Real Words

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?

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?

People who read this blog regularly know that I’ve had some ups and downs with my writing lately and that I’ve been trying to set some new writing goals. There are quite a few goals that I’ve got in mind (see tomorrow’s post if those goals interest you at all) but the big one is this:

I’d like to take one year off from writing.

I love the work that I do but sometimes I feel like I’m getting burned out. I write literally hundreds of articles per month in order to be able to have enough money to pay my bills. When you write that much, you start to say the same things again and again without meaning to. You start to write without thinking. And you start to find it really difficult to work creatively.

I think that there are a lot of solutions to this problem but the one that makes the most sense to me is to take a sabbatical. I’d like to take a year off to just sit still and think about what it is that I want to do with writing for the rest of my life.

The fact is that I’ve always been a writer. I think I will always be a writer. But I’m not sure what that means. I don’t know if I want to write books or keep blogging or set some other writing goals for ten years down the line. I’m not sure if I want to write full-time forever or if I want to write part-time and then do some other creative work part-time. I may want to go back to school at some point.

The problem is that I don’t feel like I can make those decisions during a time when I’m still writing. I feel like I need to step back and take a breather. I need to put things in perspective. I need time to listen to what my own heart is actually saying without having to also hear the clatter of the keyboard.

So that’s my big goal – to take a one year sabbatical in order to be able to make some solid heartfelt decisions about where I want my writing to go from there.

I won’t actually be doing this for awhile. I have some other writing goals I want to meet first. And I have to put some financial things in place. But what I’m working on is a three-year plan. I’m hoping to work solidly at writing for the next three years and then to take the fourth year off.

What do you other writers out there think about this? Has anyone else taken a sabbatical from their writing career? Did it work for you? Would you like to do it?

When people ask me about how I became a writer, I try to find the most succinct method of describing the wandering path that led to getting paid to write full time. The truth is that I’ve always done writing in one form or another but I also kind of just fell into writing for pay.

I’ve been writing creatively for as long as I can remember. I have saved stories that I wrote in elementary school. I’ve kept journals since I was ten. I have started writing a few different novels over the years (although none are even close to being finished). And I always kind of thought that I’d like to “be a writer” (meaning author books) someday.

But when I actually started getting paid to write, it was because I needed an immediate income and writing is what I do best. I won’t lie; I got into writing by doing academic writing for other people. A lot of writers have an ethical issue with this. As for me, it was just a job. I wrote high school papers, college papers and even a few thesis papers. Students paid me to earn them A’s with my writing. This eventually led into working with so-called paper mills online.

I didn’t particularly like this work and it doesn’t pay that well but it helped lead me into full-time web writing. I learned how to do online writing and how to communicate via content management systems. this improved my resume enough to start getting online jobs writing SEO / keyword articles for various firms.

From there, it was just a matter of beefing up my resume with more and more experience. I started to apply to every writing job I could find because I needed the money. Some of the more interesting writing jobs I took on included:

• Writing horoscopes. I did this for a few different places but the first job was a job writing horoscopes for an Asian fashion magazine that only lasted a few issues before going out of business.
• Doing music reviews. I got to do CD reviews and live music reviews for a number of different online sites and even a print magazine (Skope). I actually didn’t enjoy this job very much although the perks of attending free live music were nice. And I did meet some cool musicians.
• Lots of “adult” writing. You’d be surprised how much money the adult industry pays to writers. I’ve done reviews of online and DVD porn. I’ve been a ghost writer for a porn blog supposed to be written by a young gay porn star. And I’ve written reviews of local strip clubs.

I also did a lot of slightly more legitimate writing including web content and writing articles for various magazines. Oh, and I wrote a couple of books as well.

These days, I make my money off of blogging for businesses. I don’t just write the blog content. I also promote it around the web using all of the social promotion tools available to writers. So I’m now basically working in the business of social media which involves doing some writing as well. It’s just another twist and turn on my writing path.

I’m working on some new writing goals for my future so this path is going to change once again. But I’m happy with where things are at for now. And I like that writing always changes!

Things have been quiet around here as I’ve been trying to re-work my writing life. It’s not the best idea to let a blog be quiet but I’m fairly comfortable with the ebb and flow of writing here on Real Words. That’s because Real Words is where I write about my writing life and my writing life is something that ebbs and flows. My experience with writing changes regularly and the changes in this blog reflect that.

I’ve got a better plan in mind for writing again so Real Words will be resuming normal posts now. However, you should know that I’ve been a lot more active on my other blog, Diary of a Smart Chick, than I have been here. And that I’ll continue to be very active over there.

Diary of a Smart Chick started as a place where I could gather the links to all of my other writing around the web. It continues to serve that purpose. What I do there is to write about the topics that I’m writing about elsewhere and link out to those original articles as appropriate. When you write for certain websites or clients, you have to stick to specific topics or points of view. Diary of a Smart Chick lets me expand on my thoughts about the topics I’m writing on for others.

I’ve also started two new daily features on Diary of a Smart Chick. I’m featuring a Photo of the Day every evening which showcases some of the playing around I do with my camera. I’m hoping to learn photo editinf software soon and to let the blog be a place where I can track the progress of that experience. And I am also featuring a Book of the Day each morning which is just a short description and my opinion of a book I’m reading or have read in the past.

I hope you’ll check out what I’m doing over there and give me some feedback even as posts resume here about writing.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been active on this blog. My activity here seems to go in spurts. The reasons for delays are many and varied, of course. Recently, there have been two big causes for being quiet on the blog. The first is that I ended up going out of town and didn’t have a lot of time to be online while I was gone. The other is that I’m working on a new writing schedule and I’m still trying to figure out where my personal blogs fit in to that.

I’ve got some new plans and goals for my writing life. I’m still in the planning stages of setting those goals. As I create them and commit to them, my need for a more efficient writing schedule is changing again.

Messing around with the schedule that I keep is something that I do regularly as a freelance writer. I do my best work in the morning so I try to get a lot done though. What “a lot” means changes, however, depending on whether I’m currently more focused on blogging, bigger writing projects or social promotion stuff. I also play around regularly with which 2-3 days off per week I want (weekends vs. weekdays is always a big questions for me). And finally, I’m hoping to take some extended vacations in the next couple of years so I’m trying to schedule for that as well.

The new schedule is almost worked out. When it’s ready, I’ll be back to writing regularly again here. And I’ll have a lot more to say about my specific goals and plans as a writer.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you about your thoughts on a writing schedule. Do you keep one? What’s the part of it that changes most often?

I’ve been doing a lot of guest blogging lately on frugal living blogs and green blogs. A lot of bloggers enjoy doing guest blogs because they give you so many benefits as a blogger.

Some of the benefits I’ve gained from guest blogging include:

• Corresponding with great bloggers. My favorite part about the experience is getting the chance to exchange thoughts on topics with the bloggers I write for.
• Feedback. These bloggers give me feedback on what I write for them which is nice since I usually only get that from people who comment on my blogs.
• Writing on fresh topics. My guest blog posts are usually on topics that interest me but that I don’t write about much on my own blogs. It’s nice to get to write on these things.
• Links and traffic. The main reason that most people guest blog is to get incoming links and new readers for their own blogs. It’s certainly a nice benefit of guest blogging.

Please check out some of my recent guest blog posts:

• Five Life Changing Benefits of Frugal Living.
• Where to Find Celebrity Styles for Less.
• How the Recession is Affecting Relationships.
• How to be Green with your Writing.
• 5 Key Sacrifices to Make if you Really want to Save Money.
• Smart Budget Travel Ideas for Summer Holidays.
• Cheap Alternatives to a Hotel.
• Frugal Living tips for Professionals from College Kids.

I write across a huge range of different topics. Drop a line if you’re looking for a guest blogger and maybe we can work something out!

I use Twitter regularly although not nearly as actively as many of my fellow online writers. I post all of my blog updates and HubPages articles to Twitter so that my friends there can see what I’ve been writing lately. I try to follow what the people I’m friends with on the site are posting. And I ReTweet a few things here and there to pass on what I think is really interesting information. I’m not a prolific user of the site but I’m active enough.

That alone isn’t enough reason for you to want to follow me, I’m sure. But you should know that others think I’m worth following. The oDesk blog recently listed 25 writers to follow on Twitter and named me on the list. I’m there with some really great company so check out the post to see who else you should be following. I’m also included on a second great list of 39 Writers to Follow on Twitter that was posted by Get Paid To Write Online.

I can be followed at http://twitter.com/kathrynvercillo.

We have all had that awful moment when we suddenly realize that the computer has eaten our work. It’s a moment of panic. In many cases, you can do a simple “undo” move and get your writing back on the screen but for that moment before you figure out that the work can be saved you feel this terrible sinking in your gut.

And sometimes, the feeling is even worse because the computer has won and there is not going to be any saving of the work.

This problem doesn’t happen to me often. Since I write all day long for a living, I’m really good about doing frequent saves and backing up my work regularly. I’m meticulous about it. But things go wrong sometimes. And every once in awhile I experience one of those situations when I’ve lost a big chunk of original writing and there aren’t many options for getting it back.

That happened to me about a month ago with the book that I’m working on. I’m writing a San Francisco travel guide based on my blog San Francisco is Sexy. Or I was until about a month ago. What happened was a stupid error … I was getting ready to reformat my laptop so I saved all of my work to my desktop computer. Only some things delayed me and I didn’t get around to the reformatting for a few weeks. At that time, I went to save the work to the desktop again. And I made a mistake.

For some reason, I just didn’t re-save the file that had the book in it. I saved everything else. Bookmarked sites I don’t need, work that is already online and doesn’t need to be backed up … but I simply missed that file. I had done a lot of work on the book in those few weeks. When I went to move the files back to my newly formatted computer and saw what I’d done, I felt this terrible disappointment in my gut.

The truth is that it’s not that bad. I still have the previous draft of the book from the first save. I know where all of my research came from. It’s not going to be that difficult to write the original copy again. Although I could pay money to try to get the most recent draft back, I don’t think it’s worth it because really it’s not that terrible to rewrite the thing again. In fact, I tend to think that it’s a chance to start with fresh eyes and to do a better write-up this time around.

However, I can’t seem to get my brain to move through the writer’s block that was caused by this setback. I know that it’s not a big deal and that it’s an easy re-write and that it might be better this time. I know that the only way to get it done is to get going on it. And yet every time I open up the document and see the missing pieces that I know were once there, I freeze up … I just don’t want to write it again.

I’m not sure what this means. That I’m not as committed to the project as I thought? That it’s not as exciting or appealing to me as it was originally? Maybe. Or maybe I’m just still sulking that the computer beat me this time. Since books don’t write themselves, I’m going to have to get over whatever it is. I’ll do that. Tomorrow.

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?