Real Words

I have written here in the past about my struggle to decide whether I should soldier on with projects started many years ago or whether I should just let them go in favor of starting something new. The answer I always come back to is that I will continue to sporadically work on old projects if something inspires me to do so but I’ll also leave myself plenty of room to start new projects.

I am thinking about this again today after just reading a post on the Gypsy Girl’s Guide blog. The author writers about how she has studied the work of a photographer who captured in images the growth of her cousin and sister over a ten year period. Thinking about this, the author writes:

“In my humble opinion, to build something continuously for ten years is a most admirable task, don’t you think? … Time brings the work a certain maturity and intimacy, that most definitely comes through in the final product.”

I don’t know if this is true for all of my long-term projects but it is certainly true for some of them. I have been able to go back to rework old ideas that started with only a glimmer of true understanding about the topic but have now grown because of more immersion in the topic over time. And I don’t just mean more research … I mean that there are pieces of writing that I started but hadn’t yet had enough life experience to clearly understand the emotions I was trying to convey and more time in life has given me more time to develop both the experience and the ability to articulate the experience that I didn’t have when launching those projects.

Is it the same for you? Do you like projects that drag on over the years or do you like to pick something, finish it and move on?

I have heard a lot of complaints from people in recent years about how today’s technology makes people dumber. The big one is that misspelling and LOL-style language used in text messaging and IM dumbs people’s writing skills. I have always dismissed this. I think that, in general, technology has made us smarter. And I think that writing is improved by many things including creativity and access to information which are both possible through text and IM as they are anywhere else.

Still, would I go so far as to say that a tool like Twitter can actually improve our writing? It’s an idea that I started thinking more about after reading this great article on Copyblogger about how Twitter improves writing by forcing you to be more concise, more creative with your vocabulary and more capable of editing your own words. I hadn’t thought of it that way and found the possibilities to be intriguing.

After thinking about this, I started doing some research into what others online have to say about the topic. There are a lot of people online who have said that Twitter is dumbing us down but there’s some compelling evidence to suggest that it may be true that Twitter improves our writing. It certainly improves our ability to market our writing. But it also looks like it may have the potential to improve the writing of students and may even help to better legal writing.

Ultimately I think that Twitter, like all technology, is a tool that will be used differently by different people. Creative folks will learn to better themselves through its use and the rest of the users will simply enjoy it for its entertainment value. It is neither bad nor good but what we make of it.

As the economy has worsened, I’ve watched friend after friend lose jobs or have work hours reduced or take a cut in pay. I’m sad to see this happen and hope the best for them in the near future. However, I have to say that I’m a little bit irked by the number of them who have suddenly turned to me to ask for tips on how they can earn money doing the work that I do.

Don’t get me wrong. I am flattered that they think that I’m good enough at my job to be able to train them a bit in how to do it. And I really don’t mind helping them. It’s just that the sheer number of them that have asked recently has made me realize just how many of the people who love me really don’t have a clue how tough my work is.

Almost every single friend that’s brought up this conversation lately has said something along the lines of, “I need to make money. I could probably write. What do you do to get work?” The implication here is that, even though they don’t really like writing all that much and have no experience in doing it, they could probably do what I do fairly easily.

Let me tell you from my ten years of experience in the business that there is nothing easy about freelance writing for a living. I love my job. But I also work harder than almost anyone that I know. I put in more hours that don’t include coffee breaks and water cooler conversation. Every day that I work involves not only doing my writing but also editing my writing, promoting my writing, looking for new writing work and managing the freelancer’s finances.

I’m not sure exactly what people are thinking that I’m going to say to them when they ask me to show them how I do my work. What I feel like saying is that it took me ten years to understand what I understand about job applications, web portfolios, writing for specific audiences, using blogging tools, networking online and dealing with the SEO/SEM issues that I have to be knowledgable about to write well.

I don’t say most of that. Instead, I point people in the basic direction of where they can find online writing work. I really don’t mind helping to an extent and I really do hope these people find a source of income. I just think that as soon as they see a few of those job leads and what’s entailed in applying for those jobs, they’re going to realize how hard this work is and give up before they’ve gotten started.

Is anyone else fielding these types of information requests from friends these days?

Are you feeling uninspired as a writer right now? Do you need to do something to jumpstart that free-flowing spill of words onto the page?

Here’s a list of fifteen different tasks that you could do immediately to inspire your writing today:

1. Grab a headline from the news. Go to your favorite news site, pick a headline and start writing about whatever it makes you think about.
2. Go for a short walk. Walking gets our bodies moving and also makes our brains start working better. Many great pieces of writing began as thoughts on a walk.
3. Read a poem or short story. Reading a piece of writing that we wish we’d written ourselves is a great way to get inspired to do more writing.
4. Send an email to a friend about what you are working on. We often present our projects in a flattering light to others which can inspire us to actually work on them some more.
5. Grab your camera. Spend twenty minutes shooting digital photos of whatever things around you are interesting right now. Even the dishes in the sink can look interesting in the right light. This non-writing burst of creativity can inspire your writing.
6. Take a shower. If you haven’t showered yet today, go do that. The shower is a great place for developing random thoughts.
7. Write some affirmations. Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves that it’s okay if what we write today isn’t perfect. Sit down and write ten times, “what I write today is enough” or “I am filled with creative potential” or any of the other mantras for writers that exist.
8. Write a blog post. If you’re a blogger then you may want to add a short fun post to your blog today. Make it stream-of-consciousness, different from what you usually write and just fun. You should get some interesting responses that may inspire you.
9. Color. Get out a box of crayons or colored pencils and spend ten minutes just coloring a page. Then look at your page and write the first ten words that come to mind. What does it make you want to write next?
10. Do one task mindfully. Mindfulness is the focus of our full attention on the task at hand. Make your bed with a focus solely on the feel of the sheets and the smell of the room. This clears the mind of all of its clutter which means that you’ll be able to write better today.
11. Write a letter. Handwritten letters are some of the most creative things that people write but we rarely do it anymore.
12. Listen to music that you love. A little bit of music goes a long way towards making your creative juices flow.
13. Ask for inspiration on forums or social networking sites. Just post to your Facebook that you’re seeking suggestions on what to write about today. People will respond and you may find yourself inspired.
14. Make a date with yourself for later this week. It’s important to take time to go on dates with ourselves that are all about being fun and silly. You might not be able to take one today but you can set a date to do that and it may make you feel better.
15. Brainstorm a list of things that you could do today to feel more inspired. What else could you do right now to inspire your writing?

Real Words is a blog that I keep for a few reasons. Mostly, I like to share the insights that I have about being a writer because I believe that these insights may be of some use or interest to those other people who are doing this work from the sometimes-lonely spot in front of a solitary computer. I don’t do this for money or attention or success in any traditional form but rather because it builds great online relationships for me with other writers and bloggers doing similar work.

This fact was recognized recently when I was given the honor of receiving an award for my work by a great writing blog called the Incurable Disease of Writing. I need to pass that award along to other great blogs and I’ll be doing that soon but first I wanted to give some attention to the other blogs that received this award at the same time as me. None of these were blogs that I knew about before this award came to me and yet all are ones that I find to be of interest. It is exactly this kind of sharing and support that makes me want to write Real Words.

Here’s a look at the other blogs that were included:

• Angelawd: The Writer Gets the Last Word. This is the ongoing story of one writer’s attempts to live a life filled with laughter and beauty. A great recent post to check out is this one on two perspectives for one story.
• A Gentleman’s Domain. The blog of an Englishman in Florida who recently wrote a good post on the ending of blogs you like.
• Ramblings of Maggie. I’ve never met a “ramblings” blog I didn’t like and this one is no exception. Not only is the blog good but so are the Twitter updates.
• West of Mars – The Meet and Greet. This writing blog is truly different. It’s not a blog about writing but instead a fiction blog so you can read stories here and see the process of writing at work.
• Thoughts of An Aspiring Writer. My favorite part of this blog so far is the updates on what the writer is reading.
• History is Elementary. This one is for history buffs. I don’t usually fall into that category but it’s an interesting read because of the great writing style. And I kind of just love teachers who write.
• Amy Sue Nathan. What I see here is a woman who is honest about her life in words. And she applies it to writing. Check out What’s In Your Purse.

Thanks to Incurable Disease of Writing for turning me on to these blogs. Now I have to think about where else I want to share the love!

I spent the past weekend reformatting my entire computer. This was not a short process. It involved backing up all of my files which I don’t do nearly as often as I should considering how important it is for me to save many of the documents that I write. Then I had to do the actual reformatting and then the updating and then the transfer of important files back to my computer.

Mostly, this process went smoothly (due in no small part to the fact that I had help from my IT guy and didn’t even do a lot of it myself). And the computer is now in really good shape without the problems that it was having before and with increased RAM which makes it easier to do many different things from my laptop.

The one thing that didn’t go smoothly though was that I somehow managed to fail to save my Feeds. I saved my favorites and my files but I forgot my feeds. This means that my long list of writing blogs that I check daily to read is now gone. I am in the process of recreating the list now. Many of these blogs are blogs that I love enough to remember them easily but some were ones I just read now and then and who knows if I’ll ever remember them and read them again.

I’m sad about the loss. But when life gives you lemons, right? I decided that this was a really great time to learn about new writing blogs so I’m putting a call out to all of you. Please send me the links to any blogs about writing, blogging and freelancing. Include your own blog, of course, as well as the blogs that you read regularly on this topic (let’s share the love and support our favorite bloggers!)

Leave it in the comments.

I wrote a post here recently with ten reasons why writers should keep journals. That post was included in a blog carnival that’s filled with tons of different articles about working at home.

The post was part of the advice section of the carnival. Other posts that shared this section with me were on topics that included opening an online business, increasing blog or web traffic, formulating a marketing plan, creating business stability and avoiding financial loss.

In addition to this advice section there were sections on business tips (like taxes and outsourcing) and home tips. And there was a general section with tons of articles on topics including online banking, brainstorming content, not getting bored with the work you love, starting a small business and making money online from home.

Happy reading!

I write a lot about saving money and frugal living. For the most part, I believe that it’s really important for all people to be thrifty with their money and I definitely think that it’s something that freelancers need to be really aware of. I’m knowledgeable about all sorts of money saving tips and I share them frequently around the web.

However, I have to admit, there are some areas of my own life where I’m not as good about this as I should be. There are areas of my life where I definitely waste money. Many of these are directly or partially related to my work as a web writer.

Here are the six money-wasting areas of my web work that I really need to work on improving:

1. Postage. I don’t always like to walk over to the post office and wait in line to weigh the packages that I sometimes send out in relation to my work (such as contracts that need to be signed). Often, I’ll just slap on some postage at home and drop those packages in a mail box. I never want the package to get sent back to me so I’m sure I always overcompensate and add too many stamps. It’s only a little bit of money wasted each time but I’m sure it adds up. On the plus side, I’m really good about using recycled envelopes and boxes for all of my shipping (especially when I ship books for Paperback Swaps).
2. New Books. Although I’m a big fan of those Paperback Swaps and other used books that green my reading, I do have to admit that I sometimes buy new books. I usually buy them on impulse and it’s usually a bit of a waste of my money. It was pointed out to me by a commenter here though that at least this supports the author’s work which isn’t the case when you get library books and other used books.
3. Fancy coffee. I am not the type of web writer who frequently works from coffee shops. I usually get too distracted there. However, on the occasions that I do go to coffee shops to work, I almost always get a fancy expensive coffee instead of a cheap regular coffee. And I often get a snack. And those things do cost money.
4. Leaving the computer on. I am guilty of leaving multiple computers running in my home almost all day and night. I do it for convenience even though I know it wastes energy and electricity.
5. Failing to get receipts. One of the worst things I probably do is that I often fail to get or save receipts related to work spending and then I can’t write off those things on my taxes which is just sad. Transportation to meetings and interviews is one that I almost never remember to get receipts for.
6. The home office. This one is a tough one as far as deciding whether or not it’s a waste of money. The thing is that I could get rid of the home office, rent out that room as a bedroom, work from my living room and save a whole lot of money on rent. However, I’m not always as productive with a roommate around. Basically this is probably a waste of money but a necessary one for me.

So these are the money-wasting areas that I need to work on as a web writer. What about you?

I have found through conversations with other people who write for a living that most of us have the same problem when it comes to our personal writing projects. That problem is that we don’t take them seriously enough as “real work” to make time for them in our work days. We make sure that we take care of our other writing first because “that’s what pays the bills” and often end up having no time left for those writing projects that really excite us.

I’m working on a few different projects right now that I do for myself and not for money. A couple of my blogs are this way, the poetry project I mentioned earlier this week in the post on collaboration is this way and it is this way with the book that I’m working on which is based on my blog San Francisco is Sexy. I am excited to have these projects going on because they are writing that comes from my heart instead of from a job application that I made at one point or another.

However I do easily fall into that trap of putting off this writing while working on my paid writing gigs. It’s not so much a problem with the blogs. I’ve gotten into the habit of writing my blogs during my normally scheduled workday due in part to the fact that these blogs link to my other work and promote it so it feels kind of like “real work”. But I’ve definitely had to learn to make time in my work day for the poetry and book projects.

It’s easier said than done. At the start of each week, I commit to spending a certain amount of time on this work. Then things get busy, plans get changed, deadlines creep up on me and I find myself struggling to get everything done. At the end of the week, I haven’t worked on these projects much and I find that I either have the choice of not working on them at all or of taking my free time on my weekend to work on them. Neither is really preferable to me.

Slowly, but surely, I am learning how to set aside a chunk of time during each work day to devote to these projects. Right now it’s just half an hour per day but that adds up to about ten hours per month and that adds up to something tangible in front of me on the computer. I do this because I want to take my own projects as seriously as I take those projects that I’m being paid to complete.

What do you do to make sure that you have time for personal writing projects even though you work on writing for a living?

In the past I’ve written a lot on this blog about being a greener writer. I’ve written about determining how green you are as a writer, fixing your bad un-green habits as a web writer and using green social bookmarking. However, I have not written a whole lot about green reading.

A great article on ways to green your reading that I just saw made me realize that I was remiss in not addressing this specific topic since most writers are also readers and that’s definitely another area of our lives and work where we can all stand to be a bit more green.

The article mentions three great ways to green your reading – using Paperback Swap sites, using Kindle and reading eBooks instead of regular books. The main goal with all of these methods of greener reading is to reduce your consumption of new books because this reduces the need for more trees to be cut down to make those books.

When choosing these methods, there are some things that you need to take into consideration. You need to consider the energy usage of your computer and Kindle reading so that you don’t waste energy here and reduce the greenness of the act. You need to think about the materials that you use when shipping books for a swap because if these aren’t green then you aren’t being as green as you could be.

In addition to greening your reading in these ways, there are other things that you can do to be a green reader. Make sure that you read up on green topics. Try to buy books made from sustainable or recycled materials. Make sure that you give away or recycle books and never trash them. Buy used as often as possible. Buy from sellers that are concerned about green issues. Only buy books that you actually might want to keep and keep going back to. Use the local library - and walk there instead of driving! Use a low-energy reading lamp instead of the light in the room when reading in bed.

The important thing is to think about your consumption of books and how green it is (or isn’t). Then come up with creative green ideas for making sure that your life as a reader is greener tomorrow than it was today.