It’s about getting paid

At least it is, for me, right now.

I’ve set out on the freelance road and I’m freaking out. I’m used to bringing home a regular paycheck from a newspaper (and, briefly, a public relations agency, but that’s a whole ‘nother post) for more than a decade. Now, I’m a hustler H-U-S-T-L-E-R hustler.

Things haven’t been going badly, but so far I’m making in a month roughly the same amount I used to make a week. It’s unnerving. But I have a supportive husband who reminds me how much and hard I’m hustling. So that’s a good thing.

There are a lot of ideas out there about how much to charge for the services I offer which includes writing features and press releases, editing, and pitching stories to the media. But I’ve noticed most suggestions aren’t really suggestive at all. Instead, they say not to undercut your skills, to consider the time you’ll spend on a project, etc. It’s gotten to the point where I just scan posts for dollar signs. I’ll save you some time – there are no dollar signs.

So I did something I consider to be a large, though tax-deductible, step. I bought 2008’s Writer’s Market. For me this is a big step. It may not be a large one, but it’s an investment – it says I’m really doing this, I’m freelancing. So far the best part for me has been the “Beyond the Basics” chapter. It has dollar signs! For just about every writing service it gives an average, the high and the low rates being paid across the country (and Canada).

True, I’m not giving you the dollar sign either, but at least I’m telling you where to find it.

My Conundrum - Read or Write

On my coffee table there are three piles of books to be read. That doesn't include the nine bookcases around my living room/dining room or the books on tape/CD that are in my car.

Books have been one of the mainstays of my life since Ollie Anna took her daughters to the small Laurel, Maryland library, on Main Street, not far from Dad's barbershop. Even now, more than fifty years later, I remember where the Beatrix Potter books were shelved and The Witch of Blackbird Pond, still one of my favorite stories.

As a child I used to imagine that my bed was a magic carpet and I would place the books I was reading on my bed at time - just in case the "carpet" would lift off. Today I never board a plane without at least one book and each time I do I think of that "magic carpet" bed.

My passion for reading became my passion for writing - for story-telling, really. I was good at story-telling, having been an inveterate liar as a child. Really. I would try out all sorts of tales to get out of going to school. Luckily, by 12 I'd channeled that into writing. Throughout high school and into nursing school, I would pretend to take notes, but all the time I was writing - short stories, poems, plays, letters to imaginary people.

Reading and writing are like breathing. I have to do both to live, but one sometimes takes over the other. I read everyday. I average at least two books a week, one print and one audio.

Now I need to put that same amount of time into my writing.

Getting Your Butt In The Chair

No, I've never had a problem with sitting in a physical sense. Sitting in front of the computer, sitting in front of the television, sitting in front of the Lincoln Center fountain while tourists take pictures; I've done all these things.
But sitting down to write - man, how do I justify that?
Sure, I have a million things I need to be doing instead of writing. I need to do laundry. I need to vaccuum. I need to read those books I just bought. I need to level up on Aveyond 2. I need to ... why don't I ever say "I need to write."
Weird, because I really do need to write. I get the overstuffed, jumbled head feeling when I have too many ideas lolling around in my noggin. I get dreamy-eyed and lose focus and finally commit acts of great weirdness and frivolity. But I haven't given myself permission to get my butt in the chair and write.

I'm hoping this blog will prove to be a catalyst, a motivator, a sharp poke in the back, spurring me forward along the path that - as metaphysical as it sounds - was chosen for me.
Here's hoping.

Next time, we'll talk about the myth that "words on a page are permanent".