Being a Freelance Road Warrior: Musings on Travel, Writing

by Joe Wallace

Like the pic? It’s from a Cleveland night spot adjacent to the hotel I stayed in on the first leg of my current 12-day road trip from Chicago to NYC. I’m blogging at Turntabling.net about indie record stores between the two points, and making copious notes of my experiences to share with you here.

A prolonged stretch of travel writing has its own challenges. When I did this last year from Chicago to San Antonio, Texas, I didn’t really know what to expect, but I had the luxury of not worrying about servicing freelance clients while on the road. This time I decided to add that challenge to the mix and see what happens.

My plan was to use the new free-for-all wi-fi service at Starbucks, since the coffee chain seems to be everywhere. I figured at the very very least I might have to drive or walk to the nearest coffee shop to get connectivity and post away.

That strategy worked for a while. In Cleveland, which is quite possibly one of THE most freelancer-friendly cities in the U.S. it was child’s play to get a connection and file my work for my clients. Ditto for Pittsburgh, which had plenty of free wi-fi to go around.

Not so much once I got closer to the East Coast. In Allentown I had trouble connecting to the hotel’s TWO wi-fi servers, and when I hit Newark, I learned that not only does Starbucks seem to be quite scarce here (at least in the vicinity where I am staying near Penn Station) but there’s no Panera Bread, either. And the hotel I’m in is quite happy to charge me to connect in addition to the room fee.

I bit the bullet and paid the extra usury for wireless Internet in order to keep current with my clients, but I have to say, it’s a bad idea to depend on that free wi-fi service on a road trip unless you’ve done your homework first–what I should have done was check each city on my itinerary via Yelp.com or some other restaurant reviewer site to see if I’d be able to depend on the free stuff for the entire trip. I’d have saved myself some extra hotel charges and a lot of headaches trying to find an office-away-from-the-office. It was via Yelp that I learned that Newark is short on the free wi-fi near where I’m staying, and via Yelp that I found plenty of places in Greenwich Village to connect instead. A 2o minute train ride into NYC was the cure for many of my problems…

In my next report, a list of the freelancer-friendly places I’ve been so far. … Continue Reading

Freelancing On the Road: A Travel Writing Experiment From Chicago To NYC

I’m writing this in a coffee shop in Cleveland, Ohio after a long day of driving, record store reviewing for my blog Turntabling.net, AND managing to do my usual rounds of freelance social media and writing work for my clients. The photo is my current work space, how do you like my temporary office? It’s cozy and the staff are friendly. Thank you, Phoenix Coffee in Cleveland Heights! You are awesome.

I took this 13-day trip (I’m on day two by the time you read this) as an experiment. How would the driving, the travel writing, AND maintaining my usual freelance agenda work out? Would I run myself ragged? Would everything go smoothly or would I encounter Mister Murphy and his damnable law at every turn?

That’s what I want to find out. It’s one thing to outsource your clients temporarily, or put them on hold, to take on a juicy assignment or even a vacation. It’s another thing to try and keep the work rolling as usual even if you shuffle your delivery times and let your clients know there is an extra factor making your time even more at a premium than it already is.

On day one, I found myself dealing with a “when it rains, it pours” scenario. Not only did I manage to make all my clients happy as per usual with the social media and writing stuff (so far so good!), I also got some e-mail today requesting MORE for new clients.

Be careful what you wish for–it will come at the time your time is at the highest premium. I’ll have more reports from the road on these sorts of issues–my next post will have plenty to say about the technical issues related to connecting while on the road and delivering the goods even when you aren’t sure where your next Wi-Fi hotspot is coming from. Stay tuned.

Overselling/Underselling Yourself

By Amanda Connor

I have been caught in this web of imbalance before. It is as easy to oversell yourself as it is to undersell yourself to a prospective client.

On days when I’ve felt terribly confident in my abilities and perhaps caught a really inspirational Lifetime movie that hammered home the idea that “I can do ANYTHING I put my mind to,” I may have taken on a project that was clearly over my head, and later lived to regret doing so.  On other days, when I’ve felt overwhelmed or exhausted, I haven’t taken the time to really sell my abilities and I’ve missed out on some great writing opportunities.

The only answer to finding this perfect balance of appropriately selling your abilities is to take the time to really evaluate your own work and to give yourself room for introspection.

Questions to ask yourself to prevent overselling:

1. If this project sounds challenging, am I genuinely interested in the subject matter?

2. Do I have the energy and drive to put into taking on a project like this?

3. Will taking on a challenging project like this boost my knowledge/skill set for future projects? Will this increase my value as a writer?

4. What’s my motivation: the subject matter or the paycheck?

Questions to ask yourself to prevent underselling:

1. What other projects have I worked on that are most worth mentioning? Highlight these projects. Now is not the time to be modest.

2. If I’m not giving this pitch my all, why not? Fatigue? Burn out? Stress? Lack of interest in the project?

3. Am I being too timid about my abilities? Focus on the most difficult project you have taken on to date and ask yourself: Am I capable of producing even better/more challenging work?

Whether you suspect you are underselling your abilities, or you are coming down from the high of another great project and feel like you can take on the world, save yourself the frustration of a botched opportunity by remaining grounded in where you stand, as well as remaining focused on each new step in your writing career.

A Freelance Travel Writing Experiment

by Joe Wallace

I love travel, and I love travel writing. So why haven’t I done that much in 2010? Because I let myself get tied down to a freelance gig that required me to show up onsite several days a week or take meetings that tied me to the company’s secure site which was tricky to access even ONSITE.

So I wound up being tied to a desk. It was worth it financially–I built up my war chest and was able to finish the project, choose not to renew with that client and concentrate on my own work after the project was done.

And now I’m taking full advantage by doing some travel and travel blogging.

Specifically, I’m doing a cross country trek to blog about indie record stores between Chicago, Illinois and New York City. It’s called Vinyl Road Rage, and I’m taking a dozen days on the road, blogging the whole way for Turntabling.net.

But I’ll also be posting along the way for Freelance-Zone.com because the issues I’ll be facing on the road are travel writing issues. How do I connect on the road? How do I juggle my travel with my other clients–who I won’t be putting on hold during the trip? How will THAT work out? I will give reports along the way about the trials, tribulations, almost-busted deadlines and much more.

After all, the idea of being a freelancer is being FREE. If I’m true to the freelance ideal, I should be able to travel for nearly two weeks, make my freelance clients happy AND post about it all here…right? Let’s take this journey together and see what happens. My road trip begins today, Thursday August 12, 2010…time to hit the road!

–Joe Wallace

Everything I Never Wanted to Be

by Mike O’Mary

I am very pleased and proud to announce that pre-release copies of Everything I Never Wanted to Be by Dina Kucera are now available from Dream of Things. The book will be available at bookstores everywhere on October 1, but you can get your copy now by visiting www.everythinginever.com.

Everything I Never Wanted to Be is the true story of one family’s battles with alcoholism and drug addiction over four generations—as told from the unique perspective of a grocery store clerk with a ninth grade education who is trying to make it as a stand-up comic. To learn more about this amazing memoir – including excerpts, info about the author, and an early review from publisher and movie producer Mark Shelmerdine – visit www.everythinginever.com.

I also think it’s interesting and important to note that Dina’s memoir was rejected by 74 agents and publishers before it was published. It finally found a home after Dina posted excerpts on her blog and someone (yours truly) read it and fell in love with it. For more details about Dina’s path to publication, click here.

Mike O’Mary is founding dreamer of Dream of Things, a book publisher currently accepting creative nonfiction stories for anthologies on 14 topics, including an anthology titled “Advice You’d Like to Pass on to Others.”

“And The Plot Thickens” Weekend Novel Writing Workshop

Today we are excited to bring Freelance-Zone readers an up-close look at “And The Plot Thickens”, a novel writing workshop in Rhode Island taking place later this month…

1. How did the idea for the “And The Plot Thickens” workshop come about, and when is it?

‘And The Plot Thickens… How to develop a novel’ is held on August 28 & 29 2010.

The idea came about because we are passionate about the Arts. From the regular RISDA exhibitions we hold in our lobby, our series of arts inspired events and the local arts society we support, it shows in everything we do…We wanted to help people discover their own passion and writing their first novel is a dream that many of us have. We also realized that with people taking shorter weekends because of the economy, they wanted to do something more worthwhile with their time away – this workshop allows them to pursue their dream, share experiences and make new friends while spending the weekend in a wonderful hotel in a beautiful city.

2.  Who will be leading this workshop and what are that person’s qualifications?

Joanna Howard is a published author and holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Denver, and MFA in fiction writing from Bowling Green State University. She currently teaches fiction at Brown University. Joanna is the author of ‘On the Winding Stair’ (Boa Editions, 2009) a collection of short stories which Publisher’s Weekly described as “14 tales of startling description and beauty.”  She is also the author of ‘In the Colorless Round’ (Noemi, 2007), a short collection of prose with artwork by Rikki Ducornet . Her publications also include numerous book reviews in Review of Contemporary Fiction and American Book Review, and she has worked as a co-translator on Marcel Cohen’s Walls (Black Square 2009) and on Frederic Boyer’s Cows (forthcoming from Noemi Press). Her stories appear in anthologies and journals including Conjunctions, The Chicago Review, Quarterly West, and American Letters and Commentary. Howard is a fiction editor for Tarpaulin Sky magazine, She has also edited for Denver Quarterly and other journals.

3. What will be covered in these two days?

Each day will be structured by a series of morning and afternoon sessions, which will include a range of writing exercises, workshops, and seminar style discussions.

Budding writers will learn practical skills for how to shape their ideas into a novel, discover how to create memorable characters and compelling narratives. They will examine their favorite novels and dissect what makes them great pieces of fiction. Reading-out exercises will give them the opportunity for feedback on material they have already written and advice on how to develop and shape their drafts. Joanna will share her experience and advice on how to talk about and present ideas to an audience and how to get that first novel published. … Continue Reading

Interview With…Tim Leffel, Travel Writer And Editor

Tim Leffel

1. Can you tell readers about your writing journey and how you came to be involved with travel writing?

I worked at RCA Records for seven years in marketing and did a lot of writing there as a part of my job. When my now-wife and I started preparing to go backpacking around the world long-term, the obvious money-making paths for me seemed to be teaching English and travel writing. So I did both. The stories I got published were just a trickle at first, but over time I got more assignments and eventually I was able to dispatch stories and hotel reviews from five different continents. I worked part-time for many, many years before I made the leap to this being a full-time job. For me, things really started to take off when I put out a book that sold well and started a blog to go with it. 

2. You have a new book coming out soon…would you share a bit about that with Freelance-Zone readers? 

It’s hitting the virtual shelves now, so you can get it at the usual online shops, at Booklocker.com, and soon at the Apple iBookstore. It’s called Travel Writing 2.0: Earning money from your travels in the new media landscape. This is the first guide I know of to address how to actually earn money at this in this time of transition between print and digital media. Besides my own hard-won advice, the book has lots of nuggets from 52 other travel writers and a group of editors and publishers.

3. In your opinion, what are the biggest mistakes writers make when it comes to travel writing?

Trying to publish broad stories about places instead of spending time finding unique angles that have not been covered before. Sure, you read plenty of ho-hum destination stories in magazines that follow a similar script, but what editors really want from new freelancers are unique angles, especially ones that can fit onto a page or less in the print world. The same concept applies to blogging as well: if what you’re writing is not noticeably different from everything else out there, why do readers need you? We’re already drowning in average prose from average writers.

The other big mistake is not having the long-term vision and persistence required to succeed at what is a very competitive field. It can take years to get established as a travel writer, whether on the old print path or a new digital one, so choose opportunities based on what it will do for you long-term, not how big that single check may or may not be.

4. Would you share a career highlight with us?

I can’t pick one because the highlights are two-fold. First, I’ve taken some mind-blowing, amazing trips that either paid for themselves from articles sold or were covered by someone else paying the expenses and to me that’s the real payoff of this job. Writing assignments have taken me to the Galapagos, Peru, Panama, Iceland, Botswana, Hungary, Nepal—and plenty more places. Winning a Grand Prize from the North American Travel Journalists Association was nice. Selling Italian rights to The World’s Cheapest Destinations was pretty cool. But probably the greatest highlight was being able to reach the point where I could pay the bills and support my family as a writer/editor/blogger. I’m proud that I’ve accomplished this mostly because of websites and blogs I’ve created myself from scratch, not from pleading with rotating gatekeepers over and over.

5. What is the best piece of writing advice you have ever received?

One of my high school English teachers told me not to use 20 words when 10 will say it just as well—or better. What’s made me a good writer, more than anything I think, is being good at brutal self-editing.

BIO: Tim Leffel is a full-time freelance writer and the author of several books, including the new Travel Writing 2.0 and The World’s Cheapest Destinations, now in its third edition. He is the editor of the narrative webzine Perceptive Travel, the CheapestDestinations Blog, and the Practical Travel Gear Blog.

Curing writer’s block

By Jake Poinier

Call me a cynic, but I tend to think that the idea of curing writer’s block is impossible, because the phrase itself represents an unhelpful catchall for a variety of reasons (read: excuses) for not writing. Moreover, for the freelance commercial writer, unlike the college-essay writer, it’s simply something you can’t allow to interfere with your business. There was a tweet by @MenwithPens yesterday that captured my philosophy nicely: “If you’re taking money from people, you have a responsibility not to do crappy work.” That necessitates, of course, the responsibility to do the work in the first place.

Note well, I’m not saying that there aren’t times when the words are tougher to come by. What I *am* saying is that waiting for divine inspiration is a fool’s game, and you’d sound like a goofball to any editor or client if you actually uttered the words “writer’s block.” Unless you’re martyring yourself on the Starving Fiction Novelist pike, the successful freelancer needs to be able to get the words on the page.

• If you’re suffering from a lack of uber-great ideas…do a brain dump or mind map, use the best of what you’ve got to start, and try to upgrade and polish as you go along.
• If you’re lacking the motivation to write about a topic that bores you…write it as promptly and quickly as you can, so it’s off your plate and out of your head.
• If you’re not sure how to start something…look for the places that you can even get a tiny toehold, whether it’s the boilerplate “Services” page of a corporate web site or a sidebar in a feature story.
• If your deadline is looming, and the work’s still not ready for prime time…talk to your client or editor well in advance, and politely ask for additional time to get it to the quality you want to deliver.
• If you’ve sat at your desk till the metaphorical blood drops start to bead on your forehead…get the heck out of your chair and take the dog for a walk or yourself for a bike ride for a full hour.

At the risk of retreating into a sports metaphor: I’m a lifelong Red Sox fan, and, ipso facto, lifelong Yankee-hater. As such, I enjoyed watching Alex Rodriguez struggle for a dozen games before he hit his 600th home run this week. I’m sure he was wondering when the next one was going to come after every agonizing failure. But at the same time, he still had to show up every night and take his cuts.

As a professional writer, you’re getting a couple of at-bats every day. Not every one is going to be a home run, but if the bat never leaves your shoulder, your stint in the big leagues will surely be abbreviated.

Please drop by Jake’s DearDrFreelance.com site for advice on how to deal with troublesome clients, pricing your projects, finding new freelance business, and more.

Video Conferencing With Tokbox

by Catherine L. Tully

Just a quick resource for you today–but a great one! Tokbox is perfect if you need a way to video chat, or want to hold a video conference of some kind online. Keep this site in mind for the next time you need to see someone face-to-face on the web.

All About ME–Shameless Self Promotion and the Freelancer

I’ve been writing professionally in one form or another since 1987, and in all that time one of my biggest challenges has been getting comfortable with the idea of shameless self promotion.

Don’t get me wrong–today, I love it more than coffee. But in the early days of my writing career I wasn’t confident in my skills, and as a result I always felt like I was selling snake oil to people. The lack of confidence made me feel like I was getting away with something every time I landed a gig or got praise for something I worked on.

And that is a key issue in successful personal PR as a freelancer–believing in yourself enough to sell what you’re doing. I believe many people can detect that self-doubt even in the strongest of queries, sales pitches, etc. It’s almost as if they can smell the desperation coming through in the e-mails, the phone calls, and face-to-face meetings.

Is confidence in your own abilities what makes the sale?

I believe there’s no substitute for a well-written query, cover letter or resume…but I also think those are TOOLS, not the end itself. The query letter is just a sales pitch, after all. Ditto for the resume or proposal. What are these tools supposed to do? Sell YOU.

If confidence is the key, what does it take to get it? So many freelancers are afraid of making mistakes, of sending the wrong thing to the wrong people. I’ve been advising people to stop fussing so much over these issues and just get out there and DO IT. When I was a noob freelancer, I actually copied the format and presentation of successful query letters, not realizing that I would actually sell my ideas better in my own voice.

Today I’d rather shoot myself than copy someone else’s approach–but only because I’ve learned through trial and error that when I do things my own way, my confidence in my approach seems to be far more obvious. And I think in the end, that helps close the deal. … Continue Reading

Two Quotes

by Mike O’Mary

I have two quotes for you today. The first is from Maurice Sendak, the award-winning author of many children’s books, who once made the pointed observation that, “There must be more to life than having everything.” Unfortunately, he didn’t say what more there must be.

I used to subscribe to a newsletter called “The Meaning of Life.” Although it had the same title as the Monty Python movie, it was not a humorous newsletter. It was a serious attempt by a University of Chicago professor of philosophy to help people find and examine the things that add meaning to their lives.

At various times, the newsletter examined various traits and values that can help bring meaning to your life. Things like integrity, enthusiasm, honesty and spontaneity, among others.

Those are all things that we strive for in our lives. But it’s important to realize that those things are intertwined. You can’t have enthusiasm without integrity, for example, or spontaneity without honesty.

Those thoughts are not my own. I didn’t make the connection until I came across the following quote from Robert Schuller: “Integrity makes enthusiasm possible. Only honest people are subconsciously liberated to be totally spontaneous. Without that quality, enthusiasm is contrived and not an authentic motivating factor in life.”

If you want to have enthusiasm and be spontaneous, you have to be honest and have integrity. There are no shortcuts. And if you want to do more than “have everything,” you must aspire to “be” something. Being honest and having integrity is a pretty good place to start.

Mike O’Mary is founding dreamer of Dream of Things, a book publisher currently accepting creative nonfiction stories for anthologies on 14 topics, including an anthology titled “Advice You’d Like to Pass on to Others.”

A BigDif Book Sampler

by Catherine L. Tully

You may have noticed that BigDif is one of our sponsors over here at Freelance-Zone. Part of our committment to readers is that we provide you with more information about those who advertise on our site so that you can decide for yourself if the product or service is something that might be beneficial to you.

Today we have with us Tom Watson–head of BigDif. He’s going to share some of the types of books that they publish over at their company so that you can get a feel for if this might be a good route for you to go if you are a budding chidren’s book author…or if you know someone who is…

Here’s Tom–

One of the things I really like about what we’re trying to do at this newfangled publishing company is give authors a chance to publish stories that traditional publishers just would be too wary to give a shot.  We make the books available digitally in our on-line e-reader.  And they can be printed at home.  We have about 40 books available now and each one stands on its own in different ways.  Here are some of my personal favorites:

Stick Dog Wants a Hamburger is one of our favorite books. It’s written and illustrated by Melissa Phillips. It’s longer form, probably 6,000 or 7,000 words, has a clever voice and here’s what I like the best:  The author-illustrator makes a real point of telling the reader she can’t draw. The whole idea that she’s up-front about it is funny the way she pulls it off.  Stick Dog’s name comes from the drawing.  You know, like how kids – and adults – draw stick people?  She draws stick dogs and writes about them.

The Night Before is written and illustrated by Annie Harmon who lives in Texas…. … Continue Reading

The Benefits of A Writer’s Getaway

Transparency: The ”And The Plot Thickens” novel-writing workshop at the Hotel Providence in Rhode Island is a Freelance-Zone sponsor. That said, we really think writers can get a lot out of this type of retreat, so we’re not hawking something here we don’t believe in. Travel broadens the mind!

A lot has been made about the profession of writing as a solitary endeavor. There’s a romantic image of the writer locked away in a room somewhere banging away on a keyboard safe from intrusions from the outside world…until the writer is in need of some inspiration, of course.

What happens when you get stuck and decide your book, article, or even a blog post needs something more than it’s got? That’s when the notion of the solitary writer goes right out the window. Writers NEED human interaction to get the job done, whether in the form of an interview, inspiration from overhearing a random conversation on the train or bus, even just looking up a literary reference is still going back to the well, so to speak, of the shared human experience.

I said all that to say the writer’s retreat, conference, or workshop is a pretty valuable thing. It’s easy to get married to that lone writer stereotype, but how do you know if your ideas are any good? How do you get confidence in your work?

You might think I’m telling people to go out in search of validation through the approval of people at these writing workshops—far from it. Rather than attending them looking for someone to affirm your basic genius, you should go to a writer’s retreat or conference looking for ways to overcome your shortfalls as a writer, to learn why your strengths work like they do and to undo bad habits that only come to light when you’re working under scrutiny.

You know the habits I mean—the ones you can’t help noticing when somebody else reads your material in front of you. “Wow, I DO have a set of crutch words!” It’s embarrassing at first, but realizing that every writer makes some of the same mistakes can actually help motivate you to be more vigilant.

A writer’s workshop like And The Plot Thickens is also helpful for another reason. Some writers don’t realize they’re toiling away at one type of writing when they could be more adept in a different area. Are you dreaming of shifting gears to a different sort of work?

If you’ve got a novel in you but don’t know how to get it out, this type of weekend workshop could be the way to unlock those particular doors. The same goes for any other type of writing—a novelist would do well to attend a blogger conference, a fiction writer could get a taste of straight journalism, etc. There’s also a lot to be said for getting away, spending a weekend at a place like the Hotel Providence in Rhode Island, and experiencing a complete change of scenery.

It’s never a bad thing to try something new, and those who have already committed to a novel, blog, or straight non-fiction format should give serious thought to spending time with colleagues and peers in environments like this. It’s good for you.

(For more information about the various ”Discover Your Passion” workshops, visit the Hotel Providence on the web.)

–Joe Wallace

Image courtesy of Rhode Island Roads.

Transferring Files With WeTransfer

by Catherine L. Tully

Today’s resource will help you out if you need to send big files and you don’t have a big budget. WeTransfer is free, and it’s also easy to use…a beautiful combination!

Your files are kept private and you will have them available for two weeks.

This is perfect for writers who have to send photo files to an editor to accompany an article. Bookmark it in case you need it down the line. Even if you don’t right now…you never know when this type of thing can come in handy.

#BlogHer10 – To All My LadyBloggers

By Amanda Connor

BlogHer.com

Fact: 50% of your time as a professional freelancer should be spent working. The other 50% of your professional time should be spent networking and keeping on top of new trends in the industry.

Networking can be painful – root canal painful. Having to chat up a crowd of strangers can be a miserable and awkward experience. However, BlogHer10 is not your standard networking schmoozefest/snoozefest. It is two days of intensive seminars, hands-on learning and meeting the top female bloggers helping to drive the blogging industry. (Did I mention that this will be an all-women conference?)

What is BlogHer.com? It’s an online community of female bloggers who host, post, dish and share.

BlogHer10: As I write this, hundreds of female bloggers are preparing to descend upon New York City for two days of lectures, meet-ups, round-table discussions and Q&A sessions. I’ve rarely seen this much excitement surrounding a networking event. The buzz is immense on Twitter and Facebook and it makes me wish I was going! This year marks the sixth annual BlogHer conference, and as it has every year before, this year’s event is completely sold out.

This mega-conference, hosted and run by BlogHer.com, will focus on bringing the BlogHer community together to meet, greet, eat and learn together. Lectures this year range from general topics like “Usability Basics for Newbies” to hyper-focused topics like “Fashion Blogging” and how to handle your own blog photography and images. Essentially, this is blogger bootcamp, designed to celebrate and foster growth within the female blogging community. Can I get a “heck yeah” from all the blogger ladies out there? Woot.

From newbies who need tips on working a Wordpress blog, to professional bloggers looking for better ways to utilize their metrics, this event has it all. Check out the agenda. It makes me salivate.

If you are lucky enough to be attending this year, you have LOADS of networking opps, educational opps and FREE SWAG to look forward to (my God…the swag….the beautiful, beautiful swag.) If you missed out this year, keep it in mind for next year. And if this isn’t up your alley (or if you are of the male gender…) you should be keeping tabs on the best networking events in your area. These events can be invaluable.