Wake Up Your Wild Side

All writing begins with sense of adventure and an appetite for life. If you’re starting this year off safe in your comfort zone, perhaps it’s time to wake up your wild side and your imagination.

Start out by taking a good look at yourself. What makes you tick? What are you afraid of? What does that fear feel like? Knowing more about yourself and how you handle various situations makes you able to anticipate problems before they occur.

Make a list of your accomplishments during the last year or so. Also list problems you had and how you solved them. Did you get creative in resolving them? Then think back to when you were young. What did you do for fun? What turned you on? Perhaps you’ve been away from that spontaneity too long.

When opportunity knocks, do you answer the door or hide behind it? To take advantage of opportunities, you have to be ready.

First, get yourself in physical shape. While you may not have to climb mountains, you may have to conquer obstacles in the path of your career. The better shape you’re in physically, the better shape you’ll be in mentally. Exercise and eat right. You don’t have to go to extremes, just eat more fruits, veggies, and whole grains and go for a walk every day. And not a leisurely walk around the block, but a faster one around a few blocks. Increase the distance a bit every week.

Learn to recognize opportunity. This may come in the form of something you overhear or something you’ve read. Then give opportunity a chance. Don’t let that inner “No” take over. Ask yourself “What if?”

Look behind the scenes at situations. Go where you’re not supposed to. If you’re caught, make up an excuse. Think fast on your feet. Ask questions—lots of questions. Curiosity is one of the prime attributes of a good writer. It takes nerve to ask questions, especially if you’re not a journalist. But you’ll learn off-the-record, juicy information that may suggest nonfiction book and article ideas as well as fictional plotlines.

When you stay as you are, you get stale. Your life and your writing remains static. Resolve to learn something new. Take a class. Take time to follow one of your interests that you’ve been ignoring for a while. Start working on that book idea that’s been gnawing at you. Or learn some new information about a subject that you’ve been interested in for a while.

Learn to eavesdrop on others’ conversation. Sure, it’s impolite, but it may yield something juicy. When you go out to eat with someone, keep one ear tuned to them and one to the tables around you. You never know what you’ll hear. It may just turn out to be something you can use in your next short story or novel or perhaps it may spark a new investigative article.

One of the best places to eavesdrop is a coffeeshop or café. Often people who haven’t seen each other in a long time meet over coffee to talk their heads off, or people meeting for a not-exactly-a-date first date, or to discuss something important, will do it in a coffee shop. Take an older couple at Starbucks. After listening for a while, it was obvious they had met through an Internet dating site, had chatted with each other for a while, and were finally meeting. The conversation yielded some interesting facts about what older people are looking for in a mate.

On another occasion, a family from Germany had stopped at Starbucks for a break while sightseeing. Even though they were speaking German, it was interesting to see how they reacted to their surroundings and each other.

Or what about the younger couple and their two kids at a fast-food restaurant. While the mother rocked her newborn in a stroller, her slightly older son put on a tantrum. The scene that followed brought up some interesting questions about sibling rivalry and how new parents deal with it.

Finally, do something that normally turns you off. Never been to a strip club? Go. Afraid of what you’ll find out about yourself? Skeptical about mediums? Attend a séance. Do nursing homes creep you out? Walk into one, find a lonely person and talk to them. Avoid making judgements. Just let what happens happen.

Busting out of your comfort zone to seek out unique experiences will not only make you a more complete person and bring authenticity to your writing, but also it may suggest new ideas and new work. While you don’t have to get into the ring with the bull like Ernest Hemingway, you can at least watch from the stands and gain an insight into bullfighting.

Avoiding Deadends and Deadbeats

As you move forward in your freelance career, you’ll no doubt run into deadend markets and deadbeat editors. Perhaps the only problem you’ll have is to wait for the acceptance of your pieces. But chances are you’ll have many more negative experiences.

Editors are busy people. When an editor says he or she will send a reply to your query tomorrow, you can bet it will probably not arrive, at least not for a while. It pays to follow up with all your correspondence. Sending a polite reminder is good business, not hassling an editor.

Maybe you’ve been working with an editor for quite a while. You believe you have a good relationship. He’s told you that he likes your work. Then one day, you fail to get a response. It turns out that he moved on to a completely different type of publication—without telling you. You can try to track him down, but you’d be better off finding a new market.
                                         
In these uncertain economic times, it’s not unusual for a magazine to fold precipitously. You may have been waiting patiently to get paid, and it isn’t until several months later that you discover that the publisher went bankrupt.

Writers used to have to worry about whether the U.S. Postal Service delivered their manuscript. And even if your manuscript arrived it then got stuck in the mailroom. There seemed to be a definite relationship between how many floors a building had and how long your article sat in the mailroom. And if you sent your work to one of the higher paying periodicals, it most likely ended up in the slush pile where it may have sat for several weeks before an unpaid intern took a look at it.

Your article is accepted; you're jubilant. Then you get word from the editor that she had to kill your article. Even then you have to wait an unduly long time for the kill fee. Needless to say, the article's timeliness has been its undoing—the poor thing now is dead. You can’t even send it elsewhere.

And if you think that one or more of these may happen to you at various times, think again. It’s not uncommon in the freelance biz for nearly all of them to happen at the same time or at least one right after the other. It’s enough to drive a writer crazy.
                                               
Can you spot these possible disasters beforehand? In some cases, yes. But most of time, no. In fact, you may have no indication that a problem exists until the worst happens.

You can prevent some negative experiences from happening by taking a few precautions. Many writers refuse to do more than send a query to a new publication, then sit back and wait for the results. You’ll soon discover that there’s always a shakedown period at a new publication. You don't want to get caught in the fallout. Some magazines just don’t make it.

Magazines that pay on publication are notorious for creating problems. Publishers want to hang on to their money for as long as possible. Many times "pay on publication" means "several months or more after publication." But then, you may be trying to get into a new market. The number of publications paying on acceptance has dwindled with the recession. Do your homework and study the markets before you decide to send any work to them.

One tactic you might use is to wait the required time for an answer from a publisher or editor, then send a registered letter advising you're withdrawing your manuscript or query. You’ll then be free to submit it elsewhere.

To avoid problems once you get an assignment, you should make sure to immediately follow the conversation with a follow-up letter of assignment—sent by Email or regular mail—detailing the article topic, length, agreed-upon rates, delivery date, and expenses to be paid.

Lastly, save all Email messages from editors. When you do have a problem, you can then send forward the original message to the editor who may be denying what he or she said in the first place. It’s only then that you’ll exclaim, “Thank God for Email!”

Creative Thinking Comes Before Creative Writing

Many writers don’t think before they write—at least not creatively. Because of this, they get mired in the mess of words that sometimes pours out of their heads without any idea of where they’re going with them.

Part of the reason for this goes back to school. While some teachers encourage creative thinking, most don’t. They’re under pressure to cover all the material in the curriculum for their course in a specified time, and in many cases that doesn’t leave room to get creative.

A young, enthusiastic English teacher, who also was an actor in her off hours, got very creative in teaching Shakespeare. The head of the English department admonished her for doing so and not sticking to the curriculum for her course. Needless to say, the teacher took it until the end of the year, then she quit. Her students really got into Shakespeare, but according to the old biddy who headed up the department, that wasn’t the way to do it.

Many beginning writers believe if they just sit in front of their computer that the right words will pour out. They think this way because in school they often had to write in class with little time to properly think out what they were doing. While this type of spontaneous writing may work part of the time, usually when it does, it’s a “happy accident”—a fine creation that usually can’t be duplicated because the writer doesn’t know how they did it in the first place. The trick is to figure out how to creatively solve a writing problem, so the procedure can be repeated. Stephen King has authored lots of books. Once he figured out how to make his first one a success, all he had to do was creatively think of other plots that he could use. By making them twist and turn, he came up with a mass of work.

When beginning a writing project, it’s important to sit and think about it from several different angles. Look at all the possibilities. Mull it over. One of those possibilities might be out in left field, but it just may turn out to be the best solution. Jot down every alternative that seems like it might work.

As a freelance writer, you need to also think creatively at every opportunity, not just to write creatively but to operate your business that way. Once you start thinking creatively, you’ll find that it eventually becomes second nature. Life, itself, is a puzzle, but freelance writing is an even bigger one.

With brighter, more creative ideas than your competition, you can move forward quickly in freelancing. Never accept what looks like a closed door. Move in closer and give it a shove. You may discover it was simply an optical illusion.

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.