One of the biggest challenges of a freelancing career is organization, at least in my experience. There’s a fine line between being organized yet flexible; after all, flexibility is one of the best perks of being self-employed. However, if you don’t stay focused on some level, all kinds of things can fall through the cracks and become lost and wandering. This, friends and neighbors, can cost you money and inspire a level of frustration in which you invent scathing swear words not fit for human ears.

There are some things to keep in mind when you’re embarking on a freelance career. It’s not as simple as just reaching for a pen, keyboard or crayon and scribbling away. You have to think about an online presence; marketing; pricing; accounting; prospecting, and at long last, writing. (And you thought you were just going to be writing, didn’t you? Hah. A freelancer must wear many hats.)

Becoming organized is different for every person. What works for one person might not work for you. The trick is to try a combination of things and figure out a way to maximize your work day to achieve your full potential. Once you get into a routine, your days become smoother and more productive. (That’s the theory, anyway. Work with me here, people.)

I can tell you some of what works for me, but to be truthful, it’s a work in process. I’ve learned a lot about my work habits over the last year or so, and instead of fighting them, I’ve embraced them. Know thyself, and to thine own self be true — just because you might not fit into the mold of writer you’ve read about or admired doesn’t mean you don’t have your own mold.

Making a list: I am a strong believer in making a list. Actually, I make several lists. I’ll detail out a weekly list of the goals or deadlines I need to meet, but I usually don’t write out a daily list until the night before. Sometimes, not until the very morning in question. Since things have a habit of changing on an almost hourly basis, I retain some flexibility and yet have a plan of some kind in black and white to which I can refer. My daily list may look something like this:

• Finish the edits for Chapter 4.
• TSB prompt (D/L Sunday.)
• Post for WW.
• Post for OF.
• Drops.
• Check work sites.
• Pimpage and networking.
• Newsletter shite (D/L 1/16.)

I keep in mind my weekly goals and deadlines, and what I don’t get to on this day will roll over to tomorrow.  I don’t obsess, but I do keep in mind what’s looming up, and by loosely scheduling certain actions, I keep ahead of my deadlines, which take priority over ANYTHING else. I use a calendar (actually, several, if you must know — I have a sickness regarding calendars, I can never have enough calendars…gah.)

Discipline: There are so many things that can distract you from your primary purpose, no matter your best intentions or what purpose you have scheduled for the day. As I may have mentioned before, research is especially seductive to me — oh, the siren’s call that echos! The enticing information that lies just beyond the next click! The answers to all my burning questions that are contained on just that next website! There are so many fabulous resources on the ‘net, and we’re not even talking about games, shiny things, and tempting tasty tidbits regarding your favorite hobbies, interests, or passions. Have a question about some obscure factoid you can’t quite remember? So, so easy to go to Google search to scratch that itchy brain. But beware! It’s entirely possible to fall into a timesink and next thing you know, it’s four hours later and you’ve lost some productive hours.

Exert some self-control! Schedule time to pursue such fascinating ‘net vistas, such as after you have completed some task you planned for the day.  Set a timer or alarm on either your cell phone or on your computer, and when it goes off, proceed to your next project immediately. Scribble the burning question on a pad you keep on your workspace, and refer to it later. You might be surprised at the level of self-accomplishment you feel when resisting the pull of the non-work related internet and getting back to business.

Networking duties: Actually, you are always networking as a freelancer. If you’re not, you should be. That being said, in order to make my day more productive, there are certain programs I keep closed until I know the bulk of my work is done for the day, or until my brain cells start emitting smoke, fire, and a weird screaming sound that won’t stop until I take a break.

For me, networking is one of the best parts of this business. I love people, I love talking to people, I love sharing tips, bon mots, and great links to visit. HOWEVER…I know if I keep certain programs open, I will be sucked into the time/space continuum and I will lose hours, days, weeks…not to mention money and opportunities, so I try to keep track of how much time I’m Facebooking, Twittering, checking email and generally socializing. It’s a fine balance, and it’s taken me some time to figure out what works best for me.

Keep your desktop, email, and bookmarks organized: I know, this is funny to me, also. Still, it only took a couple of times for me to waste precious HOURS digging through files and photos to find exactly what I was looking for to teach me to file it correctly the first time, or at least clean things up more than once a year. Not only does it make things easier to find and saves you time and stress, it also has the added bonus of making your computer run quicker when it has less to sort through when booting up. I’ve organized all my files into folders, then incorporated all my folders into one master folder, which is the only thing on my desktop besides assignments that are due this week. Not only is it less stressful to look at a busy desktop, booting up now is a lot quicker.

These are the things that work best for me as far as getting organized. Got any hot tips? I’m willing to try anything once, so leave your suggestions in the comments and I’ll be very grateful. Until then, I hope something here has helped you out, and I’d love to know if that were the case.

Sub-title: Traveling Around the Blogosphere

I run across so many great sites, I thought I’d list the best of the best here every Tuesday. Some of them are helpful, some of them are inspiring, some are just quirky. They might be writing-related, and they might not. A good freelancer and flasher is a well-rounded person, and you can learn a lot by wasting time visiting other sites.

A combination of the useful and the quirky, I highly recommend Mercenary Writer’s Press. “All the writing without the pretention” is their mantra — their Kung Fu is strong, even though their preferred torture device is plural gerunds. You might need to invest in Depends Undergarments, but it’s worth it.

Quarter-life Lady is the blog of a twenty-something woman blogging about the transition into adulthood as experienced by many young ladies. While it’s true I have socks older than 25, it’s also true I thoroughly enjoy reading about the trials and tribulations of that particular period of life. It brings back some great memories, as well as offering insights I have forgotten but still have great value even though I’m twice her age. (Gak. Can that be true??)

A freelance writer’s blog by Kristen King, Inkthinker Blog offers some fabulous inside information on the career of a freelancer. Online since January 2006, there’s tons of tips and tidbits regarding writing for a living that are very much worth a read.

Another freelancer blog, The Other ~F~ Word is one of my new favorites. Excellent information and inspiration, I’ve learned a lot by visiting Lydia’s blog, and am very grateful for her generosity in sharing.

If you’re craving a bit of the funny to pass the day, you must visit Wit’s Bitch. The woman is a riot, and if I’m stuck neck-deep in some project that makes me feel like poking my eye out with a coat hangar, I visit her for a while and I feel so much better.

Do you need a further distraction? Killer Broccoli is just what you need. By now, everyone must be aware of the conspiracy of the vegetables to take over our world. Do your part to eradicate this menace.

Peeking into the lives of others might be illegal in several states, but peeking into the brain of a real-life success story such as Peephole in my Skull is still legal, as far as I know. Mark the name of Peter V. Brett, friends and neighbors. He is the Next Big Thing, and I can’t WAIT for the release of “The Warded Man” March 9th.

Those are my favorites of the past week; make sure when you visit to leave some comment love, bookmark, stumble, digg, or whatever floats your boat. These people work hard at providing quality content, and it’s only right to say thanks.

Excuse me now, while I go annihilate some broccoli.  Heh.

As a freelancer and budding entrepreneur, it’s a fact that you have to multi-task and wear a lot of different hats. The tasks you have to accomplish in one day resembles a juggling act of Olympic proportions. The flexibility required is enormous, and if you can’t adapt, you’re likely to pull great swatches of greying hair from your head. As you become more successful, you can outsource some of these necessary evils, but in the meantime, you’re the one in charge. Scary, isn’t it?

These are just some of the duties you’ll be undertaking in the Wild World of Freelancing:

• Accountant: You work for yourself now, bub. Ain’t nobody keeping track of your income and expenses for the dreaded year-end tax accounting; this is something you have to do for yourself. It’s your responsibility to document each and every penny coming in and going out. There are a lot of good software programs to help you with this, but you have to learn them. Plan on spending a good chunk of time learning what you need to maintain the program you choose, but get an early start. If you leave this to too late in the year (or horrors! the very end!) those hours will triple or more and you’ll regret it.
• Webmaster: Whether you like it or not, you have to have some familiarity with the tools of the trade. If you don’t have a blog or webpage of your services yet, you should. That means learning basic HTML coding, how to get around your chosen platform, trouble shooting, how to code links, not to mention the basics of buying and maintaining a domain, hosting, and probably a million other things I’m forgetting. The learning curve is high, but if you take it in small steps, not impossible. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, my friends. One bite at a time. Take advantage of help forums, friends with tech knowledge, and take notes! Again, you can outsource a lot of this work, but knowing what you need and what to ask for really helps in the long run.
• Social Networker: Networking is a huge part of the freelance career. You sure can’t exisit in a vacuum, and the face of freelancing (as in publishing in general, but that’s a subject for another post) is changing daily. The best way to keep up is to network with your fellow freelancers. This means becoming educated about social networking sites and how to connect. Don’t spread yourself too thin; you need to evaluate each social site to determine what is best suited to you, what you expect to get out of it, and how much it costs you in time to maintain. Not all social sites are equal, and if you’re not comfortable there, you won’t spend the time needed. What you’re looking for is quality, not quantity. It is of no value to have umpteen contacts if 80% of them are spammers or entities just looking for a number.

I just want to say on this subject that you get what you give. When I started my writing career and all along the way, I’ve  met some very giving, generous and supportive people. I have never forgotten that and I try my best to pay it forward. Like all karma, it eventually comes back to you. Build your reputation carefully; no spamming, no scamming, and no bullshitting. Word gets around quicker than you can blink if you act in anything but an honorable way. Keep that in mind. Help people along, be kind, be an asset to your community or you’re going to wake up someday with nothing to show for all your hard work but a bad taste in your mouth.

• News Hound: As mentioned above, the face of freelancing and publishing is changing daily. You have to stay informed and on the cutting edge; scour the news for impending trends and information needed by the public in general and clients in particular; whatever is new,  interesting,  and relevant. Your mind must be a sponge.
• Internet marketer: Although it’s probably one of the least favorite of all chores (besides the accountant thing, gah) a writer really must promote themselves. You can’t just sit back and wait for jobs, opportunities or your big break to come to you; you have to go looking for them and you have to make it easy for them to find you. They don’t know how to find you until you get yourself out there. Maybe not all, but many IM  principles will help launch your career to the next level.
• Blog reader (and commentor): Again, this relates to being a good participant in community. You can learn a great deal from reading the sites of others not only in your profession or area of expertise, but in a host of others. Don’t set the circle so close; it pays to read a variety of different blogs. Internet marketers, journalists, mommy bloggers, accountants, webmasters — all the hats  you need to wear. Pay attention and keep a notebook handy for the tips and information that really speaks to you and your particular niche. Leave a thank-you comment if the article or blog has helped you. These people work hard too, and if something they’ve provided has helped, it’s only polite to say thanks.

It’s quite a list, isn’t it? By no means is it complete, or I’d be here all night, and I don’t know about you, but I have some hats to wear. Don’t be intimidated — one bite at a time. To build and sustain a successful freelance career takes time and commitment (no, not to a looney bin, although that’s an option) so don’t expect overnight success. However, keep plugging away and don’t give up.

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” ~ Richard Bach.

Image by Pablo Moran Jr. via Flickr

Today’s economy sucks, and we all know it. The daily news is rife with information about how difficult it is to work in ANY profession, and freelance writing is just one of them. Freelancing as a writer is difficult under the best of circumstances. Situations change on a daily, almost hourly, basis. What can you do to ride the waves?

Two words – flexibility and persistence, my friends. If flexible and persistent aren’t part of the vocabulary, it might be time to think of another profession. Work opportunities will come and go as fast as blinking your eyes. What might be a great paying gig today could be gone tomorrow. The competition is fierce, reliable job opportunities scarce, and staying motivated and focused can seem impossible.

You know more than you think. If you are a competent writer, writing about any subject is possible, but sticking to the things you know best or are most passionate about increases the chances of scoring a job. Your personal experiences, hobbies and outlook have a great impact on the work that’s most comfortable for you. Comfort means a better work ethic and better material produced.

Make a list. Ask yourself these questions:

What are your hobbies? What do you know about these hobbies? For example, say you like to craft origami. There are many people out there that would love to know what you do about origami. There are ins and outs of this hobby you might know that other people don’t. Same goes for anything from crossword puzzles to quilting to making reticello lace.

What jobs have you held? For instance, say you spent a summer as a dancing hamburger. What are the dos and don’ts of a dancing hamburger? What are the pitfalls? Someone out there might be thinking of taking a similar job, what would your advice to them be?

What are you passionate about? The environment, social issues, maybe the love of a certain place?

Have you taken classes of some kind? Were they corporate classes, college courses, lessons on scrapbooking? What was the experience like, and what did you learn (other than the information the class provided?)

These are just three examples of how you know more than you think. The list just produced will come in very handy in your quest for a freelance writing career. Thinking outside the box is a key component in making it work.

Looking for freelance work can be a full-time job in itself. The smart freelancer has more than one egg in their basket, and is looking to generate passive income as well as active projects. What do I mean by that?

Keep your options open. If writing an “audition” article and it’s not accepted, assuming you retain all rights, think of posting it on a site like Helium, Constant Content, or any one of a number of sites that pay something. It might not end up being a huge amount of money, but that’s an egg in your basket. Become the master or mistress of “spin”. You’ve already done the research work and have the sources documented — the information is right there. Spin the article from another point of view, another angle, and make it fresh and original. Switch it up, change it around, and you have another article!

I have experience with Helium and Constant Content, and here’s how they work.

With Helium, write an article and post it. You will earn money according to the views, or impressions, of the articles. They might be pennies, but pennies add up quicker than you think. Of course, volume counts – the more articles, the more impressions. Helium does require a bit of participation – you don’t earn unless you’ve read and rated a certain amount of other articles, but it’s easy to keep up. If a premier writer’s badge for the quality of work is earned (depending on your rating by other Helium users) you are also eligible to audition for Premier Marketplace assignments, and these pay really well. Keep in mind once an article is posted, it’s there for life. You can’t sell that particular article for unique rights, but you can post it on Constant Content for usage rights (meaning your article can be sold over and over again. See below.) Or, you can exercise the Power of the Spin and put together another article. Helium can also serve as an online portfolio of your work. Their payout threshold is $25.00, or donations of earnings to charity are an option. You can also earn from referrals, so if you sign up there, make sure you tell them I sent you.

Constant Content is a website that brokers articles. Write a unique article, and submit it to their editor review for quality. Once listed, you determine which rights and price you wish to sell. Clients then browse and choose the articles they wish to buy. Constant Content takes a commission, but the good thing is you post it, price it, and forget it. No marketing required, and additional money can be earned through special and private requests. Their payout is $50.00.

That’s just two examples of passive income. Think outside the box and squeeze every earning potential from your work as you can. Spin, post, and then write and spin some more. Use your own base of knowledge; use the research; be smart about your assets. Creativity is not limited to what you write – it’s also in how you fill your basket.

Although my first love is, and always will be, flash fiction, the truth of the matter is it’s very difficult to make a living from writing flash fiction. However, it’s been a great training ground for an actual career in making a living for what I love to do most, which is writing in general.

The working life of a freelancer is full of ups and downs. I’ve had some success in writing web content and articles; the problem is finding a steady market. I did some work for a woman who owned several websites, but she insisted on keyword-stuffing the articles, and there were a couple of experiences with flash fiction that really helped me do this.

One was my daily blogging habit. As I’ve stated before, I’ve had a private blog since 2004 and I’ve blogged almost daily. This is great practice and even better discipline — think of it as exercising your writing muscle. Of course, as with any other endeavor, the more you do something (theoretically, anyway) the better you get at it.

The second experience that helped me was a writing exercise that was the brainchild of a very dear friend of mine called 3 Words. Initially, he would post three random words every day, and then the participants would write 50 words of a story incorporating those prompt words. We would write for thirty days and have a complete story to show for it.  After the first month, he decided (with the consensus of the group) to increase the word count to 100; the 50 word limit was a bit too confining. As a matter of fact, I had a hard time ending the stories on the last day — but I was allowed to carry over into the next month.

This was excellent experience. The first two stories I wrote were abysmal, but I seemed to catch the hang of it after that and I actually wrote a couple of stories that were readable. It was quite challenging to fit three words into your ongoing story, to gauge the pace in order to end on the last day, and to come up with an idea in the first place. It was a blast, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, never realizing how much good the experience would do me when it came to launching a freelance career.

Back to my first freelance job — Okay, this woman wanted her articles keyword-stuffed. (Remember, at this point I am but a neophyte, and had no idea about keywords or SEO practices. I’m not sure I get it even now, to be totally truthful.)  She wanted 45 – 55% of the content to be keywords.

Yikes.  I think if it wasn’t for my daily blogging habit and 3 Words, I never would have pulled it off. It was very difficult writing, but I ended up banging out 70 articles on the same subject for her. I then called it quits, because I was burned out and I just couldn’t do that anymore.

The second job was much better — this time for a company, and all they required was three or four keyword phrases sprinkled through the body of the article. After what I had just done, this was no problem at all. The problem was, there wasn’t enough work to sustain me, and eventually the company went through a re-structuring and soon I wasn’t getting any work at all.

I’ve had short-term jobs here and there, but nothing steady, which is the bane of the freelancer. Thus, I’ve been on a mission to find jobs that suit, with not much to show for it. However, I did find a place to post articles where shoppers for material for their websites could pick them up. No marketing, the money goes directly into PayPal, easy-peasy.

The site is called Constant Content and I’ve had good results, so far. I’ve posted rewritten content from articles already researched and written, and it’s a good way to recycle material I have laying around I probably won’t use again. Spin, baby, spin.

Check it out. While it might not provide a full income for you, or even make you rich, it is a good venue for material you already have just taking up hard-disk space. Cruise the site and take a look at what’s selling, what’s offered and think about the material you have at hand. Join up, post — and let your leftovers earn you some cash. You can thank me later.