexico is geographically and officially part of North America, meaning a publisher will not have to ask for International Rights for printing in Mexico. Of course, this will most likely only be an issue in academic works, or bilingual/Latino-targeted publications. Serial rights indicates that the rights apply to a serial (repeating) publication- such as a magazine. For information on managing and making decisions about rights for your work, I highly recommend joining the Freelance Writer’s Union.
• Should I query by phone? Very rarely is this an acceptable method of pitching an article or article idea to an editor. Instead, you should carefully investigate the preferences of an editor through their writer’s page or through the Writer’s Market.
• I haven’t got paid even though I submitted my article at the beginning of December! I saw that my article came out yesterday. Am I dealing with a scam? Actually, probably not. If you have a contract for your work, check the wording. Often magazines will pay after publication. You may be getting your check any day now.
• I notice you’re a full time freelancer. Do you like it? Is it a good fit for moms? Can one really get the bills paid? I do like my job and running my own business. The bills are getting paid, but I have to bust my butt just about every single day to do so. As far as being a good fit for moms, I would not recommend trying to make full time money if you have children who are not yet in school- at least not without some kind of childcare. I have a four year old who is in preschool 3x a week. I do try to get work done the other 2 days, but it’s just so very stressful.

Thanks for all the questions, and sorry about the comments issue. The boss man here at 451 Press is working on it as we speak. Meanwhile, keep emailing using the link to your right!

Writers and hopefuls, I’ve been deluged with freelance work and will be returning SOON. Meanwhile, please enjoy the muzak.

I’ve got away from my life goal lately, which is to leave the world a better place than I found it. Some may say I’ve got pretty far away, and I’d have to concur.

The reason (excuse?) for this is that my writing business is booming, and I simply am treading water one day to the next. So, over the past weekend, I began to brainstorm ideas to combine my two worlds, and this is what I’ve come up with:

• Query articles that help the world. Examples would be travel articles that have a humanitarian slant, education-based articles aimed at segments of the population who may need some help in navigating the system, or inspirational articles such as first-generation college grads.
• Copywrite for humanitarian organizations. Everyone needs copy!
• Offer pro bono grant writing once or twice per year to targeted agencies.
• Start a blog to keep your humanitarian goals accounted for.

I’ve done a couple items on this list, and have written others into my 2008 goals.

By the way, as far as grant writing goes, the ladies at Freelance Parent wrote an exceptionally informative series on it last week.

Good luck and feel free to leave YOUR thoughts on writing and the world.

Do you get writer’s burn out? I guess I get mini-burnout- it’s usually solved by a short weekend. But I’ve read some tales of big time writer’s burn out, and I never want to go there. Here’s a round up of some ideas I found when researching writer’s burn out.

Errant Dreams has a particularly long list, including taking the requisite vacation, journaling and reading. I especially agree with the reading part- that always inspires me!

One of Mar Com Writer’s suggestions particularly hit me: Write in a different genre. I can see that. I recently switched my blogging jobs all to one day. By the end of that day I am so so tired of blogging!

The Urban Muse suggests a hard time to turn off the computer. (Wow, that sounds like a fantasty to me as I drip my week’s posts at 7 o’clock on a Sunday~~!) 

I am open to YOUR suggestions on burnout, although we do have a “comment eating monster” we’re working on here at 451. So, please, feel free to email me gwpublications at gmail dot com and I’ll take care of your comment myself!

I’m with you on this one. Seems I only get through one or two books per year, usually over Christmas Break or on a plane somewhere.

However, this year, I just got tired of it, and one of my resolutions was to fix it. This is what I did.

1) Begin with outlining what challenges you, i.e. Why is this so difficult?

Me: Time, too many books, and too many books half-read.

2) Brainstorm the challenges one by one. Figure out which is the biggest challenge. 

Me: It wasn’t really about Time. In reality, I always try to pick up a book or magazine at the end of the night. If my computer is backing up or taking time to upload, I try to pick up a work-related book to kill the time. So the other two challenges were the real issues. Really, it came down to not knowing which book to pick up, and/or where that particular book was.

3) Solve the big one. Solving the biggest challenge will in and of itself help the others along. Therefore, put your effort into this specific one first and foremost.

Me: It was all about organization and location. So, I cleared a shelf and designated it as mine. No one else’s books can go on this shelf. Then, I resolved to read one book at a time! No more half read books lying about the house.

I placed the books in order that I want to read them on the shelf and voila! a book is always right out front, easy to find, and ready to go at the end of the night.

As writers we all like to read, right? But let’s remind ourselves that it is absolutely vital that we hone our craft by picking up others writing. Let’s make a commitment to training ourselves in this way.

So, what’s your #1 reading challenge? 

Gonzalez was an award-winning poet and writer originally from Spain who taught in New Mexico.

He is closely aligned with the generation of literary figures who opposed the Franco regime (other literati identified with this group include Garcia Lorca, Langston Hughes, Pablo Neruda, Orwell and Hemingway).

I highly recommend further reading of Gonzalez works, and exploration of the literary opposition to Franco’s Spain to anyone who enjoys poetry or Spanish literature, or to anyone who is interested in the juxtaposition of politics and literature. 

So, sometime in the last month I read a blog suggesting that probloggers keep a yearly calendar with a schedule of important blogging days on it… For example, sports bloggers would have the Superbowl and Whatever logged in, political bloggers would have primaries and etc. Seemed like a great idea.

I took it a little further and added in important magazine query dates in it- for example, you would query winter-specific articles three to four months ahead of time, in September…

Then, I added in important dates to my freelance business. I have a recurring customer who needs me every November- January, so I made a note on October to call her.

This has worked well for me so far, and I am quite glad I did it! If you’re New Year’s resolution had anything to do with being more organized, this would be a great practice to adopt!

Next, I did myself one better and set a blogging schedule. I keep 4 blogs, along with 2 personal ones. That’s a lot of blogging, and it keeps the bills paid, so I need to be dedicated and well organized.

I had tried a system in which I blog for each one on a different set of days. For example, my blog at www.parentingdiva.com needs to be updated 2-3 times per week, so I carved out time on Mondays and Wednesdays to do that.

Well, this system hasn’t been working, mostly because my other projects get in the way.

So, today I decided to try something new. I am going to have one day- a “blogging day”- when I do all of my blogging for the week ahead, and then drip the posts (that is, set them to show up in the future on a specified date).

So, that’s what I’m doing today. In fact, this post was written a couple days ago. I’ll let you know how it works!

Please, do let me know how you plan your days/weeks/years. I obviously need all the help I can get!