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The prospect of becoming a freelance writer is both exciting and a little bit scary. Let’s face it: the freelance writing community is a big ocean full of bigger fish (a.k.a. experienced writers) and you as a newbie have to somehow manage to take a deep breath, jump in and hope you don’t immediately sink or become a larger fish’s dinner. The mere thought is enough to make any newbie cower in fear of the unknown.
As someone who has spent a majority of time dangling my toes in the edge of that proverbial ocean, I can wholeheartedly say that the experience is well worth it. However, I have also spent a fair share of time in the freelance ocean struggling against the undertow. There are a lot of things I wish I had known before I started, that would have made my journey a little smoother. But I suppose that’s the blessing of hindsight.
If you are just starting out, I’d like to share with you some things that I learned that just might make your experience a little easier. Before you dive into that intimidating ocean of freelance writers, take some time to familiarize yourself with some life rafts that dot the water.
1. Freelance writing will not be easy, nor will you become rich. Every newbie freelancer has aspirations of becoming the next Carrie Bradshaw or the next assistant at Vogue. These are great fantasies for when you are standing on the line at the bank daydreaming, but they are not reality. Dream jobs do not fall out of the sky. An editor from Conde Nast will not call you at home and ask you to pen a piece on the new Manolos. Not going to happen.
What will happen is work, and a lot of it. You will work on copy for things you have never imagined writing about. Pieces on such varied topics as hybrid vehicles, male enlargement devices and rhinoplasty, will begin to fill your portfolio. You will be paid for these gems, but you certainly won’t be running out with your new found millions and quitting your day job (not yet anyway).
Expect to write about a wide range of subjects, and know how to use the internet to search for reputable sources of information (note: Wikipedia is not a source you want to rely on for your information).
2. You need to know your worth as a writer and you need to know what rates are acceptable. Sure, you’re excited to write and you will take on any project that comes your way. However, it is important that you know the going rates for particular kinds of freelance writing, editing and proofreading jobs so that you are getting what you are entitled to. You wouldn’t be willing to work at McDonald’s if they paid you $2 for every 200 hamburgers you flipped, would you? Well there are a lot of freelancers out there who sell themselves short by taking on writing jobs that require 10 articles at two dollars a pop.
We all have to start somewhere, but being taken advantage of is never a good way to begin. If you are worried about lack of experience or published clips, try writing for a site like Suite101. You will be able to get some web-published clips and some good experience writing for the web. Another good way to build up your portfolio is to offer your writing services to volunteer organizations. While these are commonly non-paying, they are quite reputable and will give you great clips and references for future projects. Even better, you will get to feel all warm and fuzzy inside that you did something nice for someone!
To get an idea of acceptable rates, check with the most current version of the Writer’s Market book. This book will become your bible and it is advised that you spend the $25 each year and pick up the newest version. The book offers a wealth of advice from market listings, freelance market rates and helpful articles pertaining to all things freelance.
3. Providing samples of work means you are giving away your work for free. Working hard to write a quality piece, only to have someone take it from you with nothing more than a thank you is unacceptable. Do not work for free. If a client wants to see how your write, provide him/her with clips of your work (see #2). Freelancing is a job, just like any job, and when you work you are expected to be paid for your services. If a potential client will only work with you under the context of a freebie, walk away.
4. It is much easier and satisfying to write about what you know and what you are interested in. Chances are high that the first piece of writing advice, solicited or otherwise, that you were given regarding your freelancing endeavor, sounded something like this: write what you know. This is a very good piece of advice and should be something you try to adhere to when you can. Of course there will be times when a client wants copy written about colon cleansing or forex trading, and of course you have to write about these topics that you no nothing about and have no particular interest in whatsoever.
However, when pitching ideas, stick to the things you enjoy. It is much easier to write about something that you are personally interested in, not to mention the research behind the piece will be less time-consuming. You are more likely to produce more work of a higher caliber when it is about something you know.
5. Freelance writers who are not organized and cannot manage their time should consider another career path. You will be juggling multiple projects at any given time. It is essential that you keep track of all your deadlines on one central calendar (I find the large desk ones work best). You also need to keep track of payments from clients. You should create a system, even if it is a simple notebook where you devote one page to each project/client, in order to keep up with billing out clients and recording payments.
There are some things that I would feel naked without having with me at all times. Here is my list of my writing must-haves:
1. At least one notebook (but very often more).
2. A pen, pencil and highlighter.
3. My Macbook when I have access to WIFI.
4. My digital camera. (After missing what will probably be a once-in-my-lifetime event of snapping a pic of the most gorgeous, never ending and brightest rainbow ever seen, I don’t want to miss nature’s special moments ever again!).
What are your writing must-haves that you lug around with you everywhere just in case you get struck by a moment of inspiration?
*** Feline friend is optional.
I like paying attention to people’s writing styles. I am often fascinated by how many different ways writers have to work on their craft. You have those who like working in their local coffee shop or bookshop, those who write in their offices amid the hustle and bustle of their life and then you have me.
I am one of those people who cannot read or write unless it is dead quiet. This causes a problem when I want to work at my desk/office area at home since my desk is in the same open space as the living room where hubby is watching tv when he is home. Needless to say I’ve learned how to tune out the distracting noise by listening to music on my headphones while working. I really like the Lifescapes stuff and the Liquid Mind series of music. Very relaxing and creativity-inducing!
What about time of day? Do you find yourself to be more productive in the morning, afternoon, evening or middle-of-the night?
This one for me varies. The norm is that I am most productive in terms of the amount of work I can churn out usually in the late morning/early afternoon. However, as far as idea catching, my most creative time is definitely at night. It seems to be when my mind is finally relaxed enough to let all the good stuff flow freely.
I’m really looking forward to hearing what you have to say on these topics.
I’ve since become addicted to reading different writer’s takes on how they approach their craft. I was researching Judy Blume for an upcoming article and came across this on her blog. It’s a great look into how she prepares for writing, how she gets ideas and other great tips. Read and learn!
Click here or scroll…Palm Sunday (New York: Dial Press, 1999), 65-72.
How to Write With Style
by Kurt Vonnegut
Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style.
These revelations tell us as readers what sort of person it is with whom we are spending time. Does the writer sound ignorant or informed, stupid or bright, crooked or honest, humorless or playful– ? And on and on.
Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you’re writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead — or, worse, they will stop reading you.
The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not. Don’t you yourself like or dislike writers mainly for what they choose to show you or make you think about? Did you ever admire an emptyheaded writer for his or her mastery of the language? No.
So your own winning style must begin with ideas in your head.
1. Find a subject you care about
Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.
I am not urging you to write a novel, by the way — although I would not be sorry if you wrote one, provided you genuinely cared about something. A petition to the mayor about a pothole in front of your house or a love letter to the girl next door will do.
2. Do not ramble, though
I won’t ramble on about that.
3. Keep it simple
As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. “To be or not to be?” asks Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story “Eveline” is this one: “She was tired.” At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do.
Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
4. Have guts to cut
It may be that you, too, are capable of making necklaces for Cleopatra, so to speak. But your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.
5. Sound like yourself
The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. English was Conrad’s third language, and much that seems piquant in his use of English was no doubt colored by his first language, which was Polish. And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. I myself grew up in Indianapolis, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin, and employs a vocabulary as unornamental as a monkey wrench.
In some of the more remote hollows of Appalachia, children still grow up hearing songs and locutions of Elizabethan times. Yes, and many Americans grow up hearing a language other than English, or an English dialect a majority of Americans cannot understand.
All these varieties of speech are beautiful, just as the varieties of butterflies are beautiful. No matter what your first language, you should treasure it all your life. If it happens to not be standard English, and if it shows itself when your write standard English, the result is usually delightful, like a very pretty girl with one eye that is green and one that is blue.
I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have? The one most vehemently recommended by teachers has no doubt been pressed on you, as well: to write like cultivated Englishmen of a century or more ago.
6. Say what you mean
I used to be exasperated by such teachers, but am no more. I understand now that all those antique essays and stories with which I was to compare my own work were not magnificent for their datedness or foreignness, but for saying precisely what their authors meant them to say. My teachers wished me to write accurately, always selecting the most effective words, and relating the words to one another unambiguously, rigidly, like parts of a machine. The teachers did not want to turn me into an Englishman after all. They hoped that I would become understandable — and therefore understood. And there went my dream of doing with words what Pablo Picasso did with paint or what any number of jazz idols did with music. If I broke all the rules of punctuation, had words mean whatever I wanted them to mean, and strung them together higgledy-piggledy, I would simply not be understood. So you, too, had better avoid Picasso-style or jazz-style writing, if you have something worth saying and wish to be understood.
Readers want our pages to look very much like pages they have seen before. Why? This is because they themselves have a tough job to do, and they need all the help they can get from us.
7. Pity the readers
They have to identify thousands of little marks on paper, and make sense of them immediately. They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don’t really master it even after having studied it all through grade school and high school — twelve long years.
So this discussion must finally acknowledge that our stylistic options as writers are neither numerous nor glamorous, since our readers are bound to be such imperfect artists. Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient readers, ever willing to simplify and clarify — whereas we would rather soar high above the crowd, singing like nightingales.
That is the bad news. The good news is that we Americans are governed under a unique Constitution, which allows us to write whatever we please without fear of punishment. So the most meaningful aspect of our styles, which is what we choose to write about, is utterly unlimited.
8. For really detailed advice
For a discussion of literary style in a narrower sense, in a more technical sense, I recommend to your attention The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. E.B. White is, of course, one of the most admirable literary stylists this country has so far produced.
You should realize, too, that no one would care how well or badly Mr. White expressed himself, if he did not have perfectly enchanting things to say.
In Sum:
1. Find a subject you care about
2. Do not ramble, though
3. Keep it simple
4. Have guts to cut
5. Sound like yourself
6. Say what you mean
7. Pity the readers
Mark Twain said, “Write without pay until someone offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for”.
How do you know if you’ve outlived the writing-for-free thing? Simple answer: you have amassed a sufficient amount of clips in one specialized area and/or you have a variety of different kinds of writing clips that adequately showcase your best work. Only work for free when you need to, and only until you feel you have enough work samples to show to future clients/editors.
Don’t ever give it away if someone is willing to buy it!
Sometimes as writers, no matter how hard we try, the words just don’t come. We have the idea in our heads, but for some frustrating reason, they never get translated onto paper (or onto the web). This is when I like to sweep the words aside and do something completely creative that requires the use of not a single word.
What is it? Photography.
I am not a good photographer, nor do I even know how to use all of the settings on my camera. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know what half the buttons are for. All I do is see something I am inspired by and “click” it, hoping that the picture speaks for itself. Usually I go back and take a look at what I’ve captured and about 50% of the time, the pics convey the impression I was going for.
Doing this activity helps my brain stay creative, yet also spurs another kind of simultaneous creativity that does not require the puzzling together of words.
Finding a non-writing activity that helps you stay creative is important when you need some inspiration. If photography isn’t your thing, consider painting, drawing, coloring, sculpture, collage, scrapbooking, playing an instrument, meditating, practicing yoga, you get the idea. Anything that forces your mind to work in a different but equally creative way will help you gain perspective on your writing and get those juices flowing.
There was an interesting letter in the “Since You Asked” Column of Salon.com and I thought I’d share it with all of you fellow writers and aspiring writers out there. I think from time to time every one of us has questioned our worth as a writer and how to really, truly know if what we are saying is any good? For your reading enjoyment….
Dear Cary,
As of late, you have answered many questions from aspiring or professional writers, and every time I have hoped it would include an answer to the pressing question in my life, but it has not.
The writers who have been writing you, lately, are already certain that they have talent. They suffer from writer’s block, they’re aggravated that their talent is going unnoticed, they wonder how to integrate writing into their lives. I am in a much earlier stage, at least psychologically. I have committed my life to writing, and I have no idea if I’m any good.
What it comes down to is this: How can you tell if you have talent? I submit to magazines and they reject me. I submit to contests and I lose. I try for the creative writing awards at my university every year, and never get so much as an honorable mention. I work and work and work on my craft. I read and read and hope to absorb skill by osmosis. Everyone says this is normal, and no indication that I’m in the wrong life trajectory; this is how all writers begin. But that’s obviously not true — my peers seem to be shooting by.
I know I will always write. It’s in my blood. But when should I give up on making a career of it? When should I stop trying to send it into the world, and keep it shamefully to myself? How can I tell if I’m just part of the pathetic, misguided slush that clogs the mailboxes of magazines?
There is a line from “Little Women” that always stuck with me, after reading it as a child. Laurie is trying to write music like Mozart, and he realizes: “Talent is not genius, and no amount of work will make it so.” He goes into business.
There must be someone who could read one of my manuscripts and then whack me across the face with it — or tell me, yes, keep on trying, there’s something here. Where do I find him?
A Writer or a Fool
Dear Writer or Fool,
One does not write only to display one’s talent. One also writes as a spiritual practice and a mode of self-discovery. One writes in order to see. One writes in order to remember. Writing is like a sixth sense used to apprehend a reality not detected by the other five. It is the memory-sense, or the feeling-sense, the organ through which we make known to each other a rich world not otherwise knowable. It is also the medium through which we make known history and the soul of our culture. It keeps something alive that otherwise might die. It is an important act regardless of whether it gains an individual writer fame and praise.
So if you are writing, and if writing is, as you say, in your blood, your question about talent is moot. It is more a question about how you persist in writing through the fear, discouragement and disappointment that are endemic to the activity.
Logically, it works out like this. All the practice you get makes you better. Whatever stops you from practicing makes you worse. One thing that may stop you from practicing is the belief that you are no good. So the belief that you are no good may prevent you from becoming good — unless you persist in writing. Many of us wake up believing we are no good and persist anyway, knowing that if we do not persist through our feelings of worthlessness then surely we will get nowhere. Our beliefs about our value are meaningless. Writing is a thing that must be done. In doing it, we often get better. It is not guaranteed how much better we will get by daily writing. How good we get, who knows? How long it takes, who knows? But surely we will not get better by not writing. So to keep at it is a logical necessity.
It is also a personal necessity if it is, as you say, in your blood.
These are not trivial matters.
The related question is one of professional competence and success. There is no guarantee of success for talented writers. Success is a whole other ball game.
But let’s back up. It is important to talk about how we persist in doing the most demanding writing. I have for seven months been holding writing workshops at my house. So naturally I have been thinking about the creative process and why the Amherst Writers and Artists method works. One reason I think it works is this: For reasons psychological, spiritual and philosophical one must learn, through practice, to regard one’s creative work with some compassionate detachment, and not to equate it with one’s own worth as a person. We are attempting to contact a source beyond our conscious control. So we must be willing to be surprised by what we find. In order to be surprised, we must have some distance. So in the workshop we try not to address the creator of the work directly. We talk about the work as if it were separate from the creator. The hope is that this will allow the creator also to gain some distance from the work, to be detached as it unfolds. Otherwise, ego fear emerges. The ego will try to remain separate and distinct; it will impede and filter; it will try to steer us away from things that resonate with other people. The ego is too concerned with its place in the world. You need something broader and more subtle to act as your guide. You need a method that encourages you to gain detachment from the work.
I think much good writing, of the kind I like now as opposed to the kind I liked when I was younger, is very simple writing. In writing this column I have come to love the unadorned voice of the letter. I have come to love the subtle variations in individual voices that indicate who is speaking. They are not reducible to tricks of style. They seem more like that complex and undefinable combination of traits that we think of as individuality. I have come to love the individual and untutored voice.
There is a political dimension to this. One of the fundamental assumptions of a society that wishes to live in liberty is that individuals matter. That means the lowliest person matters. When we accord value only to the high, the famous and obviously accomplished, we endanger the esteem in which the lowly are held. So I say give more esteem to the low. So give voice to the voiceless. Help the voiceless find their voice. This is work that helps our society as a whole. It strengthens those on the bottom.
And, damn it, most of all, if you are in doubt as to what you have to say or why you are writing, it must be true that each of us has some searing white-hot core of feeling and being that is trying to find its way to the surface. It may seem alien to us; it may frighten us if we identify it with ourselves. So we must have a method by which we can assure ourselves this white-hot core of our being is not something to fear, that it may be something individual to us or it may be part of the voice of our species, the collective voice of humanity in all its pain and grandeur. It may be our desire to survive. It may be our primordial sense of existence. It may be a prenatal consciousness. It may be childhood’s first glimmer of separate being, our love of beauty, our sense of the divine, our wonder and amazement, our most secret and delicious ecstasies, our most fervent beliefs, our moments of pure being, our strange battles in the night, our dreams, our best meals.
It may take a while scratching around on the surface to find those things and coax them up. But writing, if undertaken seriously, strips away layer after layer, making it more likely year by year that something of this white-hot core of being will emerge. You scratch the ground year after year hungrily looking for something good. You exhaust what is on the surface. You keep pawing away, you keep digging, you keep staring, you become uncomfortable in your chair, you think you hear a voice from beyond, you think you see the glimmer of a ghostly nightgown in your family home bending over you in your bed, you become distracted, you watch the dog moving about the yard — there is the dog draped like a courtesan on the deck, her head hanging over the redwood edge, contemplating a bug traveling across the concrete step, her white fur mottled in the shade of the camellia and the tea tree; you notice the yellow clover and green grass and lavender, the April air impossibly fresh and clean, and suddenly you realize you have scratched away and scratched away and have found traces of a lost world and then were hurtled back into the now and you find — what? — you find the family dog under a flawless sky watching a bug move across the step. After mucking around in the murky past you explode into the present. You find that you exist! It may seem like not much, but it is a beginning. And tomorrow you can go again in search of that ghostly white nightgown.
This takes perhaps many years.
In the meantime, I don’t believe you are ever wasting your own time writing. Some people might think you are wasting theirs, but that’s their problem.
So we end up with many pages that will never be seen. But we did the work. And the work was important.
My last post was kind of my way of saying “how do I make myself work when I’m just not inspired/in-the-mood/motivated?” and the answer fell into my lap courtesy of a posting I read on Inkthinker. It’s called “Falling Back in Love With That Project You Just Don’t Want To Do” by Kristen King.
Now get working!
I’ve been under a lot of self-imposed pressure with the book project and life in general and sometimes I find it difficult (in spite of the looming deadlines) to get myself inspired to write. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t whittle away my days on the couch watching TV (more like on the couch surfing the web, or on the couch reading a book that has absolutely nothing to do with either the book project or either book I have to read and write a review for).
My latest inspirational activity has been viewing stranger’s pictures on flickr. I have no idea how I staggered into doing that, but some of the pics are amazing!
And of course there is my love for reading. Somehow I started reading a 769 page book (!!!!) by accident and I can’t put it down. I say “by accident” because I really wasn’t expecting to be able to get into it. I know if I try to read a book, it either clicks with me immediately or it doesn’t. Well I’m nearing the 200 page mark, which pretty much says it all. If you like thriller/horror/fiction-based-on-historical events, you should read The Terror by Dan Simmons and don’t let the size intimidate you.
P.S. Maybe I should have called this post “What Do You Do When You Are Too Lazy To Write?”
