Real Words

Just a quick note to let you know that I’m going to be gone through August 1st. A last-minute vacation worked out for me so I’m going to be taking it. Unlike most of my trips, which are working trips, this one is a laptop-free vacation. I’ll be leaving blogging and other web writing behind. I’ll be doing some camping and road tripping and getting back to the basics.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that I won’t be writing. I’ll have my journal and a notebook with me so that I can write the old-fashioned way. I’ll let you know how that goes when I get back! Have a great rest of the month!

I mentioned last week that I’d established some new writing goals for myself. Here’s an update on how I’m feeling about those so far:

• Creating a catalog of my work. I located all of the different disks and files that I’ve stored everything on over the years. That’s the first step in going through everything. That’s all I’ve done with it so far but at least I took a tiny action!
• One dozen magazine publications. I recently had someone request the right to republish one of my articles in a magazine. I want to get my hands on a hard copy of that magazine so I’ve emailed about that. I need to make a more solid plan about this goal though.
• Finish a personal book. I’ve committed to a specific book project that will take 9 months to complete. Since it’s in such early stages, I really don’t want to discuss the details but I’m on my way with this goal.
• Collaborative writing projects. I haven’t made any progress on this goal yet but writing about it today is making me feel more motivated to get some ideas out there for people to possibly pounce on.

Tell me about your writing goals. What tiny step have you taken recently to realize them?

I used to be really committed to taking a tech-free day every week. This was a day that didn’t allow for TV, computers or cell phone conversations. I was working A LOT of hours back then so it was an absolute necessity to take those days. But when I started working less, I kind of dropped the ball on this.

I’m thinking about instituting these tech-free days in my life again. I think it’s really important for me to unplug sometimes. The computer is the big problem. I spend pretty much all day on my computer. If I’m not working or reading or researching online then I’m watching Internet TV or playing Internet games.

I feel like if I turned this stuff off for an entire day every week, I’d get to do more of the things that I say that I want to do. I’d go wander around the city more. I’d do the creative projects that are always only half done around here. I’d sit still with myself.

I’m having a tough time re-committing to this though. I’m not sure what my hesitation is. I suppose that I should probably just take the leap.

Does anyone else do this?

I tend to be pretty open about myself. I don’t really keep secrets or try to hide aspects of who I am. But there’s something about me that most people in my life probably don’t know. I have a secret place in my heart that loves country music.

I think that the reason that I adore this genre of music so much is because I look at it through a writer’s eyes. Some of the reasons that I end up loving country songs include:

• So many of the lines are so simple. With every other type of music that I listen to, there is a lot of nuanced language and metaphors. That’s great. But I think there’s value in being able to just say what you want to say in a straightforward way. That’s what you get with country music.
• The surprises make me smile. I love writing that catches me off guard. Occasionally, you do get a complex metaphor thrown into these lyrics and it’s shocking and usually amusing.
• The topics are so basic. Country music songs are only really about a handful of different things. And yet they find new ways to say the same things over and over. Maybe this is true of other genres too but I think it’s truer of country music.
• It rhymes. What can I say? I love that I can easily learn the words to a song the first time that it’s played because it rhymes so obviously. It’s basic poetry at its best.
• Personality shines through. The character that is singing really pours out his heart to you. A good writer does the same thing. I love it.

Incidentally, I don’t actively try to keep this a secret. I just don’t ever end up really playing my own music around other people so it’s not something that ever comes up. Truth is, most people who know me probably wouldn’t be at all surprised by it even though they didn’t know.

I love quotations. I love finding those phrases that someone else said which I wish that I would have said myself. I take comfort in the words of other people when I can’t quite say what it is that I want to say. And I enjoy sharing quotes with others who feel this way about writing.

The problem is that I’ve never really been very organized about keeping my quotes written down so that I could return to them. I’ve tried to keep quote journals off and on but I always stop writing in them sooner rather than later. I’ve tried to keep an ongoing Word document filled with my favorite quotes (which is great because I can then search easily through them to find things I’m looking for) but I always stop this too. I’ve also done some wackier things in my lifetime like writing my favorite quotes in Sharpie all over one of my bathrooms and emailing quotes to myself so I’d have them in my inbox.

None of these things really worked. These days, I do a combination of things. I write down quotes that I really like and make collages around them which I keep in a notebook. I blog quotes and post them on my social networking sites so at least they’re online somewhere that I can access them. But it’s still pretty disorganized.

Do you have a good method of organizing your favorite quotes?

I have a funny relationship with the idea of calling myself a writer. For years, I refused to call myself a writer because I didn’t feel like a “real writer”. I wasn’t writing important novels or whatever I thought writers did so I didn’t want to dare to breathe the word as though it could apply to myself.

Then eventually I became very comfortable with calling myself a writer. After all, I get paid to write. And I would write even if I didn’t get paid to do it. Isn’t that the essence of what a writer is? I stopped feeling self-conscious about being a writer and just was one.

However, there was one part of calling myself a writer that I never really got comfortable with. That was the part where other people would react to me when I said, “I’m a writer”. They would always ask, “what do you write?” which is actually a really complicated question – or rather a question with a complicated answer. They would then ask how they could start writing as though that’s something that I can explain over coffee.

There are some writers who love these conversations. They feel proud of the fact that they do something that people are so interested in. I am not one of those writers. The way I feel about it is that I write because I like writing, not because I enjoy talking about my writing.

It got to the point where I would say, “I’m a writer” with such an ugly tone in my voice that people would be deterred from asking me more about it. This was sad, though, because I really do like what I do and didn’t want it to keep coming off as though I didn’t. But I still never got comfortable with the “writer” conversation.

So now I usually say something along the lines of, “I’m a blogger for a variety of different businesses”. This is the truth. Of course, it’s also true that I’m a writer who has done (and still does) a lot of different writing besides blogging. But blogging for businesses is really what I do for a living.

This response generates a lot fewer questions from people. And the questions that they ask are a lot easier to answer because mostly they want to know what it means to blog for businesses. I do sometimes get people asking me to give a five-minute explanation of how they, too, can blog for businesses. But it’s not as common and I’m not as uncomfortable with it.

So, for now, that’s the label that works for me. What about you? Do you enjoy telling people that you’re a writer?

I think that it’s important for writers to rely on writing rituals. This is what keeps you getting up and writing every single day even when you really don’t feel like it. There are many different writing rituals that you can do to keep the writing flowing.

My ten favorite options for daily writing rituals are:

1. Journaling. I happen to think that keeping a daily journal is the best thing that a writer can do for himself or herself. This is how you get to know yourself, comment on your own ideas and keep track of your progress from one goal to another.
2. Poem per day. A great creative project is to commit to writing one poem per day. It’s a way to get your thoughts flowing. If you’re actually a poet, you can edit these later but you can also just use it as an exercise to make sure you get words down every day. Check out the daily Twitter poems by @dragonblogger to see a great example of how to stay inspired to write a poem every day.
3. 1-page repetitious observation. With this project, you study the same thing every single day and write one page about what you see. I’ve done this before with writing about the couch that sits across from my bed. It’s a great challenge to see how many different ways you can write about the same thing.
4. 5 Questions. Create a list of five questions that you want to ask yourself every day. These should be questions like, “what did I dream about?” or “if I could do anything I wanted today, what would I choose?” or “how would I describe myself to a stranger?” Answer 1-5 questions daily in writing.
5. Describe a photo. Choose one photo or image each day and write about it. This challenges you to put your visual ideas into words.
6. A daily blog. If you like putting your words out there for everyone else to read then you can commit to writing daily on your blog. As long as the focus is on the writing and not on the blog development itself then this is a good writing ritual.
7. Pull from the dictionary. Open the dictionary and pull out a random word. Right twenty different sentences using that word.
8. Pull from a book. Open up any book at all and take a sentence from it. Use that sentence as the start of a short short story. Write one super short story per day.
9. Fortunately, unfortunately. Write a line that starts with “fortunately” and then write a line that follows it that starts with “unfortunately”. Continue this pattern through an entire page of writing. You often end up feeling silly which makes your writing feel fun again.
10. Do a writing exercise book. You can also find books that have different daily writing exercises. The Artists’ Way series is my favorite creativity book (which can be used for writers) but there are lots of others out there.

Each of this writing rituals can be done in less than an hour (sometimes a lot less). You can commit at least that much effort to your writing each day, can’t you?

One of the things that I’ve adjusted to with web writing is that income from blogging and article writing often comes from ad revenue or affiliate sales. I don’t like to come across as too spammy with ads or to push products or services on other people. It’s just not my style. But I do use ads to generate income as a web writer.

I try to limit the number of ad and affiliate programs that I’m involved with. These are the ones that I use and like so far:

• Adsense. I remoed Adsense ads from most of my personal sites and blogs because I could just never quite figure out how to make them work for me. However, I do have these ads on some of the specific sites that I’m a writer for and they do well for me in terms of generating a decent chunk of passive income every month. So the verdict is that I like Adsense when someone else is figuring out the ad style and placement for my posts.
• Amazon Affiliates. This is my favorite way to promote product and get revenue. That’s because I actually like everything I promote through this site and I think Amazon is a good place to buy stuff from. I use this on multiple sites through both sidebar ads and text links.
• Kontera. I started using Kontera text links on a few of my sites. I like it so far. It brings in some extra income and isn’t overwhelming to look at on the sites.
• Magpie. I’ve just started trying out the option of doing ads on Twitter using Magpie. So far I like it. You can change the settings so that you don’t post ads too often and you can control which ads go live on your account. That said, I haven’t seen any earnings through it as of yet.
• Clickbank. I’ve also just started using this one since everyone tells me it’s the one to use. No opinion on it yet.

What ad programs and affiliate programs do you use and like?

I started working as a freelance writer nearly ten years ago. I went full-time with this work approximately five years ago. There have been a lot of ups and downs in that time, particularly in regards to the finances of being a freelancer. When the recession hit, I definitely had my fears about losing money as a result of the changes in the economy. This made me wonder if it was smart to be basing my career on work as an independent contractor. What I discovered is that the recession has only strengthened my conviction that freelance work is right for me.

Some of the core reasons that the recession has made me happy to be a freelancer include:

• I’m already used to fluctuations in my income. A lot of people have been hit hard by the economy because of the fact that the recession has altered their income. It’s the nature of freelance work to have an ongoing feast-or-famine income stream. I’ve learned to adjust to and accommodate for this. As a result, the recession hit me less hard than some of my friends with mainstream employment in terms of adjusting to income changes.

• My levels of fear about my job haven’t changed much. The recession has struck a chord of fear in the hearts of many. People who always thought that their jobs were stable are now biting their nails as their bosses sit in closed-door meetings to discuss potential layoffs. I definitely had a few moments of worry about how the recession would impact my freelance career. However, this worry wasn’t a whole lot worse than any of the worries I’ve had about my freelance career. I already took a big risk when I chose to go full-time as a freelancer. That’s when I dealt with those worries. Today’s worries about the recession are minor in comparison.

• I like my work. A lot of my friends with mainstream jobs really don’t like what they do. Those who still have jobs feel stuck because they can’t move on to something better when good jobs are so scarce. Those who have lost their jobs have mixed feelings about not having a job they didn’t like in the first place. People who get involved in freelance work do it because they enjoy it. I wake up each morning and like what I do with my day. I can say that whether there’s a recession or not.

I’m not saying that I’m glad that we’re in a recession. It’s definitely not easy for anyone including those of us who freelance for a living. However, I think that being a freelancer has put me in a better position than some to deal with the issues arising out of the recession.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been working on some new writing goals. I love the fact that my freelance writing career has been very diverse. However, I feel like this diversity has also caused the problem that I haven’t made or met a lot of writing goals even though I’ve been writing professionally for nearly ten years. I’d like for that to change.

Part of my line of thinking is this:

I would really like to take a one-year sabbatical from freelance writing to pursue some personal growth and make some other life goals. I don’t know what will happen in that time. Although I assume that I will come back to freelance writing after that, I don’t want to bank on it. So … if I were to never return to freelance writing after that, what would I have liked to accomplish during the time that I worked as a freelance writer.

A few of the goals that I’d like to meet in the next three years are:

• Catalog of Work. I have a pretty good portfolio that links to a lot of my work. However, I’d really like to get a clear catalog of all of the work that I’ve completed. I want to be able to see all that I’ve accomplished in a clear manner.
• One Dozen Magazine Publications. I have been published in a few magazines but I have not pursued this as much as I would have liked over the years. I’d like to achieve the goal of being published in one dozen different magazines during the course of my freelance writing career.
• Finish a Personal Book. I have worked as an author on multiple books. However, these books were all commissioned or suggested by the publisher. I have several books that I’ve started on my own which I have not completed. I would like to complete one.
• Complete 5 Collaborative Writing Projects. I really love collaboration and I haven’t done enough of it. It doesn’t matter what the projects are but I’d like to complete at least five of them with writing as my part of the project.

There are some other goals that I have in mind but I haven’t figured out the details of them yet. These are the ones that I’m certain I want to complete in the next three years.

What are your writing goals? Are you ready to put them out there for the world to see?