Beware of the Elephant in the Room

Today, you often hear the phrase “the elephant in the room.” No, it has nothing to do with elephants. But it usually means there’s a subject present that no one wants to talk about. For writers, that subject is whether you’re a writer or an author.

What is it about our society that reveres authors more than writers. Aren’t writers and authors the same? Don’t they both communicate with words? Actually, not all writers are authors and some would say that some authors certainly aren’t good writers.

Beginning writers seem to think if they write a book that they’ll be recognized as a writer. What drives so many beginning writers to write a book when they haven’t written much else? Perhaps the idea goes back to when they were in school.

Everyone learns to read by reading books. Yes they’re short—most have one sentence to a page—but they’re still books. How many first graders are out there reading articles and short stories? None. As they progress through the grades, they read more and more books until, before they know it, they’re sitting in English classes studying literature.

Do you see yourself as a writer? To succeed at writing, you better. If you only see yourself as an author, that lofty ambition may get you into trouble, and you may never ever get your writing career off the ground.

Most writers have to work in a variety of formats to be successful. Books take a long time to prepare, write, and market, compared to articles and short stories. Unfortunately, the reading public doesn’t associate writers with articles or short stories. When was the last time you recalled the name of the writer of an article you’ve read? And perhaps that’s the problem, for when you market a book, you market yourself as well.

A lot goes into writing a book. It’s not just the writing, it’s the research, the organization, the energy. Writing a book is like having a baby elephant—it takes 22 months for the little guy to grow inside it’s mother. That’s just about how long it takes to create a book—getting the idea, marketing the idea, researching the idea, organize the idea, writing the idea, and rewriting the idea. Oh, and let’s not forget promoting the idea.

Articles and short stories take much less effort. And they can be sold over and over again, either reprinted as is or reworked. Once you publish a book, you cannot publish it again. And many books end up in on discount tables and sites or go out of print—that is, die—altogether. This, of course, has to do with copyright laws. And while shorter pieces of writing are also copyrighted, they’re done so for individual periodicals. Once a book is copyrighted, that’s it.

So while you may bask in the glow of book publication, that light may only shine briefly. Writing in a variety of formats not only gives your writing career a good foundation but will also pay off in the long run.

 Learn more about me on my Web site, Writing at Its Best, and on my Facebook Page. And be sure to visit my Writer's Corner for articles about freelance writing and writing in general.

Do You Have a Book in You?

Beginning writers often say they have a book inside them. Well, if they ever expect it to get published, they had better get it out. For many people, the epitome of being a writer is writing books. And although aspiring to be an author is a noble pursuit, it’s not all there is to a writing career.

When writing a book, most writers begin by doing just that. They bury themselves in researching their topic or story and spend months, if not years, writing about it. Sounds logical, doesn’t it? But how many of them actually get their book published?

In general, most people feel they have something so important to say that every publisher will want to publish their book and every reader will run out to buy it. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

This attitude of self-importance originates way back in school—as far back as first grade. Most teachers don’t mean to instill this in their students, it sort of happens through a process of educational osmosis. The teachers had it instilled in them by their teachers in a never-ending educational process. So what is a book writer to do? Market research.



Whether you plan to write a non-fiction or fiction book, it pays to take a look at the market for your idea—not your book. Take a trip to a good bookstore and browse through the books on your topic. This will tell you what’s being sold. Remember, most of the books on the shop’s shelves originated at least two years prior to you seeing them. Now stroll over to the sale tables. The books on these tables are remainders—leftovers that didn’t sell during the book’s most recent run. Many may be terrific, but for some reason didn’t hit the mark. Take notes, being sure to nor publishers names.

Next surf on over to Amazon.com, the world’s greatest book depository. Search for books on your topic. Amazon has practically everything in print. Do the same at their competitor, Barnes and Noble’s Web site. Take more notes, again being careful to note the names of publishers.



After all this research, review your notes and draw some conclusions about how viable your topic really is. Generally, too many books on your topic means the market is overloaded. Too few often means not enough readers are interested or the topic hasn’t been explored to any great degree by writers.

Armed with your conclusions, you’re ready to proceed with your book, modifying the topic to reflect market trends. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t cater to your topic’s market but be driven by it. Doing so will greatly enhance your chance of publication.

And remember, it’s not the book that makes you a writer, but what you have to say in it.

Learn more about me on my Web site, Writing at Its Best, and on my Facebook Page.

There’s No Guarantee of Success

Someone once said that success is one of those things that’s often impossible to predict unless you know you have it in the bag. With success, there are no guarantees.

Before you can be successful, you have to figure out just what success is for you. How do you define it? As a writer, is it getting published? And after you’re published, then what? When you first started out in writing—or if you’re just starting out—your main goal was to get published. You probably thought that getting published would prove to others, and more importantly to yourself, that you had made it as a writer. Unfortunately, one article, one short story, or one book does not a writer make.

So to truly understand what it means to be successful as a writer, you first have to understand what it means to be a writer. When someone asks you what you do, can you confidently say you’re a writer? You can and should do that only if you have a volume of work under your belt. Too many beginning writers are more enamored at the thought of being a writer—perhaps to impress your friends and family—than of actually being a writer.

Success can be and often is fleeting. There are those big successes in life, such as obtaining a college degree or raising a family, and there are those little successes, such as finishing the first draft of a novel. All of them are accomplishments. So to get a true handle on success, you must take into consideration all of your accomplishments. There’s something to be said for being an accomplished writer. That’s a person who has written and published a variety of things often in more than one subject area.

Even if you’re one of those lucky writers who publishes a book the first time out of the gate, having the book published, in essence printed, is no guarantee of success. In this case, your success amounts to how many copies of that book sold. And, even more important, how many copies have been read. Unfortunately, statistics only exist for how many copies sold, enabling you to get on a bestseller list. But a best-read list just doesn’t exist.

That said, you shouldn’t define your success as a writer by how many books you’ve written and perhaps published. Books are only part of the broader writing picture. Successful writers publish an assortment of pieces throughout their careers.

Some writers see awards as a gauge to success, collecting them at every opportunity. They figure that if someone chooses to give them an award, that they have made it as a writer. But the afterglow from an award often lasts shorter than a sunset. Once you’ve been applauded, everyone seems to forget, unless you constantly remind them.

To get an idea of just how successful you are as a writer, periodically list your accomplishments. Once a year or even every six months is often enough. You’ll be amazed at just how successful you’ve become. Remember, don’t count only the big successes in your career. Count the little ones, too. They all add up. 

Don't Give Up

Just about every writer has wanted to throw in the towel at one time or another. Whether it’s lack of ideas, piles of rejections, or lack of motivation, the temptation is always there. And whether or not a writer considers quitting, most don’t. Why is that?

Writing for many is a compulsion. It’s a drive that runs deep. For some, it starts in childhood, for others later in life. But either way, writers feel compelled to write. And anything that gets in the way of this desire causes frustration.

To avoid getting into this trap, it helps if you know some of the causes, so you don’t get into this predicament in the first place.

Some writers just can’t come up with enough ideas. Do you begin working on what you consider a super idea, only to get bogged down because the idea isn’t developing the way you thought it would? This problem usually comes about because you haven’t thought the idea through. But thinking about an idea is only part of the process. You’ve got to plan it out, too—even roughly.

But not every idea is a super one, so it pays to stockpile them. The more ideas you have, the better. Not all of them will be winners. In fact, most of them won’t be. Having other ideas on hand will enable to you to try something else if the first one doesn’t work. No writer should ever quit for lack of ideas.

Rejections, on the other hand, have put an end to many a writing career. To get published, your work must be accepted. If it’s rejected, you don’t have a chance. One writer got 28 rejections on a book idea before he realized that it may be too specific or not in line with what publishers wanted. He didn’t give up. Instead, he tried another which got accepted immediately. He jokingly said that early in his career he got enough rejection slips to wallpaper his bathroom.

A young California food writer wrote a Moroccan cookbook. No one was interested in it, so she published it herself. She ended up with a room full of several thousand books. Did she quit? No. She contacted Nieman Marcus in Texas and got them interested in selling it in their gourmet shop. That worked out fine, so she continued contacting department store chains and gourmet shops across the country. Her first venture was such a success that she went on to publish six more cookbooks.

Lack of motivation causes a lot of beginning writers to think twice about further pursuing a writing career. Wanting to write is one thing. But have a purpose is another. Whatever you write should have purpose. Do you want to inform or entertain or advise? Giving a purpose to your work will make it seem that much more important. Ask yourself why you want to write. If you say it’s just to get noticed, you’ll fail for sure.

Finally, if you’ve been writing for a while and have had some success but are now in a slump due either to a lack of ideas or a lack of markets, think about all the work you’ve put into your career so far. Don’t let it go to waste. Keep plugging away and give yourself another chance.

Looking Ahead

As another year passes into history, it’s time to reflect on your writing career. If you just started out in 2013, then you’ve got your whole career ahead of you. If you’ve been at this a while, then maybe it’s time to take stock of what you’ve accomplished and make some plans for the future.

Let’s say you’ve just begun to work as a freelance writer. Did you find it hard to place your work in the marketplace? Did the process seem frustrating? Do you think you’ve exhausted every avenue?

If you answered “yes” to the above questions, then you have most likely haven’t followed the path of least resistance. Most beginners start out by sending their work to top publications. That’s your first mistake. Remember, you’re a beginner. You haven’t been in the marketplace long enough to establish credentials. So maybe you ought to plan ahead for 2014 so that you can get at least one piece—and hopefully many more—published.

Here are a few tips to getting on track for 2014:

Write about what you know. The first mistake many beginning writers make is writing about subjects they know nothing about. Stick close to home. Write about subjects having to do with work or with a special interest of yours. Doing so will help build your confidence and give what’s called a “voice of authority” to your work. (More on voice of authority will appear in a later blog).

Keep your pieces relatively short. Another mistake beginners make is writing everything there is to know on a subject. It’s not really their fault, however, since the only type of writing they learned to do in school that had anything to do with research was term papers and reports.

Write to communicate. You’re not writing for a grade as you did in school. You’re writing to communicate information to a reader. Unlike your teachers, your readers want to learn about your subject and be somewhat entertained at the same time.

Start with small publications. Search for publications that work with beginning writers. The editors of top publications are too busy to fuss with the musings of beginners. They need writing that’s concise, accurate, and professional, leaving little for them to do but lay it out and print it.

Set some goals. Create some goals for yourself for the coming year and see to it that you achieve them. Check on them occasionally to make sure you’re on track. And if you get off track, get back on as soon as possible. Lots of things can knock you off your game—illness, even a cold, family emergencies, a death in the family, etc. Remind yourself to review your goals in six months to see if they’re still possible or if you have to adjust them to your present situation.

Good luck and make this blog part of your reading for the coming year.

Breaking the Bubble

Have you dreamed of quitting your 9-5 job and becoming a freelance writer? Sure, you have—and so have a lot of others, but only a few ever act on it. Have you ever wondered why?

Linda Formichelli, author of Write Your Way Out of the Rat Race, recently posted a blog for Writer’s Digest in which she extolls the virtues of quitting your day job to take up writing as a career. And while she touches briefly on a few of the negative points, she mostly presents a rosy picture of this transition. And why shouldn’t she? After all, she’s promoting her book, published by Writer’s Digest Books, on this very subject.

But there are a lot of pins, needles, and knives out there that will try to break your dream bubble before you even get started.

To break into freelance writing, you have two choices—literally jump right in by quitting your day job one day and beginning your writing career the next (definitely NOT recommended), or you can plan ahead for a smoother transition.

There’s more to making dreams come true than just wishing them so. Formichelli mentions feeding your family several times in her blog. But she doesn’t clarify what that means. First, how many people are in your family? Feeding them is only the tip of the iceberg. What about clothing, and medical and dental care?

Let’s face it, you have a better chance of succeeding in freelancing if you’re single. No, you shouldn’t divorce your spouse. But buying for one, you’ll eat less food, use less fuel in both your car and home, and need fewer clothes. Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay for your own healthcare now that you’re not working for someone else.

You may counter this by saying that if you’re married, you can add in your spouse’s income. That’s fine if you’re both working 9-5 jobs with a definite income, but as a freelancer, you income will be spotty, especially for the first few years. Will your spouse be willing to provide all the income for your family?

Few people are truly passionate about their jobs. Those who are find real satisfaction in working every day. If you’re planning to write full-time, you better well be passionate about writing. Otherwise, it will end up as just another job—albeit a job with LOTS of headaches.

Can you visualize your life in 25 years? Will you still be as passionate about writing then as you are now? There will be ups and downs. Writers experience burnout just like everyone else. Are you going to be able to deal with it? While your current boss may be demanding some or all of the time, he or she is the one ultimately responsible for keeping their business afloat. When you work for yourself, you shoulder all the responsibility.

But shouldering all the responsibility isn’t all bad. As a freelancer, you’ll have to power to control what you do. You’ll be able to choose your markets. However, there may be times when all your markets collapse at the same time. You lose all your income overnight. While you may think of giving up, what about feeding your family? If you have others that are dependent on you, you may have to think twice about giving it all up and returning to the rat race.

And while your income as a freelancer can be unlimited, the reality is that a writer can only work so many hours in a day or week. You can’t work 24 hours a day, no matter how much money you think you can make. Only a few freelancers ever see the big bucks. Luck has a lot to do with it. Most earn less than they ever could working for someone else, expect possibly working for a fast food chain on minimum wage. There will be times when you’ll be earning less than minimum wage. And don't forget the benefits like paid healthcare and contribution to a retirement account.

So while freelance writing may seem glamorous from the outside, once you’re on the inside, it’s a whole different story. Think carefully before you take the leap.

Ten Things to Do to Achieve Freelance Success

Anyone who plays the ponies knows that in order to boost your odds you need to know and do all you can. Guessing won’t get you the big money. And neither will closing your eyes and pointing to just any horse in the race. So it is with freelancing. To become a success, you have to make it happen. To do so requires you to honestly look at yourself and your business operation for weak areas that need to be improved upon or eliminated.

To get started on the right track, ask yourself the following 10 questions:

    1. Have you learned all you need to know to present yourself in the most professional manner? Look at related areas that might help. Tap any and all sources, including this blog, to learn all you can about the writing business.

    2. Have you kept current with the changes in your industry? What problems do other independent business owners—commercial artists, printers, bookstore owners, consultants, etc.—face every day?

    3. Have you studied your competition as much as possible? By noticing how other writers accomplish what they do, you may be able to pick up some of their techniques to improve  your business practices.

    4. Have you paid attention to current legislation that's bound to affect future business decisions in the industry? To do so you must read online news from Web sites in the industry and subscribe to their E-mail newsletters to be kept up to date, as well as  maintain open lines to important contacts who know about or may be able to influence that legislation (editors, elected officials, influential business persons, etc.).

    5. Have you joined any writing and/or business associations that may offer connections with fellow writers and markets? Have you participated in seminars given by experts in your field?

    6. Have you observed outstanding people in other fields and attempted to discover by what means they leaped forward in their careers?  Did they make bold changes of direction, timely innovations, or conceive creative promotional campaigns? Take time to lunch with friends in other businesses or fellow writers and quiz them intelligently.

    7. Have you set performance goals for yourself and stayed with them? Goals are a great way to motivate yourself.

    8. Have you honestly evaluated the work you've done? Take a hard look at what you’re producing and perhaps seek the opinions of others in the writing field.

    9. Have you trained yourself to troubleshoot problems? Solve problems as they arise rather than put them off until later.

    10: Have you learned to delegate and practiced motivating others to cooperate with you? You can’t do it all by yourself. Try outsourcing some smaller tasks of your business to allow yourself more time to write. When your business reaches a point where you can afford to hire help, and you need it, do so.

You’ll want to return to these pump-priming techniques repeatedly throughout your hopefully long and happy freelance career. You can't afford not to.

Looking Into That Crystal Ball

While it would be nice to have a crystal ball to look into to tell what’s going to happen in your freelance writing career, as far as technology is concerned, it’s just not possible. But there are ways you can predict or at least forecast what may happen. And with a little luck, it will.

If you’re determined enough, you can make anything happen. Your mind is a strange and fascinating thing. Let it work for you. So the first step when looking into the future is to think positively. Imagine yourself a success, and you’ll most likely succeed.

To help plan for the future, know where you hope to be in five years. What kind of writing—articles, stories, books, or a combination of these—do you anticipate producing? How much money do you want to be making? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you obtain the skills necessary for you to succeed.

To make sure you get where you want to go, you’ve got to create a five-year plan. This shouldn’t be set in concrete, but be flexible enough to change as time goes on. But at least you’ll know where you want to end up at the end of that time.

Begin by figuring out where you want to be at the end of your career. Do you see an end, or do you plan to write for the rest of your life? In the beginning, you may not know where you fit in the freelancing world, but after a year or two, you should have a pretty good idea. A freelance career is a living thing. It changes and evolves as it goes, so you’ll need to do the same.

Imagine where you’ll be two years from now. Do you see yourself working full time as a freelancer or do you plan on working part-time for the foreseeable future?

What kind of assignments do you want to receive on a regular basis? And what do you need to know to get them—knowledge, experience, kind of people for contacts, etc.? What have you done so far that will help you get started along this path? Make a list or a spreadsheet of every writing project or job, noting how you did it, with whom you were in contact, and how much you were paid. Seeing that information all together on paper will show you just how well you’re progressing or not. And if not, you’ll be able to see where you’re falling short.

What barriers do you see between where you are now and where you want to be in five years? Don’t be shy or sugar-coat the your situation. Note everything in detail. Is the lack of sufficient funds holding you back? Do you see a way around this? Do your family and friends support you, either financially or emotionally? Do you feel like a writer?

Analyze the current publishing situation. Things haven’t been so great lately. Will that affect your long-term plan. How can you adapt your plan to fit into upcoming industry changes? Do you see yourself publishing ebooks or are you set on print publishing?

How well do you present yourself and your talents? Are you shy about promoting yourself? Do you think that writers shouldn’t do that? Too many beginning writers pick up that kind of attitude from their schooling. To be a successful writer, you have to live in a studio apartment and starve for your craft. That’s nonsense. In today’s world, writers are working professionals just like lots of other people. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Do you overreact to criticism? Beginning writers are notoriously thin-skinned. You may think everyone is out to steal your work. If it’s worth stealing, then perhaps you’d have something to worry about. But as a beginner, it mostly likely isn't. Instead, concentrate on making your writing the best it can be.

Are you trying to handle everything yourself instead of looking for the right kind of help? If you’re having problems with a particular skill, get some help, either through a tutor or a class. Find out all you can about the kind of writing you intend to do. Read lots of examples of it. Become very familiar with its style or organization. Don’t think just because you read articles, stories, or books that you know how to write them.

What warnings have been coming back to you that you've ignored? Have you had the same pieces rejected again and again? Have any editors hinted at why they’ve rejected your work? Try to get some feedback, even from your friends. After all, some of them may be avid readers.

Creating a five-year plan will force you to keep track of the people and places where you'll find help in accomplishing your goals. You won't veer off into sidelines that aren't financially rewarding enough. A five-year plan also maintains vigilance over your best, most lucrative and satisfying ideas. Be both realistic and ambitious—five years can be a very short or a very long time. But if you don't look that far ahead, you'll discover you've lost much more than just five years of your time.

Bluffing It

Bluffing isn’t only for poker players. As a freelance writer, you may find that every once in a while it will come in handy—but be prepared to fast-talk yourself out of a jam should you get caught. Generally speaking, bluffing is making someone think one thing when another or even the opposite is true.

As you start out in your writing career, you don’t have much going for you. You most likely haven’t published much or perhaps nothing at all. And trying to get something published seems to be an uphill battle. It’s a bit like trying to get a loan from your bank without any credit. And while you can’t bluff your way out of not having credit, you can stretch the truth somewhat about publishing.

For instance, let’s say you’ve had an opinion piece published in your local paper—if it still exists. You can list this accomplishment when querying an editor, just don’t say the piece was for the Op-Ed Page. Instead say you had an article published in such and such a paper. It will be difficult for an editor to track it down. But the credit still looks good and isn’t a lie. If you can get short pieces of 300 words or so published in print or on the Internet, that will help to bolster your professional image, especially if the idea you’re pitching is a really good one. What you’ve published and where you’ve published it won’t matter much.

The second bluff you can easily do is to make yourself look successful. Just as dressing for success can make a business career, so dressing your work can help start your writing career. Too many beginning writers think it’s just about the writing. There’s a lot more to it than that.

Start by designing a professional letterhead and perhaps even a simple, but professional looking Web page. Although you’ll most likely be conducting most of your correspondence electronically, you should make a good impression, nonetheless. Beyond correspondence, design your own invoice or get a free pre-formatted one from the Internet. Nothing says you’re professional more than a businesslike invoice.

Along with the above, its imperative to format your writing correctly. The writing biz has standards, and you should learn and follow them. Even if your writing isn’t that great, editors will more likely read it if it’s a good idea formatted as professionally as possible.

A third bluff that may come in handy sometime in your career, but especially in the beginning, is obtaining an interview from a prominent person or celebrity when you’re not writing for the top markets. In this case, it’s important to be honest with the person or their publicist. Don’t lie, but, on the other hand, don’t’ tell them everything.

For example, find out as much about the person as possible. Flattery will get you everywhere in this case. Make an appointment and have your questions prepared ahead of time. In fact, it’s a good idea to send them to the person or publicist in advance of the interview. As in the case above where you list credits that lead someone to believe they’re more than they are, you’ll need to do the same.  Or you can bluff your way into seeing the person.

When George P. Chapman of the Westerly Rhode Island Sun wanted to get an exclusive from Albert Einstein, he pulled a trick that got him past the impatient crew of big-time reporters waiting outside, straight into the genius's living room.

Though he was a reporter, he was also a telephone repairman. Wearing his lineman's boots and work clothes, carrying his tools, Chapman strolled casually to the door of Einstein's summer cottage. "I've come to look over your phone," he said.

The maid let him in, saying, "Good. The professor has been trying to get Washington, and the dial is slow." Chapman produced a can of oil and fixed the recalcitrant machine. Then he turned to Einstein and announced he was a reporter for the local paper. Could he have a statement? He got his scoop with a smile.

Bluffing has its place in freelance, but remember not to overdo it. Once you’ve established yourself, use your own knowledge and credits to build your career.

Choosing the Hare or Tortoise Route

As the old saying goes, “Slow and steady wins the race.” Whether you choose to go the fast route or the slow route to freelance writing success depends on how you start out. If you sprint from the starting line, you may find that soon you’ll run out of energy and slow down considerably. If you start at slow and steady, you may find that you’ll have enough energy to go to big and better things.

You may find that you can jump-start your writing career if you do one of three things. You may get some pieces published in at least six top markets within your first year or so. If you play your cards right, you may find you’ll become a regular in one or two of those markets, thus affording you a steady income. From this early success, you’ll be able to pitch more articles and books to editors because your credibility will have taken a quantum leap.

Another way to jump-start your career is by coming up with a sparkling new and innovative idea for a book which might begin a new trend in publishing. Agents may be beating down your door to get a crack at auctioning it off to the highest bidding publisher. But if you go this route, you must be prepared to continue the trend and come up with even better ideas.

The third way to jump-start your career is by publishing your own work and promoting it every way you can until you end up with one or more bestsellers. Until recently, editors and readers looked up any writer who self-published his or her work as one who wasn’t good enough to get published commercially. However, in today’s fast moving publishing environment of the Internet and E-readers, that attitude is changing fast. So if you’re a good writer and have lots of good ideas and some technical know-how, you can easily produce some great material, bypassing the slower traditional publishing route and hopping on the fast freeway to potential success. (NOTE: I’ll cover self-publishing in future blog posts.)

If you’re an enterprising writer, traveling any of the above routes will get you on the fast-track to success. Being at the right place with the right idea at the right time will guarantee it. On the other hand, you could just get lucky. A magazine editor may love your work and welcome you into his or her stable of writers, sending you assignments faster than you can tackle them. Too many beginning writers only think of this route and pitch their ideas only to top markets, then come crashing down when the editors reject their work or, worse yet, don’t even reply, leaving them in limbo.

For the majority of writers just starting out on the path to success, going slow is the best way. Unlike the hare who starts at the top and then fights to stay there, you’ll need to start at the bottom and work your way up the ladder. It’s a tough climb from which you’ll be knocked down more than a few times, but eventually you’ll reach the top. With lots of writing experience behind you, you’ll have a better chance of staying on top longer.

Avoiding Those Dark Clouds

Dark clouds have descended over my house as thunder rumbles off in the distance. Mother Nature has been doing that a lot lately, keeping my houseplants well watered and lush. But the same thing has happened many times during my freelance career, except the storms are at times less frequent. Freelance writing is a tough business no matter which way you look at it. I’ve had to work hard to succeed in the last 26 years and even harder to make progress. Every time I think I’m well on the way, another obstacle crosses my path. These dark clouds can be daunting and can usually be avoided—although not always.

One of the first of these headaches will be to convince those around you—family, friends, lovers, and yes, even creditors—that you’re really working. Everyone in business for themselves finds themselves in this position. But with freelance writers it’s even harder because much of time a writer spends thinking, which, let’s face it, doesn’t show any physical activity.

Another dark cloud that interferes with many writers’ work is discipline. In this business, it’s imperative to be disciplined. You’ve got to get work done no matter how you feel or how nice it is outside. When it’s a beautiful day, especially in the summer, I take my work outside. I love working on my patio. It’s the ideal place to mull over notes and get my thoughts together. Sure, you can take off whenever you want, but taking off too often doesn’t provide you with money to pay your bills.

To become successful in this business it’s important to have some business acumen. You’ll need to manage your money very carefully and market yourself and your work. Many writers see these as stumbling blocks to their creativity, but both need to work hand-in-hand with it. According to the Small Business Administration, the single biggest reason for failure is a lack of expertise in a chosen field. Second to that comes a lack of understanding of the business side—such things as managing inventory, bookkeeping, understanding what your overhead will be, and managing your cash flow. Unlike a job at which you get paid every week or two, payments will come in sporadically. It’s important to know how to manage your money to make it last.

In the beginning, it may be a struggle to keep going, but eventually you may have the problem of too much work—too many assignments or deadlines. Right when you have several short pieces to complete, your book editor sends you your final galley sheets to be read in just five days! Or right when you plan to enjoy the holidays with your family, a magazine editor calls with a rush assignment that needs to be completed before the New Year. To keep your head straight, you need to set your priorities and make to-do lists—and follow them.

Sometimes, there are even darker clouds on the horizon. During my career, I’ve lost all of my markets at least six times. This happened for a variety of reasons, most of which I can’t begin to fathom. Perhaps my favorite editor left the publication or maybe the publication folded, neither of which I could control. Perhaps the economy takes a nosedive and advertisers stop purchasing ads. Fewer ads equals a thinner magazine, in my case, which results in less editorial and, thus, fewer or no assignments.

This happened in 2001 right after 9/11. Because one of the major areas of my expertise is travel writing, I found myself adrift going into 2002 and have yet to fully recover 10 years later. That one event changed things globally, knocking out many travel markets. But I didn’t let that stop me and turned to other markets I had been cultivating.

And when times get tough, creditors get nasty. To avoid this, I try to stay on top of my bills when times are good so that I have a good record coming into bad times.

One of the most bothersome of those dark clouds are editors who cry on my shoulder that they just can’t pay very much—but want the world. I try not to give in, but sometimes I have to because I need the money. It’s important to judge how much work you’re putting into a project compared to what you’re getting paid. Too many freelance writers work for too little.

Another headache that writers have to deal with today is keeping their office equipment in good running order. Computers are great at increasing productivity until they break down. Most writers know little of the workings of their computer and have to trust other people to fix them which can often be an expensive process.

Lastly, the fast-changing world of communications and the many new outlets for it have changed publishing substantially, making it hard to adjust to competitive conditions. The secret is to evaluate those changes and cope with them. But with the speed of things today, that’s not always possible.



    

The Greatest Adventure of My Life

It’s been a while since I posted anything to this blog. That wasn’t because I didn’t have anything to post but that I was in no condition to post anything. Right after the holidays, I contracted a nasty virus that eventually lasted for a couple of months. This can be a bad situation for a freelance writer, for not feeling well also affected my ability to think and thinking is an inherent part of the writing process.

The symptoms of this virus–beginning with an ear infection and eventually ending up in my chest as acute bronchitis–eventually took me to the Emergency Room at a local hospital. As part of the check-in process, they did an EKG. At the time, everything seemed okay, heartwise. The doctors gave me a prescription for a strong antibiotic and sent me on my way.

A few days later, I got a call from my regular doctor, telling me that the hospital recommended I see a cardiologist as soon as possible. I went to one two days later. Little did I know that I’d be in the hospital for the next two weeks and have three operations to correct blockage in most of my main arteries. It turned out that most of my main blood vessels were 90 percent blocked. The scary thing about this was that I had no signs of any problems–my blood pressure and cholesterol were normal. My cardiologist said I was a walking time bomb.

Medical technology has sure come a long way. After snaking a tiny camera through my blood vessels during arterial catherization, they found the problems and immediately began working to fix them. First, they inserted four stints into my two renal arteries (those going to my kidneys), an artery below my left shoulder, and one in my right leg. A few days later, a surgeon cut open my neck to “clean out” my left carotid—artery (the main one leading to my brain) and two days after that he did the same thing to the one on the right side of my neck.

Two days later, I found myself laying on a cold, narrow steel table, much like the ones they use in the morgue–I watch a lot of the CSI shows—looking up at a myriad of bright lights. Around me were what seemed like an army of machines waiting for the surgical team to plug me into them. For I was about to have my chest cut open and my sternum broken, exposing my heart to what I hoped were skilled hands. In a few moments everything went dark as I fell into an anesthetized sleep in preparation for coronary bypass surgery. To say this scared me to death is an understatement. But for some strange reason I felt unusually calm.

While under the anesthesia, I dreamed I was in FedEx Office’s print shop, having recently had a cookbook printed there. I saw the number “3209" on the wall and tried to figure out what that meant—perhaps it was the number of the next print job. Suddenly, a dapper fellow dressed in a pinstripe suit and a bright-colored natty tie popped in to tell me I was all right and that everything had gone smoothly. At first I thought this can’t be happening, I must be dead, and then I realized it was the surgeon who had operated on me. Now I was really confused. It turned out he had a meeting to attend. It took another 20 minutes to figure out that I was in an Intensive Care Unit room in the same hospital, and now had a myriad of tubes stuck in my chest. This was truly uncomfortable.

And that was the beginning of what has turned out to be the greatest adventure of my life. The recovery process has been a long one, but at 10 weeks this past Friday, I seem to be doing a whole lot better than most in my situation.  And many of those had only bypass surgery. After all those procedures and operations, I should be a lot worse off. But I’m a survivor. I’ve worked just as hard to get through this as I have with my writing over the years. I didn’t make it freelancing for 26 years without a lot of effort and discipline.

For those of you who might be considering freelance writing as a career, remember this: It takes less time to recover from open-heart surgery than it does to become successful at writing.