Freelance FAQ

12

Making Time

September 12, 2011

Sorry for my unexpected leave of absence last week, guys, but it was cuh-RAZY here at MBGHQ. We had:

–5 interviews
–4 deadlines (including one story that was over 2,100 words)
–4 rehearsals
–2 colds
–1 How to Birth a Baby class
–1 opening for The Guy’s latest play
–1 wonderful wedding shoot
–1 mysterious case of what we can only assume was poison ivy
–1 cast party

As you can plainly see, we’re not slowing down any time soon.

One of the questions I get asked a lot lately, especially since my physique now resembles that of a kleptomaniac with a beach ball fetish, is “How do you do it all?”

The answer is quite simple: I DON’T.

Our bathroom is a biohazard. I ran out of clean maternity panties and had to resort to stuffing myself into a pair of my pre-pregnancy underwear. I had a crying meltdown Thursday night when I realized I didn’t have any black pants to wear to shoot the wedding. I’m behind on editing photos from a portrait session I did LAST weekend, and we’re more than likely ordering pizza for dinner tonight.

But on the other hand, everything that HAD to get done last week did, indeed, get done, and I will take credit to myself and The Guy and admit that it took quite a bit of organization and self-discipline to accomplish everything we needed to.

Thankfully, I really like planning and plotting and organizing, although I haven’t always been particularly good at time management, which, as you can imagine, is kind of important when you’re self-employed and don’t have anyone telling you what to do every day. I’m one of those people who, when they start on something, doesn’t want to stop until it’s completely finished, which is inconvenient when you’re trying to accomplish multiple tasks in a short period of time. And sometimes, like if I’ve had a really busy day, it’s hard for me to focus and concentrate, which often leads to procrastination (read: wasting precious time screwing around on Facebook and Pinterest).

Add to this the fact that I’m 30 weeks pregnant, and in my third trimester, my energy level has really taken a nosedive. It’s not as bad as the first trimester, when BREATHING THE AIR made me need a nap; this fatigue is definitely more physical. But the fact remains that there is now a limit to how much I can do, so it’s crucial to space out the week’s tasks where I do a little bit each day instead of everything in one marathon stretch.

So how does a task-oriented procrastinator who can’t currently take her OCD meds overcome all this?

1. Calendar
2. Timer
3. Notepad

Calendar:

Google Calendar is one of the greatest inventions of all time, in my opinion, but The Guy prefers Outlook. It’s a miracle our marriage has survived.

Oh, fine, not really. It doesn’t matter what kind of calendar you use as long as it has the capability to schedule reminders. (A brand-new paper calendar, purchased just after the start of the new year, used to make my heart go pitter-pat, but they can’t email me or text reminders to my phone, and so I abandoned them. The grass is always greener, fair-weather friends, etc.)

One of my freelance clients likes to give me assignments ahead of time, often MONTHS ahead of time, which is awesome. But if she gave me a story today that wasn’t due until January, I obviously wouldn’t start on it until late December or so. Nevertheless, I don’t want that deadline creeping up and surprising me, so I would schedule a reminder two weeks (or whatever) before the day it was due. That way, I could work on it in a more leisurely fashion and probably do a much better job (and glug less supermarket wine) than if I tried to cram all the research and interviews into two days.

Another example: September is a ridiculously busy month, what with deadlines and my baby shower and out-of-town guests and photo shoots and what-have-you. But a client just emailed me 12 articles to edit by the end of the month. So I looked at my calendar, and on the days that are somewhat lighter, I put a memo that says “work on editing.” I’m MUCH more likely to accomplish something if it’s on my to-do list for a particular day, and now, I’ve got six days to edit 12 articles instead of pulling an all-nighter on the 29th.

Timer:

Some people call it the Pomodoro Technique; others call it FLYing. I call it “The Timer on My iPhone is My Boyfriend.”

I’ve written before about how great the timer is for cleaning, but it’s also super useful for writing. I’m using it right now, in fact.

Sometimes, I get…I don’t know…intimidated? Overwhelmed? by an article or blog post. And that leads to procrastination. So I make a deal with myself: I set a timer for an hour (or 30 minutes or whatever) and tell myself that I have to work on that piece and only on that piece until the timer goes off. I don’t have to write the whole thing – I can work on the introduction or do research or make phone calls for interviews or anything at all as long as I’m legitimately working on the piece.

And you know what?

More often than not, I make major progress AND end up getting on a roll and working for over an hour.

Of course, this is also great when you need to do some work on several projects but you don’t want to get bogged down in just one thing. When the timer goes off, you put away that task and move on to the next one.

I have no idea why this works so well for obsessive compulsives and procrastinators, but it sure does.

Notepad:

I’m not ADD, but it’s nevertheless extremely easy for me to get off track. I’ll be answering emails, say, and suddenly remember that I need to call someone. Or I’ll dream up a great topic for a blog post while I’m answering comments. Or I’ll think of a terrific Christmas present for The Guy at 3:00 a.m. when I get up to go to the bathroom for the 44th time. And it’s always tempting for me to drop what I’m doing and make that call or write that post or get on eBay and bid on that bottle of Optimus Prime shampoo. Because what if I forget and the opportunity to make the love of my life relive one of his childhood traumas is lost forever?

But this is obviously A Very Bad Thing because it leads to me pinging like a pinball between 84,000 different unrelated tasks and never actually accomplishing anything.

The solution? Notepads. EVERYWHERE.

As I type this, there’s one 10 inches to my left, and I’ve already stopped once to write something on it: “Message Monica.” There’s one on my bedside table. There’s one in the coffee table. There’s one in my purse. There are several in the kitchen, two in my car and one in The Guy’s.

The mere act of writing something down helps me to remember it. And even if I forget, I have a visual reminder when I finish what I’m doing and get ready to move on to the next thing.

And for my many, many friends who are gestating along with me (seriously, Shreveport is currently experiencing its very own baby boom), notepads are a terrific antidote for the dreaded Pregnancy Brain.

—-

So that’s how I make sure there’s always time to sit on the sofa, eat Halloween Oreos and watch old episodes of Law & Order: SVU.

How do you do it?

Your time-managing
Kel

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24

Job Week, Part 3: The Office

February 11, 2011

My home office, a cozy, quiet sanctuary that I look forward to entering each morning, was once the pink-carpeted bedroom of The Guy’s old roommate. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any “before” photos of this bedroom before I began its transformation, but when you try to imagine how it once looked, make sure you envision it with maximum nastiness.

I know some bloggers don’t like to show off remodels in progress – they only want their readers to see the finished product. But personally, I think the finished product is that much more impressive when you see each step of the process.

So off we go on the nickel tour. After you!

TA DA!

Office 1.

Office 2.

This, my friends, is where I spend the vast majority of my day. In other words, this is where the magic happens.

On the opposite side of the room from my desk is my sewing/craft table, which was left behind by one of the aforementioned roommates. The top was dirty, stained and yellow, so I cleaned it up and spray-painted it white. This weekend, I hope to start on the skirt I want to make for it to hide all the fabric storage bins underneath.

Office 3.

This is what I’ll use to make the skirt:

Office 12.

My parents used to have a whole set of these wicker dining chairs, but one by one, they all broke. This is the lone survivor, which I salvaged from their garbage and spray-painted red.

Office 10.

I won’t lie: This sucker took a can and a half of spray paint. (Still cheaper than a new chair, though.)

This little table is actually an antique Singer sewing machine I bought at an estate sale. You can see it (and The Pink Carpet of My Discontent) here.

Office 9.

The statue is St. Paul. I rescued him from Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo in New Orleans.

This piece of furniture here that’s underneath all the books (Lord help us, that isn’t even half of them) is supposed to be The Guy’s desk.

Office 8.

We have a plain black case for the books, but we haven’t moved it from storage yet. It will go here:

Office 13.

Anyway, The Guy has just about decided that he will use this desk infrequently, if ever, so I think we’re going to take it out and put a nice futon there.

On the other side of the room, we have a little bathroom/dressing area.

Office 5.

Office 4.

Clearly, this part of the room needs the most work. See that peeling wallpaper? Some dumbass stuck it to the drywall. So now it has to be textured/painted over. And while I don’t necessarily mind painting, I have it on good authority that this is NOT a job you want to attempt by yourself if you don’t know what you’re doing, which I, of course, do not.

We’ll also replace the sink fixtures and hardware and paint the cabinets as the budget allows.

We also have a nice-sized closet up here.

Office 6.

I cannot believe I just showed you the inside of one of my closets.

(That’s not garbage, by the way. It’s a sackful of bubble wrap.)

(I promise.)

And on that note, let’s look at some details, shall we?

Office 15.

I love having my lovelies looking down on me while I work.

Office 14.

(Please note: not fluorescent.)

My little bulletin/inspiration board.

Office 7.

The Guy says this red turban is hideous. I say it’s the chic-est thing I’ve seen in a month. What say ye?

Office 16.

My poor naked window.

Office 11.

My current dilemma is deciding whether I want blinds, curtains, a shade or some combination thereof. What do you think?

Well, that’s it, ladies and gentlemen! How do you like it so far?

—-

Because I’ve gotten a few more questions, we’ll continue Job Week into the first of next week, when I’ll tell you about an average day – if there is such a thing – in the life of a freelancer.

Your designing and decorating
Kel

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10

Job Week, Part 2: “So what do you write?”

February 9, 2011

By now, I think you’ve got the general idea about my attitude toward my job. I love it, it rocks so hard, if it were human I’d want to French kiss it every day, etc.

But let’s face it: Everything in life has upsides and downsides, pros and cons, positives and negatives.

I’ve given you the positives.

Now let’s talk about the negative aspects of being a full-time freelance writer…

…besides eyestrain, arthritis and The Hemingway Defense.

1. Nobody has any idea what to say when you tell them what you do for a living.

Now, this really isn’t a problem amongst my circle of friends and acquaintances. After all, they face much the same confusion at cocktail parties when someone asks the inevitable question, “What do you do?” and they answer, “I’m the artistic director of a theatre,” “I teach acting classes to children” or “I’m a playwright.”

But holy marshmallows, if you ever want to see somebody’s head explode, try telling a room full of lawyers, doctors, engineers and accountants that you write for a living.

Actual responses:

“So…like, what do you write?”

Words.

“You mean you can actually make a living at that?”

I appear well-fed, do I not?

“How much money do you make?”

How much money do YOU make? Will you give me some?

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”

I’m sorry, are you laughing at my career choice or my outfit choice? Because either way, I WILL CUT YOU.

I cannot emphasize this enough: All the things in quotation marks are the responses of well educated, adult human people immediately after I answered their what-do-you-do question.

(All the things not in quotation marks are what I wish I’d said.)

2. Nobody thinks you have a real job or any responsibilities or purpose in life except to be at their beck and call to do all the menial tasks that they deem themselves too busy or important to do.

E.g., anything that requires one to stand in line.

It’s very similar to being single, actually.

My schedule is, for the most part, very flexible, so I am often able to do things at a moment’s notice, like pick up kids from school, give someone a ride to the mechanic’s garage or take your dog to the vet.

But all of my friends have learned to ask, not assume.

Assuming is a one-way ticket to this:

Angry Girl Yelling and Blowing Hair of Other Girl

(Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography.)

3. My parents don’t think I have a real job, either.

Are they proud of my talent? Do they delight in seeing their daughter’s byline in magazines? Have they been known to buy 20 copies of the newspaper and mail them to friends all over the country?

YES!

Do they think of me as gainfully employed?

NO.

In my parents’ estimation, a Real Job has the following characteristics:

–You must dress in “business casual” attire, i.e, khaki slacks, preferably the kind with mom-pleats in the front.
–Your office must have fluorescent lighting and not be located inside your house.
–You must arrive no later than 8:00 a.m.
–You must take a one-hour break for lunch. No more, no less.
–You may not leave before 5:00 p.m.
–You must hate it.

Thus, I do not have a Real Job.

4. The paperwork will eat you alive.

As a freelancer, you are, in effect, self-employed.

I thought this a trivial detail…

…until the first time I filed taxes.

OUCH.

In early 2009, I flounced into my accountant’s office (yes, thank God in heaven and all His seraphims, I did at LEAST have the good sense to hire an accountant) and presented her with a couple of 1099s.

“Where’s the rest?” she asked.

“The rest of what?” I was puzzled.

“Oh, God,” was her only answer.

BE YE NOT SO EFFING RETARDED.

Before I get into this next part, I am legally obligated to inform you that I am not an accountant or a tax professional of any kind, as if you couldn’t read the preceding nine sentences and figure that out for yourself.

If you become a freelancer, you have two options:

1. Keep up with every shred of paper that documents how much money you made, learn the intricate rules of tax deductions, save receipts for everything work-related that you purchase during the year (from airline tickets to paper clips), track your mileage and file all this information someplace that you can get to it every January.

2. Empty your savings account, kiss the money goodbye, then hand it to Uncle Sam.

It’s your choice, but all things being equal, I prefer #1.

5. Health insurance sucks.

These days, it seems like everyone’s health insurance sucks to a greater or lesser degree, but for no one is that more true than the self-employed freelancer.

Lemme put it this way:

Here are, in order, the things I liked most about getting married:

1. Spending the rest of my life with my one true love, my soulmate, mi media naranja, etc.
2. Parties
3. Presents

4. HEALTH INSURANCE!!!!!!!!

Have you heard about this fantastic new concept called a “copay”?!

It’s terrific! Basically, what it means is you go to the doctor’s office, and you do NOT have to write a check equal to your car payment!

I know, right?! GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Again, I am not a financial or insurance professional. If you thought for one hot minute that I was, then you obviously started reading at this sentence.

But what I did before I got married was carry high-deductible, low-premium insurance (what’s commonly known as “major medical” or “catastrophic” insurance), and I had a membership to a concierge medical practice. That way, I didn’t have to choose between going to the doctor when I got strep throat or eating that week.

—-

So now that you know the good, the bad and ugly of freelance writing, next, I’m going to show you one of the best perks of all:

My new home office!

Your sorting and filing
Kel

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16

Job Week

February 7, 2011

Whereas my most frequently-asked questions used to be “Why are you single?”, “Can I fix you up with my neighbor’s grandson’s cousin’s dog walker’s ex-boyfriend?” and “When are you going to get married?”, now it’s “How can I be a freelance writer? I’m tired of having a real job.”

I see that as progress.

The thing is, though, that even some of my real-life friends are curious about my career. How do I make enough money to live? What’s it like working from home? What do I do all day? Do I really not take a shower until 5:00 p.m.?

And the answers are really a lot more complicated than “By hustling my rear end off,” “It’s pretty cool,” “A lot more than you’d think” and “I plead the Fifth.”

So this week, I’m going to answer some of those questions, (hopefully) give a few pieces of good advice and give you all a glimpse into the work-a-day life of Mrs. Bachelor Girl.

Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?

—-

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Kelly who made the foolish/fortuitous decision to leave a job she really liked to go work for her family’s business. Even her priest was all like, “Dude, this is, bar none, the dumbest thing you have EVER done,” but she would not be dissuaded. You see, Kelly was not only impulsive, she was also quite stubborn, and that, dear readers, is a deadly combination.

One year later, ready to slit her wrists and/or go live in a yurt in Mongolia to escape her family (whom she loved very much but who were thisclose to driving her to an involuntary admission to the psych ward), Kelly quit her job at her family’s business. On the bright side, she woke up the next morning and, for the first time in months, did not feel an almost uncontrollable urge to stick her head in the oven, a la Sylvia Plath (FORESHADOWING ALERT! FORESHADOWING ALERT!). The downside, though, was that she was now unemployed.

Kelly had just enough resources at her disposal that she could take a little time – but not much – to figure out what her next move should be.

She considered joining a convent, but her penchant for leopard-print shoes made her acceptance into any traditional order unlikely.

While tooling around on the website for the Diocese of Shreveport and cursing her lifelong addiction to fashion, she came across a link that said “Stewardship and Development.”

“Huh,” she thought. “That might be kind of fun.” And as she saw it, she had three major qualifications for the position:

1. She was Catholic.
2. She had some experience in fundraising.
3. They would probably let her wear leopard-print shoes.

SOLD!

So she fired off an email to the Director of Stewardship and Development, whose name was Katie.

Five minutes later, she received a reply: “Can you come in this afternoon? I’m dying over here.”

She slipped into a pair of leopard-print ballet flats and hopped in her car, ready to raise some money for Holy Mother Church.

Kelly had been working in Katie’s office for about a month when they discovered they had a mutual love of writing. Katie mentioned that she had a part-time freelance writing gig with a company called Writers Research Group, based in Oklahoma City. Currently, they needed writers to create original, professional content for a new website called eHow.com. Katie offered to pass Kelly’s resume along to her editor. Kelly was doubtful that she’d get the job – after all, she had no writing experience whatsoever, but she sent Katie her resume and a link to her blog.

Well, Kelly DID get the job, and before anyone knew what was happening, she was a world-famous novelist going on international book tours, making jillions of dollars, dining with the King and Gaiman families at Thanksgiving and buying her leopard print shoes from Neiman Marcus.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The End.

—-

OK, so maybe that last part is a little…inaccurate.

But we are all living happily ever after (so far, anyway), so my journalistic integrity remains intact, right?

No?

Sigh. FINE. Geez, what is this, The New York Times? You people are a tough audience.

OK, so what really happened is that I got the job with WRG working on the eHow project, which was, as most things in life are wont to be, kind of sucky and awesome at the same time.

Sucky:
1. The pay was abysmal. Like, $0.02 a word.

Awesome:
2. But the articles were short and easy to write, so I could burn through somewhere between five and 10 a day.

Sucky:
3. The articles were VERY formulaic, so the writing was kind of boring.

Awesome:
4. But the articles were VERY formulaic, so they were easy to write AND it familiarized me with a number of concepts that are important to any writer, like writing in active voice and writing to suit the intended audience.

5. It was a freelance writing job I could put on my resume.

6. It fed me and paid the bills until…

…Jessica the Web Mistress mentioned that the editor of a publication she used to work for as a graphic artist needed a freelance writer, and she passed along my name.

The editor also happened to be a fan of Bachelor Girl. SCORE!

Then my dad saw an ad for a freelance writer in a business journal he reads.

Then the executive director of an organization for which I did some (non-writing) volunteer work heard that I was a writer and asked me to write some fundraising materials for her.

Then my friend Ryan called and told me that the Shreveport Times was looking for a theatre critic.

Then another publication for which I’d been writing for free just to get some experience announced that they now had money in their budget to pay their writers.

Then Jessica passed my name along to another organization that was looking for an editor.

Then Tanya gave my name to the publisher of a local wedding magazine that needed a writer.

Then Jessica recommended me to yet another publication that needed a writer.

And then I looked up one day and realized I not only had a job, I had a whole CAREER. And one that I love to boot!

—-

Honestly, I’ve never been happier in my life. I not only love writing, I love being self-employed and I love working from home. I have a great deal of freedom, I am the architect of my own destiny and I don’t have anyone tsk-tsking at me when I start work five minutes late in the mornings. I meet cool new people every single week, I get to go to fun events, I learn about stuff that I probably wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise and I’m doing the work that I sincerely believe I was born to do. It’s like I always say: The worst hour I ever spent at this keyboard was still pretty damn good. And you can’t ask for much more than that when it comes to a career.

Plus I don’t have to shower OR get out of my pajamas unless I’m conducting an in-person interview.

Two words:

1. Hell
2. Yeah

—-

People ask me all the time how to get started in this line of work, and the truth of the matter is, I don’t really know. I can tell you how I did it, but I didn’t go to school to become a writer. I’ll be honest: The idea of a writing career never occurred to me until I got my first freelance job. I don’t have a journalism degree, I never worked on a school newspaper and I didn’t even KNOW any full-time freelance writers until I became one (and I can count the ones I know now on one hand). Like so many things in my life, my job is a happy accident.

Having done this for three years now – almost exactly three years! – I can tell you a few things about this field, and the most relevant seems to be that it’s easy enough to get your foot in the door and gain admission to the party.

The hard part, as you can imagine, is staying there.

Now here’s that advice you’ve all waited for so patiently:

1. Thou shalt love writing.

This job is difficult. People are tempted to think my job is easy because I work from home and I’m my own boss. True, there are aspects of my job that are easier because of perks like those, but a freelance writing career is demanding in every conceivable way, and it is lonely. If you do not LOVE – not “like,” not even “like a whole lot,” but LOVE – writing, you will be miserable as a full-time freelance writer. The end, amen.

2. Thou shalt act like a professional at all times.

I joke all the time about working in my pajamas, but you best believe I have my game face on when I call or visit a client’s contacts for an interview. Many times, stories don’t require just great writing skills; they also need sensitivity and discretion. The mayor’s office is just not going to want to give the full scoop to some slob who shows up 30 minutes late looking like they just woke up and wearing shorts and Chucks. I may not work full time for my clients’ publications, but when I’m on the phone or in someone’s office, I’m representing them, and I take that extremely seriously. And let’s face it, a professional demeanor is what separates the OK freelancers from the ones your clients call all the time (and give the best assignments to).

3. Thou shalt create a few writing samples, keep thy resume updated and let everyone in thy circle of contacts know that thou art looking for work.

People email and Facebook message me all the time asking me to pass their names along to my various editors, which I would be more than happy to do IF I knew what kind of writers they are! Just like you wouldn’t want to recommend your friend for a job without knowing if he or she is qualified for it, I don’t want to say to my clients, “Hey, you should totally hire my friend! I mean, I don’t know if he can string two words together, but he wants to work from home REAL BAD!” Thus, if you really want your friends with contacts in publishing to help you find work as a freelance writer, then have a resume and a few writing samples at the ready. Don’t fret too much over the writing samples – just write 500 to 750 words about a topic that interests you or some issue that’s been in the news lately. For bonus points, include quotes from two or three different sources. And no, you don’t have to spam everyone in your email address book with attachments – just say something like, “I’m looking for work as a freelance writer. If you need a resume and/or writing samples, I’ll be happy to provide them.”

P.S. If you have a blog – and it’s generally inoffensive – then it can count as a writing sample.

4. Thou shalt meet thy deadlines.

You may be the second coming of William Faulkner, but if you don’t turn your work in on time, your client will go elsewhere. Simple as that. All publications work on very tight deadlines, and neither you nor I are talented enough to entice the editors of the world to put up with a writer who can’t meet them. Yes, I know, life happens, and everyone has to ask for an extension now and then. I am but an ordinary sinner, and I, too, have fallen short. But trust me when I say this: 1) Ask for an extension as early as possible and 2) Do so very, very rarely and only in the most dire of circumstances.

5. Thou shalt build a resume through (almost) any means necessary.

Like I said, I wrote for one of my clients for free for about a year before they worked enough money into their budget to pay their writers. In the meantime, I took payment in the form of a byline in a magazine with a distribution of over 20,000. Not too shabby!

While the Boston Herald probably won’t take you up on an offer to write for free, community newspapers and magazines might. If you’re having difficulty finding paying gigs due to a lack of experience, approach them with the aforementioned resume and writing samples. You’ll probably get lucky. Do a great job for them, and you’ll not only get a glowing recommendation from your editor, he or she will probably pass your name along to some colleagues whose publications have bigger budgets.

Yep. That’s it. Only five commandments. What? Freelancers are busy!

Later this week, we’ll talk more about the pros and cons of being self-employed and working from home, AND I’ll show you my new home office!

Your freelancing
Kel

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