There are two sides to the writer debate – those who require certain comforts and those who can write in the middle of a toxic dump. I’d argue both types are just as likely to have hazardous work environments. Your office could be making you sick, or at the very least, decreasing your productivity. The good news is there simple way to creating a safe and healthy work environment.

1. Trouble in the Air

The information is scary: according to the August 2000 EPA Indoor Environments Division, Indoor Air Quality and Student Performance report, “Indoor air quality can reduce a person’s ability to perform specific mental tasks requiring concentration, calculation, or memory.” While this specific report discusses students in school, the same can be said for those who require mental acrobatics to earn a paycheck. The solution?

1. Air filtration appliances. Units are available at every price point and are especially helpful for those who have basement offices.

2. Check for radon. Radon is an odorless, tasteless, radioactive gas. It can cause cancer, but can also be detected with a quick and easy test.

3.Get a plant or two. Certain plants suck the toxins of the air. Common chemicals from building materials – formaldehyde, benzene, etc. could be doing a conga line around your desk. Pick up a peace lily and park it in your space.

4. Open a window. Simple right? Nature’s filtration system.

Ergonomics

Hunched over a keyboard typing away…that’s how writers are supposed to be right? Not unless you want a chiropractor to become your best friend. Poor typing habits are hard to break, but buying ergonomic furniture and aids; practicing good posture and workstation alignment and taking breaks will help prevent costly problems like back injuries and eye strain.

Cleaning

An obvious solution, but one many of us overlook. When’s the last time you cleaned underneath the lampshade or vacuumed your keyboard? Simply wiping up crumbs isn’t enough to keep your office safe.

1. Dust and or sweep with a moist cloth to protect from launching dustbunnies into the air.
2. Use a vacuum with a Hepa filter and clean the bag or canister outside.
3. Use natural cleaning products like white vinegar to cut down on unknown pollutants in commercial cleaning supplies.
4. Rugs should be cleaned regularly. If you are in cold weather, wait for a snowy day, haul the rug out and let it sit outside for an hour, once the rug is cold drop it on clean snow and beat it with a broom. Flip it over and beat it some more. The cold will help kill germs and the snow helps clean the fibers without soaking them and damaging the rug. *This is not absolute rug advice, if your rug is expensive or has been in your family for 100 years then hire a professional, don’t try to sue me!*

Green

Kooky chemicals are everywhere, but greener alternatives to traditional inks, papers, etc. are readily available at great prices online and at local office supply stores. Recycled paper, soy ink, glass, metal or wood office organizers from sustainable sources promotes healthy business practices out in the world and at home.

Beautify

So, after buying a weeping fig plant, stocking up on bamboo office accessories and using that odd vacuum cleaner attachment on the back of the computer monitor all’s well in the world right?

Not quite.

I have seen some truly horrific home offices. Neat, clean and completely devoid of any warmth. A desk, chair and wall calendar does not make an office. Infuse some personality into your space. Warm, inviting work areas boosts productivity and overall well being.

Even if funds are tight, cheap and inspiring art can be made by simply framing some of your published pieces. Those clips are accomplishments whether for Time Magazine or Paper Clips Monthly.com. Don’t forget pictures of your family or dog and your ticket stub from that killer concert as well.

Writers spend countless hours in their office meeting deadlines, it is a worthwhile investment to create a space that is inviting, productive and safe. After all, you can’t beat a deadline if your dead.

What do you love about your home office? How can you improve it?

The Heat.

There’s nothing like the heat of new blog post, new assignment or new magazine. The magazine represents an opportunity. The blog post or assignment represents a conquest. You’ve gotten in the door, now you want to hang a while so you make yourself useful. You caress every part of the piece lingering on the lede (foreplay), delving into and thoroughly exploring the depths of the piece’s body and bringing the whole thing to a fully satisfying conclusion. You send it off knowing you’ve done your best, you’re a bit cocky, but still attentive to the post comments or editor’s response.

The Saltines.

While writing has many of the upsides of sex, it also has many of the downsides – boredom, familiarity. Eddie Murphy had a bit during a stand-up performance about dating and sex. He basically said when you’re waiting for the right moment you’re like a person who is starving and when it finally happens it’s like giving a starving person a cracker. It’s the best cracker they’ve ever had, however after a while it’s really just the same old crackers.*

Have you been around the writing block a few times?  Are you simply going through the motions with an occasional comment response? You have discovered that wonderful opportunity is still the same old crackers – it’s still work. The danger of the rut is you could lose the relationship, so…

• Revisit the past. Pull out your clips and re-read your work.
• Ask for what you want. Go to your editor or your audience and ask them about their interests, what new areas are they interested in exploring.
• Bring in another love. Open relationships are helpful in writing, it keeps things fresh. Explore other interests and bring back a fresh outlook on your main love.
• Take a class. If you have a particular niche, learn more about it,  read an alternative point of view, try handcuffs…wait. Oops.
• Take a break. Sometimes even the most storied relationships falter. Moving out, getting some air and seeing what the world has to offer will go a long way in helping you decide if it’s time to move on or if what you have is worth reinvesting.

Writing is a passion. It can be red-hot and all consuming. Just be mindful – passions wane; everyday life, billing and other interests can sometimes get in the way. Refocus on the fire that kept you typing through all hours of the night.

How do you keep your passion for writing alive?

*The Eddie Murphy clip was a little too raw for me to post here so if you’d like to have the link shoot me an email at Terreece@TerreeceClarke.com. It’s funny stuff or Google it.

Many define a writer’s success by their annual revenue. Others measure success by a writer’s influence – both online and offline. I look at those things, but I also look at a less rosy and overlooked area of success – feedback. We’ve all felt the sting of a rejection letter and after so many, one may begin to wonder if they’ll ever make it. Sometimes the worse sting is a rejection letter after so many successful pitches. These occurrences are actually good for you, they toughen up that squishy writer heart which is important because:

This is a business.

You are creating a product to be sold for consumption. Yes, the product is a thoughtfully produced, creatively birthed and may contain the remnants of a few tears, but it is, still a product. You need to produce the product, deliver the product and bill for the product (and likely follow up on the billing). It is important to provide proper, enthusiastic customer service and be able to accept feedback because…

Feedback matters.

Feedback is usually the writer’s only way of knowing whether they are meeting the needs of their clients/readers. It is what we use to determine if we need to move in a new direction, stay the course or abandon ship and run for the hills (never that!). It is what keeps us profitable. Feedback, positive or negative, is important because you then know…

Your stuff is out there.

If your work wasn’t out there – queries to editors, blog posts, articles, book proposals – you wouldn’t get the rejection letters, negative comments or positive, helpful critiques. Do you know how many writers struggle just to make it that far? To write the query, to get someone to read the blog post to finish that hellish process known as book proposals? It’s where many a writing career dies. You made it past the blank page with the blinking, winking, taunting cursor. THAT is a victory. Someone received your words, read them and took the time to either give helpful advice or bang out some less than kind criticism, but that doesn’t dilute the fact that they read. Your. Work.

Thicker Skin = Critical Eye.

In order to become better writers we must evolve. We must challenge what we know about writing, how we write and what we write so we can continue to improve. Feedback prompts us to self-reflect. Most editors aren’t out to get you, their job is to know what works for their publication/site. They are helping you learn what their audience wants and when you deliver it, you elevate yourself to ‘go-to’ status. Developing a thick skin about comments, critiques and attacks allows for you to cast a critical eye on your work that will only make you better.

Not every piece of feedback is helpful, correct or necessary, but it is necessary for writers to develop a thick skin in order be able to determine the helpful nuggets of information from the junk.

How do you handle criticism and feedback?

“Oh!” they exclaim, now seemingly impressed. It’s annoying.

Before talking with Deb today I have wondered if I should state what I do differently and market myself differently. Instead of freelance writer, I should maybe say journalist. Instead of saying I own a business that provides writing services, maybe I should say I’m a business consultant…

Here’s the thing. It really doesn’t matter because, writer or journalist, people will ask about who I write for and when I don’t say the local paper or give a well-known publication title, their little eyes will glaze over and I’m back in hobbyist land. It doesn’t matter that I write for the top freelance writing website. It doesn’t matter that I’m paid to hang out on Twitter and Facebook and when I’m off the clock I’m building a brand and they take part in building that brand everyday whether they know it or not. They don’t get it and I’m through trying to help them understand.

If I worked for NASA, someone would be disappointed I wasn’t an astronaut. You see my point? Our career choice is just that – a choice. We chose to become champions of the written word for better or worse. Sure it can get annoying when people think you sit at home eating bon bons, watching Oprah and scratching your butt with your keyboard, but we should realize most of these people are actually jealous. They just got off the longest commute of their lives from a place of hell and they have no choice but to appear there each and everyday if they want to go on eating.

Feel a little better? Still annoyed? Try these things:

• Cut out the daily interruptions by not being available. If you’re working, don’t answer the door when the neighbors show up, don’t answer the phone with your bored friend calls, don’t allow yourself to be guilted into favors.
• End conversations with action phrases. “I’m sorry I’ve got to go edit a piece. I’ll call you later.” “No can do, I’ve got a conference call in an hour.” These are gentle, but not too subtle reminders that you do work and more importantly, they are interrupting.
• Crack their face. “Oh, you’re always on Facebook!” Your response: “I know, it’s great to get paid to interact with people in such a fun way.”

Yes there are days I work in my jammies. There are days I write a piece, do some laundry, play with the kids and bake cookies. And yes, I’ve watched Oprah in my jammies while eating cookies. I do it every so often because I can.

The majority of my time, however, is spent writing, meeting, pitching, running to wash at least some underwear for the family, sliding back online while Elmo sings his closing song so I can manage a community and answer the 300 emails from folks who “see me playing on Facebook” and want to know how I can help them and better yet, how they can pay me to help them.

My respect comes from the way I conduct my business, how I handle my clients and how I ignore the haters, wannabes and neverbes. Consultant, home-based business, freelancer, whatever you call yourself, call yourself lucky and talented!

What’s your title? What are the advantages/disadvantages of it?

Hire a professional organizer.

Yes, they do exist. If you can get paid to sit at home in your underwear and blog about cats, these professional can get paid to get dressed, leave the house and come organize yours. A professional organizer is a cheerleader/drill sargent that will help you organize the good stuff and finally get rid of those freakin Vanilla Ice posters. No, they will not be worth millions someday. They will also help you figure out what kind of organizing style works for you. I’m a visual organizer. If I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist so clear bins and open shelves work better for me.

Speed sort.

Before you head off to the store to buy massive gray bins, speed sort your junk, um, stuff. Sort things into the keep, toss or share/donate pile. No lingering! If you can’t decide toss it. You’ll quickly learn about what you really can live without.

Hit the paper trail.

Writers hoard a lot of paper. Clips, research, old publications, receipts from twelve years ago. Here’s where it gets tricky. You have to sort the paper, according to how you categorize items. Be ruthless. Remember, you’re clearing out clutter, not moving clutter from one spot to the next. If you don’t need it, kick it to the curb.

Make everyday life easier.

• Drop junk mail into a bin by the front door. It can be decorative certainly, but it’s at the door so it can take be taken out with the rest of the recycling.
• Put your keys in the same place everyday. Hana Haatainen Caye uses a basket at the front door. A hook is useful or a small table. Whatever it is, pick the spot and stick with it.
• Misti Sandefur uses a file cabinet for her papers, however, a horizontal filing system may work better for you, the key is to have a place and category for every piece of paper. No fair using one gigantic misc. file!
• Make tidying a regular routine Misti also advises.

Here are a few websites I found that have some office, home & life tips:

Unclutter.com

18 Five-Minute Decluttering Tips to Start Conquering Your Mess

And what’s a declutter conversation without a tip from an Oprah guru? Peter Walsh’s Ten Ways to Declutter Your Home

Clearing out clutter is about keeping what’s important, creating a place and space for everything and being consistent with your organization. Clutter happens to everyone, take your time and start small. Each space that is freed is another victory to a clutter free (mostly) life. Just think about what you can do with all the time you save NOT looking for paper clips!

Got more clutter tips? Share them!

Clutter kills.

You don’t have to have junk piled up to the ceiling like some reality TV shows, but disorganization in any area can affect others. Gone are the days of the lovable, messy writer whose creative passion overflows into piles and piles of papers, books and knickknacks. True genius is knowing where everything is and being able to locate it within moments.

Time thief.

Shifting though papers and the like steals minute amounts of time that add to hours and hours before you know it. Think about it, if you spend 10 mins a day looking for various items – your favorite pen, a clean notebook, your phone charger, you’ve racked up up to an hour a week if you work a weekend day. Couldn’t you spend that time on something else that will further your career? Wouldn’t you rather have four extra billable hours a month rather than the time suck that is paper clip hunting?

Inventory loss.

How many pens, notebooks, note cards and other essentials do you lose a year? How about you keep the money you’d normally spend replacing them and put it toward your computer upgrade or a membership into that writing organization or writers conference you’d like to attend?

Inventory loss doesn’t just cover supplies, let’s talk about clips and research materials. Right now if I asked you to provide a clip from an assignment completed two years ago could you do it within five minutes? How about 10? How long do you think an editor with dozens of writers trying to get their attention wants to wait for your email?

Tardy for the party.

Do you arrive to an event on time with business cards and witty conversation in hand or do you arrive with a streak of smoke following you and spend the first half hour of the event calming yourself down and trying to catch your breath? The second mouse gets the cheese, but you have to hope that the other mice are to dumb to fall into the  trap.

Clutter and disorganization – looking for your keys, your business cards, your favorite shoes, purse, wallet, remembering that thing you were supposed to send off to someone at the last minute so you have to run back to the office, sit down at the computer pull it up, attach the file wait……………hit send, jump back up run toward the door, remember you left half of your stuff in the office, run back, pick it up and spend the next 20 minutes swearing at every driver who isn’t late so they aren’t doing 80 in a 45. Not only will you be late, or barely on time and frazzled, you’ll be stressed which leads me to…

Stress death.

I wish I could spend the day in a determined zen state. Calm, collected, focused. However, like most people, I’ve got regular stresses – kids, work, etc. add in the stress of being disorganized and you’ve got a recipe for all kids of stress related illnesses.

How do you eat when you’re on the go? When you’re in between several close deadlines? When you’re running about networking? The difference between eating healthy and not is time. Sure it’s economics sometimes, but you can find healthy foods and prepare them in cost-effective ways saving yourself from greasy take-out or those cookies in the cabinet.

Exercise takes a back seat for most stressed out people. They are too stressed to workout. If you take an hour a day to work out, that’s an hour you’re not hitting the keys! Well, when you don’t hit the gym, pavement or DVD player with that way-too-happy-to-be-sweating-that-much workout guru you are making time be dead 24/7.

So you lose your keys every now and then, do you now have to turn into SNL’s Anal Retentive Chef? Not at all – tomorrow I’ll give some great tips for organizing that fits into your lifestyle and personality.

What do you do to combat clutter? Tell us and your tip may appear in tomorrow post!

Newbie writers will read article upon article and blog upon blog touting the importance of finding a niche, picking a niche, taking a niche out on a date…Veterans will find themselves bombarded with articles and posts on when it’s time to leave a niche, switch, combine, create a Frankenstein and give a manic laugh…

The truth is – you have a choice.

Pro Niche:

1. Building a good reputation as a writer is important. Getting steady work is important as well. Niche writing can set a writer up as a knowledgeable, working expert in the subject matter, that writer can then leverage their experience for more work.

2. Depending on the niche, not only can you establish yourself as a leader, you can do it fairly quickly. It’s hard to believe given the abundance of writers out there, but there are some niches that are so specialized there aren’t a lot of people writing  for them.

3. A writer who can establish themselves in areas that have a denser concentration of writers earn the distinction of being a pack leader – that translates to dollars and work (and tons of Twitter followers).

4. Passionate pursuits are another reason why people head toward specific subjects. I’m a “write what you live” kindof girl and my body of work reflect my current passions – writing, business/finance and parenting. It is often the passion of a subject that drives a writer to write so staying within their passion is a perfectly natural course.

5. It’s an easy road map, but a challenging road. Say you are passionate about WordPress themes. You review the site daily, keep up on the coolest developers and plug-ins, etc. You decide to to plant a flag in the WordPress blogger game. Everyday you know what you’ll be writing about – in general. You’ll know the types of publications and web sites you want to write for, etc. The challenge? Finding those sites  and publications, breaking in, keeping subjects and angles fresh and continuing to learn more after exhaustive study.

Nah Niche:

1. A writer can build up a steady work and a reputation just by being a good writer, it doesn’t have to be within a niche.

2. Niche burnout. It sucks and without properly identifying it, it can extinguish the passion for writing. Many writers cannot fathom writing about one or two subjects for an extended period of time.

3. This last one is a secret: You can do both. It is perfectly fine to have a core subject or group of subjects while dating other types of articles and writing in general. Freelance writing is the ultimate open relationship. Success comes from great writing, a solid work ethic, and a viable set of goals. How you reach them is completely up to you.

Are you having trouble picking a niche? Thinking about changing or leaving niche writing all together? Tell us below!

Money for Nothing

I was planning to write an incredibly long, detailed post about the not-so-wonderful world of writing for websites that operate on revenue sharing models.

Part of that post was going to discuss a throwaway article I wrote several years ago for a revshare site on a lark, just to test the waters.  Due to a lucky combination of good timing, optimization for a virtually unexploited long tail keyword in a big money niche and what one can only describe as stupid luck, I’ve made approximately $600 from that article over the course of five years.  It took me approximately five minutes to find the primary keyword (there’s that luck) and about ten minutes to write the simple article.

I’m not underpaid, but I generally don’t make $2,400 per hour for lousy little pen-named articles designed for content mills.  I still chuckle every month when I see the mill make a deposit into my checking account.

Anyway, I wanted to mention that article because stories like those are one reason why so many people hop into the revshare world.  Unfortunately, they’re flukes.  Anomalies.  Luck breaks.  You can’t count on them.  They don’t happen too often.  I was going to put that particular article’s numbers up against the other four I wrote in the same week for that site long, long ago to illustrate the point.

I was plodding through the post about revenue sharing while listening to George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh and just as I started detailing the story of the miracle article, I found myself half-singing along with Ring Starr’s “It Don’t Come Easy”.

It don’t come easy,
You know it don’t come easy.

It don’t come easy,
You know it don’t come easy.

Got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues,
And you know it don’t come easy.
You don’t have to shout or leap about,
You can even play them easy.

Well, in my case it did come easy.  I goofed around as an experiment and made a big ol’ chunk of cash from writing that I’d objectively value at approximately nothing.

Some days, Starr’s lyrics do ring true for a self-employed writer.

However, there are times when it does come easy.  The cosmic tumblers click into place and weird little miracles appear.

Accentuating the Positive

Instead of writing a post about the way things don’t come easy in the world of revenue sharing, I decided to write a post about the times things do come easy.  I figured it might be nice to celebrate the crazy flukes and accidental victories instead of focusing on the ugly grind of making a living with a keyboard.

Here are my favorite easy moments…  In no particular order:

The $600 Revshare Non-Masterpiece: This is the article mentioned above.  A nearly effortless bit of experimentation continues to pay dividends years after its creation.  There really is no logical explanation for why this article continues to earn and earn every month.  Somehow, it continues to fly below the radars of those who work in the niche and Google, pumping out steady earnings for the content mill and me.

The Three-Page Report that Made Over $5,000. I was driving down the highway and a simple idea crossed my mind.  Bum marketing (a simplified form of article-based affiliate marketing) was a hot topic in the Internet marketing world.  I realized there was a very easy way to boost the value of the articles and to insure at least some up-front cash value for them.  That relatively small cash payment could serve as something of an insurance policy for those who were writing free articles for directories in hopes of generating affiliate sales.

I came home, sat down and outlined the exceedingly simple process.  I added introductory and concluding paragraphs, converted it into a PDF and posted it for sale as an information product on a popular IM forum with a little off-the-top-of-my-head sales copy.  I set up a PayPal button and a quick automated download process for anyone willing to buy the guide.  From top to bottom, it took about two hours.

The next morning, I woke up to over $2,000 in sales.  Within three days, I made $5,000 off that simple idea.  The almost equally awesome part was the fact that the folks who bought the report actually liked it.  It didn’t take long for the concept to escape the confines of my hastily produced ebook and sales ground to a halt shortly thereafter.  I wasn’t complaining.

The Luckiest Celebrity Blog Ever: I noticed that my wife was watching a TV show featuring a woman I had seen on another show the day before.  Out of curiosity, I did some quick Googling and realized that her career was absolutely on fire and that she was poised for a major breakthrough.

At the time, I was experimenting with new keyword mining techniques and generating income via blogs monetized with contextual advertising.  A few minutes later, I had claimed a Blogspot blog with a domain name featuring a common misspelling of the celebrity’s name and was setting it up with a number of quick posts that were little more than silly notices of other articles about the celebrity, combined with a brief excerpt of the source material and a link to the original source.  It was a very crude homemade news aggregator, in a sense.

The site started making about $1 per day in Adsense earnings, so I kept adding occasional little posts.  The celebrity’s star power increased to the Nth degree and earnings went up, up and up.  Soon, it was making a solid $10 per day.  Then $20.  Then $30.  I outsourced one hundred additional news aggregation-style posts with some of the earnings, loaded them up and set them to drip feed at a rate of two per week.  The investment paid for itself within two months.

That site made a small fortune before people with real resources, strong content and a commitment to doing things the right way realized that a crummy little Blogspot blog was ranking in the top three for a series of high volume searches.  The competition didn’t find it hard to knock me off, but that blog put a stack of fat Adsense checks in my pocket before they did.  For what it’s worth, the site still generates about a buck every other day and I haven’t so much as looked at it in over two years.

Common Traits

All three of those weird winners share a few common traits:

They happened because I was willing to experiment. If I had been wholeheartedly committed to following THE plan and only THE plan, they wouldn’t have happened.  This serves to remind me that keeping an open mind and trying new things can be a lot of fun and a source of profits.

They all defied duplication. Efforts to replicate the results with similar projects invariably fall short of those anomalous originals.  I did have some luck with other Adsense-monetized blogs (enough that I still get a check every month from Google) and I’ve sold a few other information products here and there that have been well worth my time, but I’ve never come close on another revshare article.  This reminds me that luck matters more than we’d probably like to think.

All three of these happy accidents share one other trait.  They happened three or more years ago.

And You Know it Don’t Come Easy

I think that last fact may contain the most important lesson my three examples offer.  In the last few years, we’ve witnessed an absolute explosion in the number of people trying to make money online as writers, Internet marketers and everything else imaginable.  I think it’s an overstatement to say we’re near a saturation point, considering the web’s continued rapid growth, but the online world is certainly more crowded and competitive today than it was a few years ago.

I really do believe it was easier to mix some rudimentary knowledge with a little skill and a chunk of action to generate healthy chunks of cash back in the “good old days” (which aren’t particularly old at all, truth be told).  As I think about other cool little bursts of luck I’ve had, most of them happened during or before 2008.  I know I haven’t stopped experimenting with new ideas and I’d like to believe that my skills have improved.  I know my knowledge base is more expansive.

So, either I’ve hit a long luckless streak or it’s getting tougher to hit the big time with little effort due to increased competition.

I wanted to go from a somewhat negative post about the doomed nature of 99.99% of revshare writing efforts to a positive reflection on the times when the money rains upon request.  Instead, I think this post could still end on a somber note.

These days…  Well…  It don’t come easy.

Your Glory Days…  And a Prize!

Ah, who wants  to end on a down note?  Maybe it can come easy.  Even if it doesn’t, it did at some point and that’s worth a little party, right?

I open it up to you, the FWJ readership.  Let’s hear your stories of glory days, your memories of times when things that shouldn’t have been successful turned into moments of accidental greatness.

Maybe it was the unedited, typo-riddled query that still landed you a plum contract.  It could’ve been the time you sent off a piece of work you personally hated that the recipient loved so much you developed a profitable on-going relationship.  Perhaps you had a magic revshare moment, too.

I don’t know what’s happened to you, but I have to believe you’ve had times when it all came easy.

Tell your story.

Oh, and just to encourage participation, I’ll tack on a prize.  The best story wins a free copy of The Concert for Bangladesh on DVD.  You get Harrison, Clapton, Preston, Dylan and even Ringo in their full bearded 1971 glory!

Let’s hear your tales of mysterious moneymakers, accidental brilliance and those unexplained moments of magic when very little effort resulted in a massive payoff of some sort.

Brett Giddens has a slightly less dramatic secret life.  Then again, he’s a real person.  He’s an Oklahoma high school basketball coach by day who spends his nights singing in small casinos as an Elvis impersonator.

I have a secret day/night life, too.  Mine doesn’t rival the Angel story and it isn’t as fun as Giddens’ tale.

Sometimes, in the evening, I write things that pay next to nothing.  And I do it just for fun.

Tonight, I noticed a content writer on a forum who mentioned that she was struggling with a deadline and had some overflow work to do.  I couldn’t resist.  Within an hour I was composing a series of six SEO articles on an incredibly uninteresting topic.  I just finished them moments ago.

Last night, I signed up for a little-known content writing site that supplies material to webmasters who believe the road to awesome SEO is paved with short keyword-heavy articles.  I actually wrote one of the entry-level articles for a rate that would make even the staunchest content mill supporter blush.

When I’m done with this post, I might take a minute to write a “Top Five” list at ListMyFive.com, which may or may not produce more than a dollar in annual ad share revenue.

Brett swivels his hips for Oklahoma grannies willing to take a break from the slot machines.  Angel scoured the sad streets of late night LA for tricks while avoiding murderers.  I check forums and search out low-rent content sites.

I don’t spend much time on these endeavors–just an hour or or so here and there.  Sometimes, I’ll do a little something as a break in the action between my everyday work.

Why?

Why would an honor student become a hooker?  Why would a seemingly normal guy want to paste fake sideburns to his face and singe “In the Ghetto”?  Who knows?

Okay, Angel had to do it to make ends meet.  North Oaks was an expensive school.  And lots of people dig Elvis.  I suppose I do need more of an explanation than they do.

Here’s why I maintain my secret life:

• I’m buying my neighbor’s 150cc Tank scooter and I don’t want my wife to find out.  Thus, I need secret cash.  That’s not really why I do these things, but it will be fun to buy it without anyone knowing how or where I got the dough.
• It’s a nice change of pace from the rest of what I do.  I guess it’s sort of like those perfectly normal people who have an inexplicable love of a stupid sitcom or who spend hours reading the worst romance novels you can find at a granny’s garage sale.  It’s a mental break.  I turn the brain off and play with words for awhile.
• It’s a zero pressure situation.  I don’t need to sweat every word.  I don’t need to play with multiple title variations or fix that inadvertent use of the passive voice in the third paragraph.  It’s a liberating kind of writing because, quite frankly, almost anything goes.
• I meet cool people.  Many of the folks I’ve met doing things like this turn out to be good buddies and great people.  Some are new writers who are just getting started.  Some are experienced content writers who grind out articles on the side.  Some have no idea of what in the hell they are doing–but they’re still cool.
• Occasionally, real opportunities emerge.  Occasionally, you’ll accidentally kick open a door that leads somewhere more interesting and more lucrative.  It doesn’t happen most of the time, but it does happen.  In other cases, I’ve been able to do something for someone and then convince them to do more/better/different/etc.  That’s always fun!

How about you?  Do you have a secret life?  Do you do things that would make Angel blush?  Maybe you impersonate Elvis Costello instead of Elvis Presley?  Are you churning out Associated Content articles under a pen name?  Watching sitcoms?  Are you racing me to find these stray gigs at odd hours?

• You’re only as good as your last gig.
• There is no guarantee that anyone will hire you for your next one.
• Start pulling a lot of attitude and no one will want to work with you. Period.

All of us have the opportunity to decide for ourselves which gigs we want to go after and which ones aren’t right for us. Before you turn down a “small” freelance writing gig or one that doesn’t pay as well as what you normally charge, consider that all the projects you take on give you the chance to keep your creative juices flowing.

I think of the act of writing like a muscle. You need to keep working it to keep it in shape. If a small job comes along and you decide you want to take it, then don’t hesitate to do so.

It can get your name and your work in front of someone who may be able to hire you for larger projects down the road. Do well with this gig, and you may be able to get a testimonial that you can share with prospective clients or a referral to someone else.

The great thing about working as a freelance writer is that you get to decide which gigs you want to take and which ones you will pass on. If you do decide that you have the time and you want to take on a smaller gig, give it the same level of care that you would with any other one. Having some degree of flexibility in your choices can lead to more and better opportunities.

What do you think? Have you been able to turn a “small” gig into something better or do you have certain criteria that a gig must meet before you will even consider it?

I’m not sure at what point we started deciding that diva-ness was something that we should be celebrating. Maybe it was around the time that companies started marketing the princess concept to little girls and their parents. If the focus of hiring a freelance writer to do a job is the work, why would a client want to put up with someone who has a major attitude – no matter how talented they happen to be.

Yes, I know that you need some level of talent to work as a freelance writer. I also know that there are a number of other traits that clients prize as well, and none of them have to do with behaving like a spoiled brat if you are asked to make revisions or the client wants to change something about the scope of the project. Here are are few that come to mind:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Flexibility
• Responsiveness
• Ability to follow instructions
• Eye for detail
• Reliability
• Respect

You may have noticed that bitching, moaning and throwing a hissy fit are not on the list. They don’t belong in your bag of tricks when you are a freelance writer. You are getting paid to do a job for your client to the best of your ability in a professional manner.

No matter how good you are, there is no excuse for bad behavior. It doesn’t make you look cool, and I don’t believe that throwing attitude around will make you more in demand. It may work for awhile, but sooner or later the client will move on to a person who will do the job they are getting paid for – without the drama. Writing divas need not apply. Right on.

Good Income

As a freelance writer, if you have made a decision that you want to make a lot of money (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with deciding that making a high income is one of your goals), you will make a point of seeking out clients who have deep pockets. To reach your goal, and get the thing that you value, you may decide that you are willing to do whatever it takes to attract and retain the types of clients who are willing to pay what you have decided you want to charge.

You may need to work longer hours to get the amount of money coming in that you have decided you want to make. Your marketing efforts may need to be directed toward a specific market to make it happen.

You would have to make choices about the kinds of writing you are going to take on. If making a lot of money is your goal, you will also need to be firm when someone approaches you about a project and isn’t willing or able to meet your financial requirements.

Flexible Schedule

Some people are drawn to freelance writing because they want to have a flexible schedule. They may be going to school or looking after young children or their parents. Since they value flexibility, they may want to work on short-term projects that they don’t need to devote much time to. They will target clients who can provide them with this type of work.

Building Relationships

Another type of freelance writer is a person who is interested in developing long-term relationships with clients. This is someone who may be more willing than the person whose main focus is on making money to work with a client’s budget when quoting for a project.

Start-ups and small business owners may not be able to pay huge amounts of money for writing, but if/when their business takes off, they will remember the people they worked with at the beginning who were willing to be flexible about pricing. As they are able to pay more, they will do so, and they are more likely to contact someone they have an existing relationship with than a person they don’t know.

These are examples of how your values shape how you run your freelance writing business. Whether you are conscious of it or not, you choose the opportunities you want to pursue based on your values. One is not better than the other; and a person can value different things at different points in his or her life.

When you are looking for clients or answering ads, what kinds of things do you value? I know that one thing that I value is my independence, so a client who wants to micromanage things wouldn’t be a good fit for me – no matter how much they were willing to pay. I also value the relationships I have with people I work with, and I try to be as flexible as I can when they need to make changes to the type of work, the volume or rates (without selling myself short).

When you are thinking about things that you value, don’t forget to put yourself on the list.

If you take how you personally feel about your job hunt out of the equation, you can get a lot more accomplished and be on your way to finding a gig that is a good fit for you. You may not be feeling confident at this point, and some of us never feel completely confident in our abilities no matter how well our freelance writing career is going.

You don’t have to wait for the Confidence Fairy to show up and scatter pixie dust on you before you can start building the freelance writing career you want. To me, confidence is something that comes at the end of a job well done, not at the beginning.

All you really need to get started is the willingness to do the work of finding gigs and once you land them, giving each one your best shot. If you show up and follow your client’s instructions carefully, you are well on your way to building a successful freelance writing career, whether you happen to feel confident or not.

One more thing…..

Feeling a bit insecure about your writing abilities can work for you in a positive way if it means that you take extra care to read and follow your instructions properly because you don’t want to make a mistake and lose the client. I think some level of insecurity is normal and you can decide whether you want to treat it like an asset or a handicap in your freelance writing career.

By definition, a job is something that you do and you get paid for it. Usually a job implies that you are an employee, but let’s leave that out of the equation for the sake of argument. A career is something that a person dedicates him or herself to over the long term, and it has opportunities for advancement.

I like to think of freelance writing jobs as straws. You may start off with one straw, and it could even be a relatively short one, to reflect the fact that most of us start off with entry-level-type gigs. Over time, as you gain experience and get more work, you can add more straws. Eventually, you will get to the point where you have accumulated enough straws to make yourself a (career) broom.

You have to start with a single straw to make it happen, though. I do advocate focusing on your longer-term career goals, but don’t forget that it’s going to develop one gig at a time. We may all want to get the broom assembled, but we can’t forget that it’s going to take multiple straws to get there.

Do you have some skeletons in your freelance writing closet? I’m willing to bet you do. There may be some gigs you may not be proud to admit that you took on, either because of the subject matter or what you were paid.

I believe that we learn from all of our writing experiences, whether they paid well or turned out to be a good fit or not. The lower paying gigs paved the way for better opportunities. The gigs that turned out not to be such a good fit – no matter how well they paid – helped us to figure out what kinds of gigs we should be pursuing.

If a particular gig from your past is something that you would rather not mention to a prospective client, you don’t have to include it on your resume. In the unlikely event that someone finds one of your writing skeletons online and asks about it, you can turn the conversation around by saying that it is an example of your previous work and ask if the prospective client would like to see some more recent samples or if he or she would like to talk about what you can do for them right now?

Most clients care more about what you can do for them now than what you used to write about or for whom. The other ones may not be people you want to work with anyway.

I’m Enjoying the Journey

To me, deciding that someone is the best means that they have peaked. If there is a summit as a freelance writer, they have reached it. I’m still enjoying the journey, and I don’t feel that I’ve reached all the goals that I have set for myself yet.

I’m Competing Against Myself, Not Other Freelancers

To decide that one person is the best, implies that someone else, well, isn’t. What freelancers do isn’t like a sport where determining the winner is based on goals scored or who has the fastest time. As long as I’m improving in my work and my craft, I’m happy, and I can celebrate my colleagues’ victories when they land a great gig – whether I applied for it too or not. They are friends and allies, not competition.

I’d Rather Focus on the Client’s Needs

I work very hard to give my clients what they want. When I apply for a freelance writing gig, I share information about my experience and skills, but I believe that the best writer isn’t necessarily the person who gets hired. It may come down to price or getting your resume in front of the person at the right time, not necessarily whether you are the best or not.

I’m more interested in convincing a client that we can develop a mutually-beneficial relationship than that I’m the best writer on the planet. Like beauty, that designation is in the eye of the beholder -  or the reader in this case.

How important is it for you to be the best? What does being the best mean to you?

The senior partners have already proven themselves and don’t need to go around telling everyone how great they are. Generally speaking, they stay in their offices and anyone who wants to talk to them goes to them. I learned very quickly that there were lots of things that I couldn’t do at work on my own – because I didn’t rate, apparently – but if I put my boss’s name on the memo or the requisition, I could get things done much easier. He was a Big Deal.

When you are looking for freelance writing jobs, rather than indulging in posturing and trying to impress upon the client that you are a Big Deal, a better approach is to take it down a notch or two and show them that you are the Real Deal.

• You are someone who listens carefully.
• You are reliable.
• You will give the client what he or she wants.
• You’re easy to work with.
• Your attitude doesn’t suck.
• You are prepared to offer suggestions and your opinion, but you understand that the client has the final say on the project.

It’s never too early to behave like the Real Deal in your freelance writing career. Showing up when you’re supposed to, meeting your deadlines on time and generally showing some class will pay off in future assignments and referrals to other clients.

If you are truly a Big Deal, you don’t have to tell people. They’ll know.

Rather than perpetuating myths about freelance writing, today I’d like to share some truth, or at least the truth as I see it.

Clients are not an interruption to a freelancer’s schedule.

I’ve had clients want to talk to me but tell me they hesitate because they don’t want to “distract” or “interrupt” me. A client is not an interruption to my work – they are the reason I have work. If they have a question, concern or a comment about something I am working on or I’ve done for them, I want to know about it, and I don’t ever want them to think that I’m “too busy” to listen.

The guy (or gal) paying the fee is never a pain in the a$$.

Yes, I told a client this once when he had a concern that he was being too demanding. (He wasn’t.) Everyone you work with has a slightly different work style. Some people are all business, and only talk about the job at hand. Others want to chat first before talking about work stuff. Every so often, you run into someone who becomes a friend as well as a client and you share details about your life more openly with them.

Whatever the person’s work style is, the fact remains that if they are paying me to do a job for them, then they deserve to have the job done the way they want, and if they need communicate often or ask for updates or whatever, so be it – which brings me to the third point I wanted to make:

It’s not about me.

I can ask questions or make suggestions but ultimately, I’m getting paid to give the client what he or she wants. If I can’t do that or I don’t like something about the terms of the gig, I can choose not to work with that person anymore. Sometimes the fit between a freelance writer and a client just doesn’t work out. It doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with either party, just that the working relationship wasn’t a good one. The best choice may be to admit that fact and move on.

What truths about freelance writing would you like to share?

Each professional relationship has its advantages and disadvantages, of course. I’ve been an employee many times in the past and while I had those jobs I was committed to doing my best and I was loyal to the companies who hired me. Now I work for myself and I have the toughest boss I’ve ever had. I also have wonderful clients who I genuinely like and respect, and I truly enjoy the work that I do.

What if it Doesn’t Work Out?

We may feel more comfortable as freelancers getting hired for a specific project, as opposed to a long-term arrangement. The long-term thing can feel like a job as opposed to a different kind of project, and it can be tempting to consider how interested you are in the gig in light of the “What if it doesn’t work out?” angle.

There are many reasons why a gig may not work out. If you took a job as an employee, it may not work out the way you were hoping, either. You are saying yes to a gig or a job, not a marriage proposal. That may not work out either, but it’s a lot easier to say goodbye to a client or an employer than to get a divorce.

If you say yes to the gig, then commit to doing the best job you can, as long as you and the client have a workable arrangement. You can always make another decision later on and talk about changing the terms or give notice and move on to something that is a better fit. The idea that someone will get a job and stick with one employer throughout his or her working life is no longer the norm. Maybe freelancers are just being more honest about their professional commitment issues from the outset.

I agree that the Internet has opened up many possibilities for freelance writers. There are opportunities available online that simply weren’t offered a few years ago. And yes, many people think that they want to “get into” writing. It’s a situation of many being called, and few having what it takes to stick to it, build their skills and develop the contacts they need to make money from it.

It may seem like the doors are open and everyone is welcome, that’s not really the case. Some clients are very open to giving new writers a chance to work for them, but rest assured that if you submit work that is subpar, riddled with errors or you simply don’t follow instructions properly, you won’t be given more assignments.

I do agree that freelance writing isn’t brain surgery, or even rocket science, but that doesn’t mean everyone can do it. I used to have a gig where I reviewed aerospace research sites with educational content and the basic principles of rocket science are relatively simple to understand. It doesn’t mean that I can go out and build my own X-plane, though.

Freelance writing is part art and part skill. Even if someone has the skill part down, i.e. they can put a sentence together correctly, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they have a talent for choosing the right word patterns to effectively convey an idea or evoke a feeling in the reader. I used to get criticized when I was in school for not pumping up my work with a lot of flowery language; my writing was relatively short and to the point. Who knew that this style would be what works best online?

The second comment about how well-educated and informed writers have to prove themselves applies to any field of endeavor. Someone hiring you wants to know what you can do for them moreso than what you have done in the past. You will get a lot further by showing up, getting your hands dirty (figuratively speaking) and doing the work than trying to impress someone with your background.

And the brain surgeon I mentioned earlier? Part of their training involved reading texts, which were written by someone who at that moment at least, was a writer. We may not be brain surgeons, but the work that we do educates, informs, entertains and persuades people to buy a product or support a cause. Pretty cool stuff, if you ask me.

Waiting for your dream job to come is a bit like waiting for Prince Charming to show up on his white horse. While we may have all heard of the Prince and maybe know of someone who knows someone who actually met and married one, the rest of us are left with the challenges of having relationships with human males, or females as the case may be.

Now that we have established that it’s not likely that you are going to see a nobleman in your neighborhood any time soon, let’s think about the dream job thing again. Prince Charming may be something that exists in fairy tales and movies, but your dream job isn’t. There are people who are out there making money doing what you would consider to be your dream job right now. Why can’t you be one of them?

When you think about your dream freelance writing job, what does it look like to you? Do you dream big or do you reign it in because you are thinking that you couldn’t possibly do “X.” Once you have an idea of what your dream job is, you can start to make calculated steps toward getting it.

Let’s say your dream is to be a travel writer. You can start by investigating local markets for that type of writing. Once you have some experience, you can start to broaden your horizons by applying for more lucrative gigs and eventually getting yourself in a position where you can approach your dream client with a pitch that will knock their socks off.

Don’t wait for your dream freelance writing job to show up on your doorstep. Go out and get it. You can start working toward it from wherever you are right now. All the small steps count when you are working toward your goal of getting your dream job.

To me, a rock star is someone who is all about image. They have a certain level of arrogance, and somewhere along the way, they lost track of their craft in favor of hype and excess. They might produce something that is in demand, but the public rarely finds out how many takes it took to produce the songs that we eventually buy.

They live fast and die young. Or they may hang on, looking very much the worse for wear, and show up on cheesy reality TV shows. We are left lamenting what might have been (in the case of someone who died too young) or wishing that they would just crawl back under the Rock of Love or whatever, and just go away.

So what’s the deal with wanting a rock star freelance writer? My suspicion is that the client is looking for someone who can appreciate their vision of what they want to accomplish with the project and work from there. A wizard of words, so to speak. Whereas a rock star is focused on themselves, a successful freelance writer needs to be focused on the client.

I am not a rock star freelance writer, and that’s OK. I don’t want to be one, anyway. What I am is someone who listens to what my clients want and works with them to make it happen. I care about the projects I work on and the clients I serve. There isn’t any room in there for me pulling attitude and being arrogant.

I would much rather be known for substance than style any day and if that means I can’t call myself a rock star freelance writer, then so be it. It doesn’t mean I can’t write stuff that rocks, though.

How would you define a rock star freelance writer? And do you want to be one?

The person who hires you to work isn’t your employer; they are a client. You might work with a client on the different projects that you do, but you are your own boss. Some potential clients want to find out about a freelancer’s background and education before they hire them and may ask to see a resume.

Although I will provide a potential client with a resume on request, I am not altogether comfortable with it. If I was going to hire a contractor do to some work on my home, I would be asking how long the person has been in business as well as some questions about their level of experience with the type of work I need done. Would I ask for a resume before making up my mind? No, and I wouldn’t expect the person to offer to show me one.

Why are freelance writers preparing a resume, then? Are we still in the employer-employee mentality? Or are we having trouble explaining to potential clients why they should hire us?

I know freelance writers are very creative people, and there has to be a different way that we can present our credentials to potential clients. I also know that there have been many discussions in the blogosphere about how freelancer writers can command better rates for their work. I have a suspicion that one thing that holds freelance writers back from getting paid better for their work is the employer-employee mentality that some of us have. Once freelance writers start to see themselves as business owners and not job seekers, they will be more comfortable quoting the rates they deserve instead of taking what they can get.

Perhaps the answer is to prepare a one-page statement of accomplishments instead of a resume or write something that looks more like a brochure that you can share with a potential client. As a business owner, how would you tell a potential client about what you can do for them without using a resume?

I’ve been doing some thinking about the kinds of things that home improvements and freelance writing jobs have in common. Here’s what I was able to come up with:

1. There many different types of projects you can take on.

When you are looking for freelance writing jobs, do you limit yourself to only looking at content work? There are many, many other types of writing that you could consider taking on. You could decide to do copy writing, white papers, or technical writing. Editing, translation work or news writing are other possibilities. You may even choose to develop your own information products for sale. All of these fall into the broad category of writing.

2. Some jobs are best handled by a professional.

It’s one thing to take on something relatively minor on your own, but for major projects it’s better to turn the work over to a professional. We probably know or have seen someone on television who started doing a renovation on their own and became overwhelmed by the time and effort involved in trying to manage the project. They realized that they would have been better off handing the work over to a professional from the start.

Clients who hire freelance writers may start off thinking that they can look after this part of their business on their own, too. They may have started off doing everything themselves and over time realized that their time is better spent working on the business, rather than in it. Enter the professional freelance writer to provide his or her expertise.

3. The key to a successful project lies in good prep work.

Whether it’s painting, replacing flooring or another DIY project, most of your time may be spent on cleaning, making minor repairs and generally getting the area ready. Freelance writing jobs work the same way. As freelance writers, we need to listen to what our clients want and make sure we are both on the same page before we go to work. We may need to interview subjects or conduct some research before we can type a single word. By taking the time to do the appropriate amount of prep work, we are much more likely to give our clients what they want and have that person get in touch when they need more freelance writing work done.

I’ve learned over the years that it’s probably not a good idea for me to make New Year’s resolutions. I tend to set the goal way too high, like resolving never to eat chocolate again when I have never been able to successfully give it up for Lent, without breaking the goal down into a plan to increase my chances of success.

Since now is the time of year when we take time to evaluate where we are and make plans for the future, it makes sense to include our professional goals too. I was recently asked in an interview about my writing goals. I realized that I’ve been basically flying by the seat of my pants for the last few years. I’ve been working steady, which I am certainly not complaining about, and my business has been growing – also good news.

While there are things that I have thought about that I would like to do, I haven’t made a definite plan of action, and that’s the difference between goals and wishes. I’m also more conscious of the fact that I’m the person in control of my professional destiny, not what’s happening “out there.”

While New Year’s Eve may be a time of looking forward to the future and the possibilities that it brings, you don’t have to wait until December 31 to do that. Every new day is a fresh start, and if we don’t like where we are or the way our career is going, then we can do something about it – starting from where we are right now with what we have at our disposal.

It may mean making a wish list of clients you would like to work with and following through by contacting one a week. You may decide to take a course to learn more about a particular aspect of writing or put together an ebook or a report that you can sell and get away from the “dentist” model of writing (drill and bill). Whatever you decide, so long as it fits your goals and definition of success, you have made the right choice.

There is no better time than right now to start creating the writing career and the life that you want. 2010 is the start of a new decade and it brings 365 fresh starts. What are you doing to do with them?