triangleareafreelancers.org Blog

What matters most

As many of you know, I teach freshman English at an area high school. As a first year teacher, it’s extremely easy to manage my free time – because I don’t have any! Add to that my position as a football coach, and I’m lucky to ever see my wife when she’s awake. With my endless teacher to-do list and my hours spent on the football field, I’m missing the one thing that means the most to me – my time to write.

Writing is a catharsis of sorts for me. I have so many emotions and feelings over the course of any one day as a teacher and football coach – even as a husband and stepfather. Writing allows me to funnel that emotional energy into something useful and productive – whether it is my non-fiction magazine writing or my fiction novel writing. When you lose an outlet of expression, those feelings build up and begin to really affect your life.

I am finding that it is essential to find time to write everyday. My psyche needs that freedom of expression. It’s like my soul acts like a pressure cooker without a release valve. I have to get my words down on paper.

I took part in the Poetry Slam competition, in conjunction with sparkCON, last Saturday night in Moore Square. Just being immersed in the language, whether my words or the words of the other poets, soothed my soul like a warm towel draped across my face. Like a long, tall, cool drink on a hot summer afternoon. The saying, “You don’t know what you’ve until it’s gone” is so apropos as a description of my life right now.

I have now promised myself that I will write something – ANYthing – every single day. I owe it to myself. This is the first step to regaining my creative muse. There is a section from the song “Breathe (2AM)” by Anna Nalick that sums up my situation perfectly:

“2 AM and I’m still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to…
And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd
’Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you’ll use them, however you want to…”

 I ache when I cannot write. I actually have a physical reaction now when I fail to release the words that are inside of me. We owe it to ourselves to obey the muse, to obey the needs of our writer’s soul, to do what we need to do as writers to actually BE writers. A smart man once said you cannot call yourself a writer unless you actually write.

 I can once again call myself a writer.

- John Wood

Freelancin’ Blues

Freelance writers: your world is an up and down mixed bag of responses from pubs nationwide. There will be rejection, but as I’ve been told many, many times, “Don’t take it personally.” If you are producing quality work, have queried regularly, and followed all publication submission guidelines, your time WILL come. But editors, please do writers the courtesy of at least being upfront about things. I once queried an editor who was not interested in my story idea. He sent me a very nice email saying something to the effect of, “Thank you … not at this time … but please query again.”

And so for months, I continued to send story ideas his way. When one really great idea came across my desk, I immediately queried this editor, certain in my heart and soul that this story could not be turned down. His reply? “Thank you for the offer. Unfortunately, we don’t have it in our budget to pay freelancers. That said, I’d welcome anything you’d like to submit but am unable to reimburse you for it.”

It was an unexpected speed bump. That’s the kind of information that should have been put forth upfront. And unfortunately, it’s not in my budget (or anyone else’s I know) to work for free.

But I didn’t take it personally. I pitched the same story idea to an online publication and they were thrilled. Being in the right place at the right time really does have its benefits. And in this business, perseverance is everything.

-Kristy

[Previously posted at www.kristystevenson.blogspot.com - June, 2008.]

Where the *BLEEP* are My Files?!?!

Sunday morning I wake early from sleep, dreaming of the interviews on Monday morning. Or was it today? No, I’m sure it was Monday. A wave of uncertainty washes over. I hit the power button to my computer and go to feed our black lab who is whining to eat. When I return, the computer screen is black. I push the power button again. Nothing. I push the power button five more times hoping that the same action will yield a different result. 7am. My husband wakes up to a blood-curling scream.“My computer crashed! It crashed! And I have an interview tomorrow morning!!!!” I didn’t write down specifics since they were all in an e-mail from my editor, who is also out of town for the next week. Where do I go? What time? Monday 9am. I think. Maybe. Where? A church in North Raleigh. Calling Best Buy, we find out they open at 10am. Calming down, I keep myself busy, make breakfast, take a shower, get dressed. 9:45 am we arrive at Best Buy, along with another 50 people holding tickets to be the first to buy the Wii. At this point, I don’t even know what Wii is, looking at the picture of a guitar on someone’s ticket. Already people in line are complaining. Once making it into the store, a man pushes ahead of us in line. Barton bellow, “Excuse me!” Feeling guilty, the man backs off and insists we go ahead. The manager of the Geek Squad reads all the regulations for a 4-day information transfer, but she’ll push it ahead this afternoon.

When we come home, I am already scheming backup plans. I call our great mentor Don, who suggests I call the paper through out the afternoon. Barton and I spend several hours looking at churches in north Raleigh- is it that one? No, that’s too far out; it’s this one over here.

2:45pm I call Best Buy- taking over thirty minutes of recorded voices and being on hold to be told they can’t find the manager. I just can’t stand it anymore. I rush back down to the store trying not to mow down the gobs of people buying Christmas gifts. Finally, the tech. staff hands me a disk of retrieved files. They have to ship the computer out- for now, it remains dead.

8pm Barton and I stare at the computer screen of his old computer. First, the set up, creating a new log-on account and e-mail account. The sensor on the computer scrolls up and down, uncontrollably. There was a reason that Barton dumped this computer. 10pm We push file folder buttons to find the lost information scattered in some obscure place.

10:30pm Barton finds it and we import Outlook e-mails. We have found it!!!!!

Monday 9am, early to the interview, downing coffee to stay awake. In the afternoon, I am wrangling with Barton’s computer, taking three times the normal speed for me to type one word, and apparently it likes to freeze every ten minutes. I save after every word I type.

Later, our mentor Don writes, “Remember, no matter what happens, it’s not the end of the world. Keep repeating that and you’ll be fine.”

I’ll be repeating it; trust me, I’ll be repeating it.

–Megan Cutter

Oversold!

Maybe I just have the kind of face that makes people feel comfortable talking to me, but lately strangers have been telling me their personal problems. Just the other day a lady was telling me how dry her skin was, especially in the winter. Fortunately, she said, she’d found a great moisturizer that made her skin as smooth and supple as a baby’s tuckus.

Then a guy confided that he had erectile dysfunction, but that he had stumbled across a medication that helped him rise to the occasion. His wife now apparently had a smile on her face you couldn’t erase with a belt sander.

The fact that these people are all on television just makes it worse, because I can’t tell them to just shut up and keep their icky secrets to themselves. There was a time when TV advertising involved a guy in a suit holding up a bottle of oil made of compressed snakes or something and telling you how great it was, or perhaps a black-and-white animation of hammers clanging in someone’s skull, followed by a pitch for aspirin. If I’m dating myself, so be it – there seemed to be far fewer commercials in those days, and they pitched stuff I actually needed.

But now advertising pervades every aspect of our lives, whether we’re interested in the product or not. There’s a scene in the movie “Minority Report” where Tom Cruise’s character walks by a video display and is addressed by name and assailed with advertising targeted specifically at him.

We’re not quite there yet, but we’re close.

If you’ve ever bought anything on Amazon, for example, on return trips to the site you’ll see offers for books or DVDs similar to what you’ve bought before. Computer trojans infect your PC, watching your buying habits so they can report them to a central site which in turn sends you spam. We’re even targeted with product placement on TV these days.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of the word “target,” a gunsight springs to mind. Well, actually, the first thing that comes to mind is a certain department store – because of their pervasive advertising. I don’t think of being a target as a good thing, especially if you’re a deer. But then, at least they don’t have to watch commercials.

Sure, in the old days there were door-to-door salesmen, but you could always tell them where to put their Electrolux and various attachments. Marketing is now a strictly one-way medium, “served” to you on TV, in movie theaters, on your cell phone, land line, the Internet, billboards, magazines, newspapers, email and other conduits. It’s all given me a bad case of TMA – Too Much Advertising.

All those ads clamoring for attention remind me of the overly zealous salespeople on commission who just won’t leave you alone when you’re trying to shop at your local Buy More. Excuse me, but if I need help, I’ll ask for it. Instead, I get an ever-increasing horde of salespeople, all trying to guess what I want to buy or sell me something I don’t want. Enough already.

But I think I have a solution.

Many of us have signed up for the Do Not Call registry, which prohibits unsolicited phone marketing. How about a Do Not Sell rule, where I accept advertising only when I request it? If I see, for example, a really cool car I’d like to know more about, I email the auto company a request for more information, with the understanding that there will be no more communication unless it’s initiated by me.

I can see advertisers rushing to adopt this plan, since they’ll hear only from people who are seriously interested in their products. It’s a revolutionary idea that’ll change the face of advertising forever.

Also, the color of the sky in my world is chartreuse.

- MAC

To be or not to be (a friend)

The other day a friend told me she had viewed my Netflix queue and she thought we had similar tastes in movies. Afterwards, my husband asked me how she managed to see my choices, and I told him that she was my Netflix “friend.” My ONE and ONLY Netflix friend, actually, a fact Netflix reminds me of every time I log on. 

Do you guys have many online friends? 

If you do, you’re lucky. You don’t get these sadistic little messages from everyone—my publisher Lulu included—that say things like “You do not have any friends. How very sad for you.” 

I must be really weird. I’m actually a very nice person, and I have plenty of friends offline. But when I’m working, I’m working. The older I get, the more brain power and concentration it takes. Friends can be such a distraction. 

Beside, I have a full life, a lot of commitments, and way too many relatives. 

So I barely even know what it even means to have a friend on Lulu or Netflix. Or what the implications are. I mean, am I supposed to know when their birthdays are, or watch their kids when they’re sick? 

This is a whole new arena for me, and it’s clearly a generational thing. When my daughter logged on to her much-older brother’s MySpace site a couple of years ago, she was aghast to find that he had no friends. She took pity on him and, in addition to signing herself up, she got all her friends to be his friends. She, herself, already had 75 friends. But that was a long time ago, before all the new friends she got on Facebook. 

I’m just wondering if any of these “helpful” little messages ever actually push anyone over the edge. Say you’re having a really, really, really bad day. You log on to see if some kind person has purchased a copy of your book online, or if your DVD is on the way. And you get that message. “You have NO friends.” 

Or worse. You ARE the kind of person who makes friends everywhere, and you get a message that says, “You have 1750 friends.” Do you realize how many trips to the card shop that is? 

Really, it sounds like such a liability to me. You watch—mark my words—someone’s going to sue one of these websites, because their recently departed loved one took the message a little too seriously. 

So long, friend.

-Elaine Luddy Klonicki

Easy as A-B-C

They say adversity builds character. Frankly, I think I am quite enough of a character, thanks, and Adversity can just trundle off and find somebody else to pick on! That said, it strikes me that adversity also builds writers.

Nora Ephron – whose writing I have loved for decades – found the inspiration for her novel, Heartburn, in the decline and fall of her marriage to Carl Bernstein. Another writer whose work I have enjoyed is David Eddings. His “About the Author” blurbs illustrate Elaine Klonicki’s opening remark in “Walk Like a Duck” (October 12, 2007), listing some of his former occupations: military service (Army), grocery clerk, college English teacher. Having served in the Army myself, and come close enough to the other two, I can attest to the tribulation they engender. John Steinbeck tried to establish himself as a free-lance writer in the 1920s – and failed, returning to his native California, and continuing to write. His books were well-loved by English teachers and students alike (including those in the 8^th grade), as well as by the ubiquitous “they”: He won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature.

How many of us, as angst-ridden adolescents, have not put some of the frustration of those years into words? Granted, at least some of them are nothing but bad poetry, but they express what we felt as best we could at the time. For me, it was around 1969:

You say you know me.

But have you ever lived months,

Years of your life, being

With a thousand people every day –

Yet still being alone?

You say you know me.

But have you ever stood on one side

Of a wet cardboard wall

With the rest of the world pushing on the other

To trample you when it breaks through?

You say you know me,

Though you have never known the things I’ve known.

You know my face.

You may know what my name is.

But you don’t really know me.

You see? Bad poetry. The thing is – whether they include contending with an inadequate income while we try to convince potential employers we have brains, talents and skills, or putting on a brave face to keep up the spirits of a family member with a serious illness – the obstacles we overcome every day add to what we have done, and therefore, to what we can do. Conveniently, they also provide fodder for our pens or – more commonly these days – our computers.

Say, Adversity, maybe I can use you for something after all…but do you really need to be such a bloody enthusiast?

- Dara Lyon Warner

Elaine, Part One – Walk Like a Duck

People often come to freelance writing later in life and from other careers. Some switch from other writing fields, such as technical writing. Others have done business writing, including press releases and marketing materials, as part of their job. Exposure to a variety of knowledge bases can be a boon for a freelancer. The more exposure you have to the world, the more you have to write about.

But one pitfall for beginning freelancers is that they often don’t see themselves as writers. New members who come to our group often say the same thing. “I’m not really a writer—I don’t have anything published.”

Although some people have a more natural aptitude than others, thankfully, writing is primarily a learned skill: the more you write, the better you get. There is no acid test to determine whether you are, or are not, a writer. You are a writer if you write.

But thinking of yourself as a writer is a critical step towards being one. If you’re not there yet, you can borrow a role-playing technique psychotherapists use to help people get a jump-start on learning new behaviors. It’s called “acting as if” (known in laymen’s terms as “Fake it until you make it.”)

For example, if you’re uncomfortable in social situations, you can “act as if” you are extroverted. You can walk into a room of strangers, make solid eye contact, introduce yourself, give a firm handshake, and smile warmly at everyone.

People are funny. If they see something that “walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck,” they think it’s a duck. If you appear to be outgoing, they assume you’re outgoing. If you appear to be a writer, they assume you’re a writer.

One of my favorite anecdotes from Sue Monk Kidd’s Firstlight, which is a collection of her early inspirational writings, is her description of how she announced to the world that she was going to become a writer. (She had had a long career as a nurse.) “The world” turned out to be her husband and two-year-old, who were sitting at the breakfast table eating cereal. Her point was that she had decided.

If you’ve decided you want to be a writer, start “acting as if” — by doing the things that writers do. Establish a space in your home to write, buy writers’ magazines, join a writers’ group, take a writing class, talk to people about what you’re writing, and most importantly, write!

- Elaine Luddy Klonicki

It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Beige

When we first moved into our house in Wake Forest eight years ago, there were just two things I really didn’t like about the place: the awful orange carpeting and the beige toilets, showers and sinks. The carpeting is gone now, and there are plans to replace the fixtures as well. Because to me, beige equals blah.

If beige was a flavor, it would be vanilla. If it was music, it would be Muzak. Beige is the very essence of a lack of imagination – selecting it is a sure sign that you’ve simply given up on choosing a hue. Beige is the color you pick in a gift if you don’t know (or like) the recipient very much. Artistically, it’s Thomas Kinkade.

The problem is, I’m beige. I’ve been referred to as white, but of course, nobody is except maybe Johnny Winter, and he leans more toward eggshell. No, most of us “white” folks are actually varied shades of ivory, and “black” folks range from light to dark chocolate. We are all, in fact, various shades of earth, and unfortunately, that includes beige.

What if people varied in color based on how interesting they were? Beige folks would enjoy backgammon and birdwatching, while writers and artists would range from chartreuse to Day-Glo orange. Picasso and Dali would have been a pastiche of psychedelic colors, while Joseph Conrad would have been…OK, he would have been black. But he’s the exception that proves the rule that I just invented.

Maybe getting a tattoo is a sign that you’re tired of being beige, or whatever earth tone you happen to be. Maybe getting a tan is too. All I know is that it would be fun to be – I dunno – green for a while. I hear it’s a lot easier.

– MAC

What I’ve learned

Just a few observations from several years in the trenches…

*Done is better than perfect.

*Most editors are kind, decent people.

*That said, a surprising number of editors deserve a smack in the head.

*No matter how much you get for an article, a small part of you will always believe you deserve more. It’s right.

*It’s smart business to continually expand your market base.

*Avoid the obvious. Freelance success comes from looking at the world from a decidedly different perspective.

*Perseverance also plays an important role in whether you succeed or not. Don’t give up, no matter how frustrated you may feel.

*Read as much as you can, and read as many different voices as you can.

*Sometimes you just have to say no.

More later…

–Don