I try not to go into big office supply stores, because I get a little jittery. All those smooth, shiny pens. Rows of blank notebooks. Stacks of printer paper wink at me. I can’t take a credit card in there. It’s too dangerous.

But that’s nothing compared to me in a bookstore. My palms get sweaty, my breath short and rapid, and my eyes dart from row to row of luscious books. Which one to pick up? Which one to hold? Which one to flip through for this short, far too short space of time? I end up shuffling back to a table with a ten-high stack, knowing I’ll probably not get through the first before my coffee is gone.

I can never read them all. I can never write about them all. Even if I could “catch up” somehow on the printed words that wait for me, the new amount being produced every day would soon have me drowning again. And add magazines, newspapers, journals, and I’m not even mentioning online media. I love all these fluffier bringers of the written word, but it’s the books that get me.

This is why I got an English degree instead of a Music degree. I can go a day without singing, but not without words, reading them and writing them. And music, for me, is another form of reading or writing. It’s the lyrics that matter most when I listen, or the stories that are told by the instruments.

In the bookstore, I try to keep my table stack to five or less these days so I have a chance to actually flip through them all. I still wish for more time, even though my hand is shaking after a couple of hours of scratching out notes, ideas, story lines, and article sketches while holding up a fat book and imbibing strong coffee.

Maybe someday I’ll open a bookstore. Even if I can’t read them all, I could be near them.

Let’s review.

1> a mission, vision, goal, purpose
2> a means (your type of writing)
3> a method (how you get your means on paper)
4> an experience, voice, perspective, history
5> an inflowing of ideas, inspiration, and information

Yesterday we talked about Mission and Means. Today we’ll examine Method, Experience, and that last one with all the i alliteration.

A Method - how you get writing into your life

You know why you’re writing (mission).
You know what you’re writing (means).
Now you must answer this question: How will you do it? What steps must you take to produce some kind of writing every day? “There is no perfect time to write,” says Barbar Kinslover, author of The Poisonwood Bible, “There is only now.”

Somehow we must fit the now for writing into our busy days, our other work, our family obligations, our house cleaning, our dinnertime, our vacations and our big projects. I don’t have a foolproof method to give you. Sorry. Everybody’s life is different, so every writer must find a method that works in the context of that life. The point here is to remind you that you must have one. If you don’t plan for writing, if you don’t sit down and map out a way to make it part of your life, then it won’t be part of your life.

Whether you are working at home, moonlighting on your great American novel, or writing poetry in between term papers, fitting it in somewhere every day is essential to keeping yourself alive as a writer. If you’ve just been stuffing your time to write into the edges of your day (where it’s liable to slide off into oblivion), start scheduling a specific time. Maybe you do write, all day, every day, but it’s time for your novel, your collection of short stories, your memoir that you can’t seem to find. Can you eliminate an article or two from your daily quota and take half an hour to work on a bigger project? Even a little bit a day become a big bit after many days.

Your Experience - the voice, history, and perspective that permeate your work

This particular tool is called voice most often in writing workshops and How to Write Fiction instructional books. It’s more than that, though. The sum of who you are comes forth in what you write, even if you’re copy writing for a toothpaste company. Who you are. It’s why you say “gleam” instead of “shine,” why you have a thing for one-liners so subtle half your audience won’t get them, why you need a clear picture of each character’s hair.

This tool is the easiest, in a way, because it’s already there. Your past, your experience, your family, your education, your accent - all that undeniable baggage. Using the tool effectively is where we tend to get lazy. Don’t discount where you come from as too boring to affect your stories. Want a secret for effective writing? People are fascinated by other people. We like stories about people, about their boring lives and boring days and boring conversations coated over their intriguing thoughts and dreams and worlds within. We like the juxtaposition of someone else’s normal life laid out next to our own.

Use your story. Acknowledge your history. Dig from your past and consciously include who you are in your stories. You don’t have to write a tell-all childhood confession or affect a regional accent. Just let who you honestly are influence your style without fear. You’re real, and that’s what people want to read about. Something real. Someone real.

Inflowing of Ideas, Inspiration, and Information

I know I’ve already talked about how important reading is to a writer, and it is. We need fresh food, not to regurgitate, but to fuel ourselves so we can produce something new and worthwhile.

Books are essential, lots of books, lots of different kinds of books. Newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals are fuel. Online reading and blogs provide fuel.

Conversations with interesting people, intelligent people, people just like you, people totally different than you: these are necessary. Talking is writing on air, with no draft to edit and no record of how many adverbs you used. Talk to people everywhere you go. Pretend you’re an extrovert sometimes, even if you’re not.

New experiences and places and activities provide fresh fuel as well. Jump out of your routine sometimes. Start being observant. Notice colors in the atmosphere. What’s the weather like? How do your shoes fit? Why is that woman staring at the wall? How is it that so many people can’t parallel park? What brings people to this farmer’s market early on a weekend morning? Ask questions. Examining them will turn into an essay, an article, a book. You might even end up with a few answers.

The old, the mundane, the repetitive motions of your day: these are fuel, too, if you can force your mind to go new places even as you walk the rut. Every day is different, if you can be thoughtful enough about it. Ask questions about what you’re doing and why. Learn more about your own life. And most of all:

Write.

That’s the last tool of the mercenary writer. It’s you, sitting at the computer while the laundry waits on the bed. It’s you, jotting down an idea while you’re in the carpool line. It’s you, taking a notebook along on a run for groceries. It’s you, being who you are, not letting the daily stuff of life be an obstacle but letting it be what carries you on.
Credits:
Cartoon Knight attacking the PC from CartoonStock.com.
Quotations source: Writing.com.

“It’s called a lance, helloooo?”

-A Knight’s Tale

So here you are, the Mercenary Writer, seeker of fame and fortune and a good cup of coffee, out to conquer the world, abolish dangling participles, and make enough money to pay off your new laptop. How will you do it?

With these amazing, unstoppable, unbeatable, fear-reducing, critic-crushing, voice-of-self-doubt-demolishing

WEAPONS OF WRITING WARFARE!

I think that lance is supposed to be red, but I like that it turns out kind of pink. Cuz I’m a girrrrrrl. (And everybody knows how much all girls love pink.)

Lance, Check; Shield, Check; Horse, Check; Gigantic Battle Axe, Check.

Your weapons are as follows:
1> a mission, vision, goal, purpose
2> a means (your type of writing)
3> a method (how you get your means on paper)
4> an experience, voice, perspective, history
5> an inflowing of ideas, inspiration, and information

I know, I know, not as cool as, say, a mace. Just as effective, though, for the writer’s enemies, which come from within as often as from without. I’ll elaborate a wee bit on the first two of our five essential weapons. (The last three will come tomorrow.)

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It…

Mission, Vision, Goal, Purpose, Big Picture, Dream, Ideal, Change, whichever term you prefer, that’s what I mean. You must be writing for more than this moment, more than this payment, more than another comment on your post. Why? Because the moment fades. The cash gets spent faster than you can say ‘alliteration.’ The comment is forgotten. (But not the post, please, not the post forgotten, too!)

You need a deeper well to draw from on the dry-weather days. You need a better reason to force out another article. If it’s just about the money, you can go get a better-paying job (maybe even one with health insurance!). If it’s just about being well-known, you’ve been deceived about the freelance world. Get out now and go into pop music (if you’re under 22 and halfway good-looking) or get your child to go into pop music (if you’re slightly over 22).

I will stop myself here. You understand what I mean. Why do you write? You know this, but it’s better if it’s plastered all over your desk, your computer, your space, so you can’t forget it. Take a moment to refine your vision into one or two crystal-clear sentences. Repeat them to yourself often.

A Means to Your End

Once you have refined your vision, you can usually see the way - the means - to get there. What kind of writing corresponds with your vision? Do you prefer a lance, a sword, or a crossbow? Fiction or nonfiction? Online or print? Prose or poetry? First person or third? Memoir or biography? Essay or how-to manual? What will best serve you right now, in what you need to accomplish in writing for yourself, for your career, and for the people who read what you’ve written?

Sure, your means will change over time. You probably won’t be limited to only one within the course of a day. But what is your primary means of output? What do you prefer? If you know this preference, you have the information you need to choose on job over another, to determine if an offer is worth the time. Knowledge is power, remember.

Ride on over tomorrow for a look at the last three weapons in the mercenary writer’s arsenal.

Image Credits:
Jousting Knight from Richard S. William’s wsu.edu page.
Knight in Armor from Aurora History Boutique.
Medieval Mace from KnightsEdge.com.
Medieval Axe from StormTheCastle.com.

This is my favorite definition of freelance, because of #4. It’s from WordNet.
Freelance: 1) working for yourself, 2) a writer or artist who sells services to different employers without a long-term contract with any of them, 3) work independently and on temporary contracts rather than for a long-term employer, 4) mercenary(a): used of soldiers hired by a foreign army.
Wikipedia elaborates on the origin of the word: “The term “freelance” was first coined by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) in his well-known historical romance Ivanhoe to describe a “medieval mercenary warrior” (or “free-lance”).”
I’m picturing myself on a large horse fitted for medieval battle, riding forward, wind in my face, lance…er… pen held high against the foe! Being a freelance writer is more adventurous than anyone realizes. Except for freelancers. We realize it, because we really do ride into battle every day. We don’t think of it that way. We don’t give ourselves enough credit for facing up to giants and coming out victorious. True, sometimes we retreat. Sometimes we come away from the encounter bleeding and bedraggled. Sometimes we roll over, bury our head under the pillow, and refuse the orders to march on.

There is a point to this analogy.

See that fierce medieval warrior up there? He is mounted on his horse, clothed in armor, and has his sword ready. He is equipped to be effective in battle. Then there’s this guy, the peasant.

He might be more comfortable, but he will die a lot sooner.

You get the point. Writing, and living, and surviving as a freelance writer is difficult and dangerous. Without preparation, proper weapons, and a good battle strategy, we’re not better off than a peasant with a pitchfork.

Next time: The proper weapons for a mercenary writer.

Image Credit:
Medieval Warrior from Mount and Blade.
Medieval Peasant from MaskWorld.

I picked up Roy Peter Clark’s book, Writing Tools, a couple of weeks ago, and have been gleefully browsing through it since. It isn’t the kind of book you have to read front to back. Each of the fifty tools has its own chapter with examples and suggested workshop exercises.
You can see a Quick List of the writing tools at Poynter’s website. Get the book, though. The explanations and examples are clear and helpful for understanding how to use these tools in your own writing. I’m sure you could come up with your own exercises, but it’s time-saving to have a list of 4 or 5 at the end of each chapter.
Books like these are essential for writers, especially full-time writers. Why? Because we get too sure. We become comfortable with the craft and the business of writing and forget that, like any craft, there are ever higher levels for us craftsmen to reach. We slip into habits. We don’t realize how fluffy and sloppy our writing gets; we are too familiar with it.
Reading Clark’s book not only brings up many grade-school lessons I’ve forgotten, it also affirms the need for constant improvement. Success as a writer - at least meaningful success - requires an excellence and professionalism that must not be allowed to grow stale.

You grow or you die.

Some of my favorite tools from Clark’s list:

• #7 Fear not the long sentence.
• #8 Establish a pattern, then give it a twist.
• #14 Get the name of the dog.
• #26 Use dialogue as a form of action.
• #48 Limit self-criticism in early drafts.

There are podcasts available on the Quick List for 1 through 32. I’m listening to #24 right now.

The writer’s work is discouraging. You sit and write for two or three hours and end up with a couple of pages to show, which you will then sit and edit for two or three hours until the pages are reduced to paragraphs. You complete the article, or essay, or chapter. You turn it in. You wait. You check your bank account.
The writer’s work is a long-term investment. You don’t see the pay-off right away. Your friends and peers question the wisdom of it. You defend it to silence the same questions in your own mind. Your resume seems juvenile for a long time.
The writer’s work is full of pitfalls. Too many adverbs. Show, don’t tell. Wrong topic. Not enough expertise. Crunchy transitions when you wanted smooth. Smooth dialogue when you wanted crunchy. A flat character, and she is the protagonist. And she is based on you. Now you feel flat. A stack of writing how-to, freelance how-to, fiction how-to, contest how-to books by your desk. You read an obscure, unpublished writer’s blog instead.
The writer’s work is isolating. Even the librarians are a little scared of you sometimes. Your laptop has a name and a personality. You’re thinking of making it a character in your next novel. You get a kind of hunted look when the phone rings. You crawl under the table if the doorbell rings. You repeat potential character names to yourself in the grocery store. Out loud.
The writer’s work is addicting. You’ve bought at least one ton of coffee in the last year to keep yourself awake, morning and night, so you can write more. You can’t help buying more paper, more pens, and you would buy more laptops if your credit limit were higher. You’re always jotting story ideas down on receipts, envelopes, your arm. Your child has a crisis at school, and on your way there you’re working the story into the plot line. Your husband says something funny and you jot it down for your next blog post. You consider dressing like Elvira for the PTA meeting just so you can write about it. You wish your childhood had been worse so you would have more material.
The writer’s work is never ending. You sway between exhilaration and exhaustion at the number of pages you must produce to produce your major works, win a few contests, and cap off with a few essay collections before you retire at 53, when you will move to Scotland and begin on your memoir. And maybe a writing how-to book.

And with no further ado…

1. Idealist.org is a forum and resource for non-profit organizations. They have a job board which you can search according to your criteria. This morning I found 10 results under “freelance writer” and 5 under “contract/editing and writing.” Not a lot, perhaps, but also not a really well-known site in the freelance world.
2. JournalismJobs.com is a great resource for freelance work. Under “freelance” keyword search today, I found 78 offers.
3. Berkeley’s Journalism Jobs page is also a great resource. You’ll find some repeats here, but it’s worth scrolling through.
4. Writerfind.com offers a job board and a place to list your profile.
5. Creative Hotlist. 20 or so opportunities under Writer or Writing.
6. Indeed.com pulls from a large database of classifieds, sites, etc. to list job opportunities. You’ll find some repeats from other pages, sure, but there are also lots of more obscure sources that you might not have seen.
7. FreelanceWriting.com offers this Magazine Guideline Database. Great resource.
8. Allena at About.com’s Guide to Freelance Writing offers a thorough list of Where to Find Freelance Jobs and Resources. Very helpful.
9. Freelance Writing Jobs is my favorite. I started watching this list first, and I got this gig at 451Press through the site. Job listings every weekday, plus lots of helpful articles.
10. FictionFanatic.com offers a job board with listings for “Fiction Writers, StoryTellers, and Poets.” Updated twice daily…
11. Performancing.com and BloggerJobs are sister sites; you might see some overlap, but they are worth checking regularly.
12. The Yahoo Job Directory is big. Check various topics, like Literature and Creative Writing Jobs as well as Freelance Writing Jobs.
13. Check The Burry Man Writers Center for links to lots of different sites and job opportunities.

You know how you’re not supposed to bail out someone with an addiction, because it doesn’t allow him to deal with the consequences of his behavior? And how you’re not supposed to bring beer around an alcoholic, or smoke weed around a drug addict (okay, you’re just not supposed to smoke weed, period), or open up a box of Swiss Cake Rolls around a sugar addict?

I received this email yesterday after my Moleskine addiction confession:

Hi Annie,
I just wanted to let you know about a way that you can personalize your moleskine notebooks. If you visit the site above you can view all the art that we have available to be laser etched onto your moleskine or you can choose to upload your own artwork.
This could be a great way to decorate an otherwise ‘plain’ journal.
Samantha Tse
ETCHSTAR

This is the website for Samantha’s company. You can get a Moleskine with your initial on it, a favorite quotation, an artsy image, or a famous person’s face: Barak, Hillary, Bart Simpson.

Great. I’m on the road to recovery now.

I’ve eyed them, but held myself back. Why pay $15 for a notebook when I can pay $5 for a plainer one without an inside pocket? It’s all paper.
Last week I did it. Just the little three-pack of pocket plain journals, no harm in that.
I’m hooked. I peeled off the plastic, thumbed the pages, and read ‘The history of a legendary notebook’ like it was the finest piece of writing I’d encountered in a year. Who can resist a “self-effacing keeper of an extraordinary tradition”? They are trusty, pocket-sized, European. Famous people have used them. (I’m more impressed by Van Gogh than Chatwin, but we all have different heroes.)

I don’t know how I will go to Borders without buying another every time. I must write more and sell more articles (I feel like I’m talking about prostitution or child labor whenever I say that phrase) so I can support this habit. Writing more will require more Moleskine notebooks. I will be trapped in a supply-and-demand cycle of my own making.

At least I know how to say Moleskine now.

I received this email from Doug Pugh, Administrator at The Write Idea:

The Write Idea, a small but friendly writers forum have recently released details of the first annual competition named in honour of their founder.
Consisting of nine rounds of short stories over eighteen weeks, or nine poetry rounds over the same timespan, there is a cash prize for the winner, along with publication of each round winner in an end of competition anthology.

Here are a few more details about the competition:
Requirements: Anyone over the age of 18 who writes fiction or poetry in English. (Excluding Whittaker Prize judges and TWI administrators.) Anyone wishing to participate in this competition must currently be a member of TWI or register and be accepted as a member of the forum.

Categories: fiction and poetry. Writers may enter one category or both categories.

Fee: £15 ($30 Cdn or US). Writers may enter BOTH categories for a fee of £25 ($50 CDN or US). Fees may be paid via PayPal to donnagee@rogers.com or email donnagee@vianet.com to make other arrangements (i.e. cheque or money order). NOTE: If you enter all nine rounds, the entry fee works out to approximately £1.70 per round. And you’ll have nine pieces of writing in your back pocket.

Prizes: $200 US for Fiction Winner, $200 US for Poetry Winner

The contest follows a schedule with posted prompts on particular days and then two weeks to write and submit to each prompt. For the schedule and more details, go here.

Write.