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March 30 A good day for taking on more work!First of all I'd like to welcome all my new readers. No matter whether you read my blog regularly or you use the RSS feed to keep up to date, it's good to have you aboard! Last week was relatively quiet on the writing front; enough to keep me ticking over quite happily, but also enough to warrant a couple of extra days off in the garden! And it was great weather too - I can now write some articles about growing your own tomatoes from seed, among other things... But after taking Sunday off I have arrived back at my computer this morning to find an influx of emails with new jobs for me to do. That was great news as I was itching to get back into the swing of things again. I have several new batches of articles and an eBook to take on as well. So I am prepared for a long day - and evening - typing away, and I am really enjoying it. The purpose of this blog post is to share the benefits of having a few extra days off when it's quiet. It is good to try and grab some more work and apply for new jobs of course, but you should also take some time for yourself to recharge your writing batteries. Gardening is how I do it, when the weather permits. It has done me the world of good, and I now have a nicer garden to look out on as well! So it could be a busy week, one way or the other. But I'm ready to take it on with both hands and a fresh mind and brain too. I'm planning on blogging more this week as well, to share how I am getting on with this new batch of work. But it's days like this when I feel really grateful to be able to stay home and write to my own timetable - it's what I love, and it is why I recommend that anyone wanting to write for a living just gives it a go. Don't let it pass you by! I'll catch up with you again soon. March 25 From article writer to blog writer...Hi all - it's been a busy week or so here, which is why I haven't posted to my blog lately. But there has been a lot going on behind the scenes... Firstly it feels as if I have been focusing more on blogs than articles recently. Is everyone concentrating on developing their blogs instead of getting articles written for them? It certainly seems like it - and it has been a nice change, I must say. But even as I speak there are some more articles coming in to be written, so that should even things out a bit! Do you have any preference as to the nature of what you write? Do you think of yourself as an article writer, or do you focus more on blogging for other people? It helps to develop both skills, since it doubles your chance of getting work. I have also found that I am doing more reviews recently as well, which again provides a nice change. So if you are looking around for your next writing job, why not cast your net further afield and try your hand at other types of writing? Not only could you earn more, you will also get a much more fascinating mix of things to write each day. March 14 The benefits of working for more than one clientThey do say that variety is the spice of life, and that is certainly what you get when you work for more than one client or company. I have certainly found this to be the case, and it gets rid of any waiting time you would otherwise have while you are drumming your fingers and hoping that your sole client will have more work for you soon. I have a good mix of clients now, and there are plenty of benefits to doing so. The most valuable benefit is that you aren't putting all your eggs in one basket. If anything happened and you lost that client, it would be the equivalent of losing a regular job. You'd have to rush around trying to find another source of income pretty quickly. But if you have half a dozen or more, while it would still be a loss of earnings, it wouldn't be catastrophic. That's why it always pays to market yourself and get as many clients as possible. It also gives you more valuable experience in working for different people and companies, of course. I work for a wide range of people, including two very significant companies, as well as individuals who are carving out their own niche in cyberspace. And I LOVE working for them all. They all have their own attractions and benefits, and I learn something new about online writing with every new job I take. So ask yourself this right now - how many people do YOU work for? Try and aim for that magic half a dozen if you can, and then work on increasing it. The more sources of income you have, the better protected you will be in your online writing career. And in the current economic climate, that can only be a good thing. March 11 How much writing do you do for yourself?This is a topic I have been grappling with a lot of late! It's always great to be working for such a broad cross section of clients, but all writers tend to have other projects that they want to work on for their own benefit as well. For example, there is a website called Constant Content that you can write articles for and simply put them up for sale. I love writing for this site, but quite often I find I don't have the time to do so. And yet once I have a good body of work on there I know I will be able to sell steadily through the weeks and months to come. The trick is finding the time to write those articles in the first place. Now I have a plan of action for every single day that I write. At the end of each day I will take a look at what I need to do on the following day, and write a list accordingly. But until recently I never put anything for myself on that list. Obviously the most important work is the work that is due for other clients; if I find myself pushed for time for any reason then the client work always takes precedence. But I have learned that if you don't put any time aside for your own work - and if you don't remind yourself about it on a daily reminder list - then it can get pushed to the bottom of the pile and forgotten as a result. So ask yourself what there is that you would like to do for yourself, as well as for others. And remember that sometimes working for yourself can bring in new clients anyway! March 07 The need to be versatile and plan ahead with your writingThe idea for this blog post came to me after three weeks of visiting a relative in hospital. Our usual work from home timetable (get up, start work, stop for lunch and then work through til early evening) went out the window, as we took up afternoon visiting hours. All through those three weeks my partner and I kept saying to ourselves, 'Thank God we work from home!' Even though we ended up having the afternoon off and working all evening until going to bed, it meant we could still get the work done and also visit pretty much every day. That was something we never could have done in a 'normal' job. Luckily I plan my writing as far in advance as I can, breaking longer jobs down into bite sized sections so I get something done on them every day. Obviously with our amended timetable of late, I had to take another look at my timetable to make sure I could fit in everything that had a time sensitive deadline on it. When real life intrudes in this way, it's a case of getting your priorities in order and dealing with the most important jobs first. I also tend to build in a couple of days leeway with each job I do, unless it is very small. So for example, if a job is due on the 10th, I will try and complete it by the 8th if I can. That way, if anything happens to throw me off course, I know I don't have to worry as I have some breathing space built in. It's easy to think you have plenty of time to do whatever needs doing each day. But sometimes the unexpected can really cause problems - so always make sure you look after your writing needs (and those of your clients) by planning ahead as much as you can. March 06 The silence of being rejected for work onlineIf you have ever tried applying for online writing jobs you see advertised all over the internet, you will know what the silence of rejection is like. Magazines are different. You will usually (not always but usually) hear back from them with a polite 'no thanks' if you are not successful with your latest article idea or manuscript. But when you apply for online writing work you never hear back unless you are successful. Boy did I find this difficult when I first started out! You have to develop a new tactic when you start doing this. Basically you have to send the best application you can, and then you forget all about it and get on with finding and applying for the next writing job. I actually won a small but regular writing job recently that I had applied to (and forgotten about) over a month before. It took me a few minutes to place where the work had come from! But it just goes to show that quite often you'll get writing jobs coming in when you least expect them to. You definitely shouldn't be discouraged if you haven't heard back from that latest application within a few days of sending it. Even if it is past the closing date for applications, don't get disheartened. Writing work online is hard fought for and hard won. You may get lucky and get the first few jobs under your belt virtually straightaway. On the other hand it could take weeks or even months. But don't give up. Work at improving your pitch. Get out there and start a writing blog, publish some articles on websites like Hubpages - get your name known. It will all benefit you in the end. And don't worry about the silence you'll get after submitting an application for a writing project. Sooner or later that silence will end - and then you will be in the flow of writing once again. March 02 Beating the isolation of being an online freelance writerOr any kind of writer, come to that. My thanks go to Susan, who commented on my last blog post and asked about the isolation we all experience as freelance writers. She has inspired me to write this particular blog post, as it wasn't a subject I had honestly thought too much about until she raised the question. So how do I beat the isolation? Well, I am into my second year as a full time freelance writer now, so I have had some time to get used to the working life. Any novelty has worn off (I think!) and I can now see the life of a freelancer as it really is. My situation is perhaps a little different from some other writers, since I also have an eBay business with my partner. That means we both work from home, so I am never really alone, or not for very long anyway. And I have to admit I don't really feel isolated by my work. Writing is essentially a solitary craft anyway, and I work better when things around me are nice and quiet and peaceful. That's just me though - I know Stephen King writes his novels with rock music pounding away in the background! But I do have contact with other people during the day, albeit via the internet. There are usually emails flying back and forth between my clients and myself, and I am usually on Twitter most days, seeing what other writers are up to at their various desks across the world. It may not be the same as meeting other writers face to face, but it is still a form of contact and it is very welcome. I feel the same about blogging too. I can imagine my band of readers out there in cyberspace, hopefully getting some encouragement and enjoyment from my words. Once again there is a connection and it is a pleasant one. I think it does depend on the type of writing you do though. I focus almost entirely on online writing, and all the other writers I am familiar with online tend to be in touch through email or Twitter or some other form of social networking. There are always writing groups locally in every country and every locale, but when I last went it was very much magazine and book writing that was being focused on. Different writers will feel isolated to different degrees of course. But there IS a huge network of writers online, via blogs, forums and social networking sites, and they are not difficult to find. All you need to do is plug yourself into it - and you might be surprised at how much the sense of isolation can be alleviated by doing just that. That's why I am firmly hooked on Twitter! |
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