Tweet You’re a writer. Fiction, nonfiction it’s all the same. Or is it? To me, they feel like two different literary monsters. One’s like breathing. The other? It’s what I imagine skydiving would feel like. Super fun and exhilarating, but also vomit-inducing. Which one you experience all depends on your comfort level. For me, nonfiction is safe. There are research, experts, facts to back up my words. Fiction? Fiction is like free falling. I never know where my imagination will take me. It’s part thrilling, part walking on the edge scary. When I’m feeling particularly insecure, my left-brain tries to…
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Tweet Finding writing gigs used to be a job on its own. I needed a full-time job to pay for the full-time writing job I was supposed to have. It was a ton of work and not much return. But that’s sort of to be expected when you’re just starting out. However, I quickly learned there were avenues of the freelance writing job search other writers were not taking advantage of. Here are a few less travelled paths that could help you find more freelance writing work no matter what stage of the writing game you’re in: 1. Online ads:…
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Tweet It’s always exciting to see your name in print no matter how long you’ve been a writer! This is especially the case since packing up my life in the Bay Area to move to Kailua, Hawaii where there were just reminiscence, crumbs really, of my Hawaii writing past. High school newspaper clips, college letters to the editors, and jobs in marketing. But nothing substantial to base a new writing career here in the islands. Thankfully, my ambition overpowered my fear and after a successful jaunt at a handful of networking events, I scored a few assignments for Element Media,…
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Tweet Talent can take you far in life. But hard work will push you further than talent alone. What I’ve learned in the last 6 years I’ve been freelance writing is there are other skills besides writing that can benefit the successful freelance writer. And that’s a good thing! This means that I don’t need to be as creative as Young House Lovers John and Sherry, funny as Martha Beck or as pushy as some go-getter writers to be successful. Talk about a load off of my back. If I had to be naturally talented like the authors I drool…
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Tweet Here it is. I can write to my heart’s content meeting and surpassing deadlines if it is for someone else. In fact, it is one of my writerly strengths to submit a piece days before it’s due. But my own work? Sadly, still sitting untouched in Google Drive. I know that writers need a break. I understand that paid work feeds the hungry writer. But the idea that I’ve let this dream of mine slide eats away at this writer’s soul. It makes me feel like a failure and a fake. I see successes like hers and a pulsating…
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Tweet What’s one of the hardest battles you’ll fight as a writer? The battle within yourself. Working on an article recently, I found myself on the front lines defending my creative prose with an ardent editor. Unforgiving and rigid, she was on task to cut away my unnecessary words and fluffy copy for something more streamlined. It was a hard battle lost my friends. All the more so because that editor was me. Every writer has two sides of their brain that battles for attention. My right brain is the more feisty one relentlessly slipping in creative allegories for fun.…