Today’s Writing Tip: When to Use Can or Could

It’s easy to determine when to use the word can and when to use could. Can indicates ability. I can type a letter. I can run 10 miles. I can write a fan letter to Jon Hamm, although he probably won’t answer. Can denotes certainty. Could denotes uncertainty.

I could go to visit my sick neighbor if I don’t have to work on Thursday night. My neighbor could die from pneumonia if her immune system is not strong. My son’ s car could last another five years if he’s lucky. The most significant word in the last three sentences is “if” because the first part of every sentence depends on another factor.

It could happen, but maybe it won’t. Whereas when we use can, something will generally happen or at least the person has the ability to make it happen.

Parents used to teach children table manners by differentiating between the words can and may. A child would say, “Can I go now?” after dessert, and the parent would retort, “May I go.” Because clearly the child can go by simply getting up and leaving the table. Using may is a way of asking permission.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books and two short stories, and is also a manuscript editor. Find her at http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com/.

Simultaneously Penniless and Rich

In response to my previous post, “Taxes Don’t Lie,” V.R. writes: “Won’t disagree with you on importance of metrics and measurements for the self-employed. As a freelancer myself, I had to go back and read the blog twice to make sure the entire context of your message could be categorized as ‘financial’ success. Of course it was and I calmed down. Had you attempted to speak to a ‘success’ in general, I was going to challenge your notion that the only measurements that matter are income, expenses and savings. I believe a lot of freelancers measure their success more unconventionally; perhaps by hours spent at work (or rather hours spent with their family), number of press mentions, awards and accolades, mental and physical health, number of countries visited — you know, the things that causes one to transition from corporate life to freelance life. The freelancers I know are simultaneously penniless and rich!”

V.R. wanted me to ensure that he got credit for that phrase — “simultaneously penniless and rich” — so credit is duly noted. (As it happens, it fits in with my philosophy that you should Write Like You’re Rich.) More important, his point expands nicely on what I was getting at: Measuring the financial health of your freelance business can be accomplished easily at tax time, but it’s by no means a comprehensive measurement of your overall success.

All that said, measuring success is highly individual — including those items V.R. enumerated above, and many others. The metric changes over the course of your freelance career — I don’t have the same goals as I did in 1999. Back then, it was pure survival, as the “penniless” part of the equation was all too true. Today, while I might be “rich” by third-world standards, my true wealth comes from the people, experiences and opportunities from freelancing that simply wouldn’t exist if I were still in the 9-5 corporate grind.

In the comments, what’s your favorite non-financial measure of success?

Jake Poinier can be found at DearDrFreelance.com or @DrFreelance.

Pro Bloggers Beware: WordPress Denial of Service Attacks

by Joe Wallace

If you are an “end user” of WordPress (as opposed to someone who spends as much time in the Dashboard and/or control panel of your WordPress site) you might be scratching your head lately wondering why WordPress is moving so slowly for you.

There’s been a string of notifications from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) about a hacking campaign aimed specifically at WordPress sites. The idea behind this campaign is quite simple–it aims to shut down WP sites by using a Denial Of Service Attack featuring repeated login attempts to the Dashboard or back end of your WordPress site.

The goal is not necessarily to gain access to your site–instead, the idea is to flood your ISP with so many attempts to log in that it overwhelms the server. This causes slower response times for legitimate readers trying to view your WordPress site, and can shut your page down altogether under the right circumstances.

There are some semi-complicated fixes for this, things that many freelancers and bloggers won’t feel comfortable attempting. I myself have mitigated this problem by setting an extremely low tolerance for repeated failed logins from a single IP address–any more than X number of failed logins and the user is blocked from trying to login again for TWO WEEKS. But again, this is a back-end, deep-ish feature (not connected to WordPress directly, but rather the server I use) and many users won’t or can’t access such features.

The solution?

Contact your ISP or web host and ask about addressing this issue. You want to reduce the number of allowed login failures to WordPress to around 10 or 15 per IP, resulting in a 15 minute ban from attempting again after that number has been reached. Some sites have the ban automatically set to an arbitrary number such as five minutes, but if you’re experiencing slow response times from your WordPress blog and suspect it might be related to this issue, ask your ISP tech support people what the best course of action might be.

This Denial of Service attack issue likely isn’t affecting EVERYONE using WordPress, or affecting everyone the same way. But if you’re noticing slower repsonse from your WP blog, it might be something to consider as a possible cause.

Joe Wallace has been fildding around in the back end of WordPress and Freelance-Zone.com’s Virtual Private Server for many years. He still doesn’t know every much about how it all works on a technical level, but he does know how to make a wicked pizza. He blogs about vinyl records, sells rare and unusual LPs, and does sound design for indie film and video projects in Chicago. Contact him at jwallace242@gmail.com

Why I Became A Writer

by Catherine L. Tully

Editor, Catherine L. Tully

Today’s post is simply a sharing one…

I’d like to tell you why I became a writer. (And, I’d love to hear why you became, or are becoming a writer in the comments section.)

Ultimately, at the heart of things, I became a writer because I have always been one. When I was little, I came up with a “newspaper” called The Little Town Daily News. I don’t really remember what I wrote about, but I know that I put a lot of time into making copies, and I sold it for about .10 cents each–which, for back then, was not that cheap!

I’ve always been writing, whether it was in my journal or coming up with a newsletter for my childhood club. I’ve written stories, articles, nonsense, letters, cards and countless other things. Even if I weren’t getting paid for it, I’d probably still be writing in some capacity. (Luckily, I’ll never know for sure!)

Not everyone makes it in this business, but some people really do hang in and stand the test of time. My hunch is that almost every one of the tenacious ones that breaks through and does this for a living–or even part-time for some extra cash–is somewhat like me.

So…what is it dear reader? Have you always been a writer in some capacity–even if you have just been composing poetry in your head or writing song lyrics that never made it to paper?

Drop us a note here and tell us your story!

Taxes Don’t Lie

By Jake Poinier

In my last corporate job, I had a boss who was fond of saying “What gets measured gets done.” Mind you, it didn’t always make our editorial staff happy. (If you can show me something that makes a graphic designer crazier than being measured with metrics like “page output per day,” I’d be stunned.)

As a freelancer, I try to avoid such micro measures, not just because they make me crazy, but because I find them unhelpful. I don’t really care how many words I write per hour or day, because it simply doesn’t matter. At the risk of sounding crass, the only measurement that does is income, expenses, and savings. And since I spent much of last weekend doing my taxes, well, I have a pretty good idea of what went on last year, and even some insight into the first quarter of 2013.

Your taxes don’t lie. And as much as I hate doing taxes, they’re as good a reality check as a freelancer can get, and that’s an important part of being self-employed. Here’s what I learned this year:

• Revenues were an improvement over the previous year, and expenses were about the same. Yippee!
• Starting up a Solo 401(k) saved me a significant amount on taxes, and gets me that much closer to retirement. Double yippee!
• I had one client that was a four-figure income stream in 2011 that dried up entirely in 2012 because they hired a full-time person who now does all their writing. Same thing happened with one of my clients that was great for the first half of the year, then my main contact left. Losing a client stinks.
• I did work for 19 different entities, most of which sent me a 1099, meaning they’d spent $600+. Eight of them represented 75% of my total income, and no single client was more than 25%, so I feel comfortable with my diversification.

I know Catherine is a believer in hiring a CPA to do your taxes — and I do have a CPA double-check my work. But, call me a masochist, there’s a value to getting into the numbers yourself that can’t be measured.

When he’s not doing his taxes, Jake Poinier can be found at DearDrFreelance.com or @DrFreelance.

Photo by Jakub Krechowicz

Today’s Writing Tip: Question Marks In the Middle of a Sentence

Punctuating question marks in the middle of a sentence confuses the best of us. Our instinct is often to capitalize the word that follows the question mark, but usually that’s wrong. Here’s an example:

When I asked my teacher, Mr. Cotton, “What is the purpose of life?” this is the answer I received.

Note two things about that sentence. One, the word that proceeds the question and the question mark is lowercased. That’s because the phrase “What is the purpose of life?” is still part of a larger sentence, even though it is a complete sentence and can stand on its own normally, but in this instance it is only half of the sentence.

“This is the answer I received” is the other half and we need it to make our point. Two, there is no comma after the question mark. A version of our example which includes the comma is wrong, e.g., When I asked my teacher, Mr. Cotton, “What is the purpose of life?,” this is the answer I received.

Fortunately, your spellcheck will probably pick up the second issue and flag it as a problem; however, spellcheck may incorrectly tell you that you want to capitalize any word after a question mark. Don’t do it automatically; do so only if it is not part of a larger sentence and that includes dialogue. (“Is the purpose of life to love and be loved?” she asked. No caps for the pronoun and no comma after the question mark.)

Sigrid Macdonald is an author and an editor. You can find her at http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com/