Friday, June 30, 2006

 

My rant of the week: Auditions for a no-pay job

If you've been reading this blog or you know me IRL, you know I'm a sucker for celebrity gossip. One of the sites I regularly visit is dedicated to celebrity babies ... 24/7 about kids who wear $400 sweaters and travel on private jets with nannies and bodyguards. I read this mindcandy while my kid runs around the house wearing 4th generation hand-me-down clothes from some kid named Max, who's probably in college now. (Truth be told, I'm a proud, cheap Yankee, but I digress.)

A couple weeks ago, I read this post advertising for new contributors. Ok, so you're a good writer, you're up on celeb gossip, and you know your spelling and grammar. Well, if you want to write for this site, baby, you have to audition. That's right. Don't bother sending story ideas -- "Do not e-mail me unless you have a sample story." Oooookay. That's called an "on spec" submission for you young whippersnappers. But wait, it gets better. Your sample stories have to be the "freshest." (All of us who write for women's magazines are reaching for the cans of FDS we keep at our keyboards.) And penultimately? You must be reliable. If you can't keep up the pace "you may not want to bother auditioning."

Ok, the ultimate is this: "Please note that there is no financial compensation and you are not allowed to enter giveaways and contests, but you get to be part of the ONLY website dedicated to celebrity babies and their famous parents."

Wow. Sign me up. (slapping forehead) That's right, I can't sign up. I have to audition.

Linda and I have been talking about how writers get (and feel) devalued in our society. If you're a professional writer, you're forever hearing, "Oh, I'd like to write if I had the time." (I'm a snark, so my response goes along the lines of, "And I'd like to [fix computers/operate on hemmorhoids/run your organization] if I had the time." Or you get lumped in with the writers who are willing to donate their time and talent to be "part of the ONLY website dedicated to celebrity babies and their famous parents."

You know, I'd hazard a guess that this site's hosting is paid for. Someone's getting income from the dozens of ads for baby slings and children's clothes on this content-driven site. Let's get real ... people are going to the site to read the content. Yet the content writers don't get paid. Does anyone see anything remotely insane about this?

 

Apple is Good to Writers

Linda and I, being Mac addicts, have known this for awhile. However I was heartened to read that Apple corporate supports writers (well, homeless model/writers) who write books at their Apple Stores. Yes, this pint-sized model supposedly wrote a novel while standing in her heels in front of a demo Mac. Geez, now I feel bad for all the times I bitched to my husband about the people who were hogging up the really good Macs at our local Apple store. They could have been writing novels! You can't even bring coffee into those places. But knowing how nice the Apple salespeople are, they probably let the model borrow a 17" MacBook Pro for coffee runs. (I wondered how she saved all her work ... this update tells you how.)

My PowerBook is nearing the end of its life. Maybe I can write my next book at the Apple Store in Salem. Only I'll wear Tevas and bring my 4-year-old along -- he can play on the kiddie Macs. Imagine the great press Apple will get when word spreads how they support working mom writers by providing kick-ass computers and childcare!

 

Source for Sources

I was poking around the Writers Guild of America, West's website this a.m. and found this helpful contact list for various organizations, ranging from the Marines to the Scientologists.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

 

Even Peace-loving Writers Have Bad Days

Unfortunately, an anonymous poster included her website's URL in this profanity-laden threat directed to author/blogger Lynne W. Scanlon for sending her a press release about Lynne's new business venture. I love that the poster is the author of The Practice of Peace. Perhaps Practice What You Preach is more like it. (Thanks to Miss Snark for the chuckle of the day.)

P.S. to the author. Two words: Canyon Ranch.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

 

Do Something, Do More, Keep Doing It

OK, I'm going to admit it. I've been in a writing slump. It's not for lack of work: I'm working on three book proposals, one of which my agent's eager to get out like yesterday, and then there's the hefty bit of magazine work I've lined up for July, along with the Chicago One-On-One conference, which I'm very eager to attend for the first time.

But ... I sit down to work and seem to lose steam. After a couple hours of drinking coffee, surfing the Web (why do I care that Lindsay Lohan and Sean Combs bickered over VIP seats in a nightclub?), and spasmodically checking my e-mail, I start beating myself up: why am I not more productive? How come I haven't pitched anything to editors this week? When will I get these proposals finished if I continue indulging in this slug-like behavior?

Rather than fall back into the cycle of goofing-off/beating-myself-up, today I did some Web surfing on how to fix a writing slump and found this article by Bob Bly, one of my writing heroes, about how to save yourself from the pit: 1. Do something. 2. Do more 3. Keep doing it. Absolutely brilliant advice, which I quickly wrote down on the whiteboard in my office ... and better yet, kept in mind whenever temptation to dive into the slough of despond beckoned.

Monday, June 12, 2006

 

You can dress us up ....

After a long weekend of reading Archie comics (Linda) and chick-lit novels (Di), we're happy to report we had a great time at Canyon Ranch. The people who came to our talks were really nice and asked a lot of questions about freelancing. It's always a lot of fun to answer questions -- nothing worse than dead silence -- and there was even an ASJA member and a former book editor who showed up on Saturday afternoon. This was Linda's second time at "The Ranch," and my first. I was totally blown away by the great food. (So was my scale -- I gained a pound last week.) My favorite was the coffee creme brulee, served in demitasse cups. The highlight of our evening was Linda asking for four desserts and our waiter not knowing if she was serious or not. Believe me, if he'd brought four over, we'd have had NO trouble scarfing them down.

The place is absolutely luxurious. I mean, they even fold your toilet paper into neat little points, as you can see to the left.















You can imagine my dismay when, upon returning to our suite, I found this. Linda would not own up to the ruination.
















I was so upset not to see those neat little points that Linda suggested we meditate during our walk to the lobby, where we could choose from a wall full of DVDs. In a sea of Merchant Ivory, we found these gems. Mr. Pink would have been in heaven at Canyon Ranch: no tipping allowed.








So we return to our room, DVDs in hand (truth be told, we nixed Lake Placid and Quentin Tarantino and went with The Breakfast Club and Spellbound -- we're not total doinks). Linda visited the powder room before movie time and voila!

Our Canyon Ranch experience was not exactly limited to toilet paper folded in neat points ... there were whirlpools, yoga classes, a sauna, fitness centers ... and amazing attention to detail.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

 

24 days till ...

No, not Christmas, silly -- 24 days till July 1, the deadline to enter The Ultimate Renegade Freelance Writer Contest.

There is no entry fee. All you have to do is write a short (250- to 500-word) essay on your renegade writing lifestyle, the rules you break, the writers linda you most revere diana, and send your masterpiece to our editor, Ed Avis (edavis@marionstreetpress.com). Keep it short and win, and you'll have made more than a buck a word with the $500 top prize.

Other assorted swag the top winner will enjoy:

* Free entry into Linda Formichelli's Eight-Week Write for Magazines E-Course, including one-on-one consultation time with Linda.
* A Signed Special Second Edition Copy of The Renegade Writer: A Totally Unconventional Guide to Freelance Writing Success.
* A signed copy of Linda and Diana's new book, The Renegade Writer's Query Letters That Rock, coming out this fall.
* A complete set of Marion Street Press books for writers and word lovers.
* A cool gold-plated pen and pencil set.

The two runners up will win the same package, except the cash.

Don't delay ... enter today!

Monday, June 05, 2006

 

Schedules schmedules

Over the weekend I was talking to my sister-in-law about how hard it is to stick to a schedule when you're self-employed. You know, wake up and start project A as soon as you hit the keyboard. When we're working for a regular paycheck and have an evil boss warlord breathing down your neck, moving from most important A to next most important B isn't a challenge: if you don't complete your work on schedule, you get hassled by the boss man or hold up your team's progress ... at worst, you severely disappoint a major client or find yourself filling out forms at the unemployment office.

But when you're your own boss? There's more room for laxity. Your computer isn't in view of some boss's glassed-in office, so you're free to bid on pottery at eBay. Or play a few games of online Sudoku. Even if you have assignments on your plate, you can push them aside until the pressure gets to great (i.e. they're due tomorrow, and you must get them done). After all, no one's going to hand you a pink slip.

In thinking about this over the weekend, the problem with me -- and other freelancers I've talked to -- isn't sticking to a schedule with assignments. After all, they've got pressure points built in to them: deadlines. Editors. A promise of X amount per word when you're finished. It's the "little" things that we tend to push aside. Marketing (if you hate querying or calling editors). Following up on proposals. Invoicing and logging expenses (slowly raising hand here). We let those things go and over time, they seriously erode the quality of our worklife. We get to the point where we don't enjoy the freedom our jobs afford us because we have months of backlogged bookkeeping over our heads. Or no income coming in because we didn't invoice our clients when we should have.

I'd give myself a B-/C+ on scheduling. I'm fine with assignments -- again, there are those built-in pressures that help me stay on track. But I could be better on stuff like bookkeeping. I've been setting aside time on Fridays to do billing, contracts, and other bookkeeping-related stuff and that's helping. Another thing that has helped me -- at some point in the near future, I'd like to hire an assistant. I'll need some office procedures in place, so I can just hand off those tasks when the time comes. And I'm getting better at prioritizing my work the night before so that when I enter my office in the a.m., I can start work on priority A instead of hitting my favorite gossip sites.

What do you do to stay on track? Tips and tricks, please!

Friday, June 02, 2006

 

Journalism award alert

If you've written about cancer-related issues in the last few years, may we draw your attention to a new award? The Luminous Award, sponsored by Lilly Oncology, will "recognize and reward journalism that enlightens audiences by providing responsible, accurate and timely information on advances in cancer prevention and treatment." The award is open to all journalists -- freelancers included -- and there's a very generous timeline of when the articles had to appear in print (between September 1, 2001 and August 30, 2006).

The winner will receive a seven-day trip to Boston, New York, London, Sydney, or Paris for two, where he or she can meet with a top oncologist/cancer researcher and learn more about what s/he's working on. There are also runner-up prizes.

Good luck!

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