Comments on: Freelance Saturday – December 15, 2007

By: Diana

Diana — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 08:09:18 +0000

I told you I can’t get away from internet for too long –Just stopped by today to answer some emails and comment on a few blogs/forums. This is my way of relaxing too, by the way.

By: Jessica Mousseau

Jessica Mousseau — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:33:08 +0000

Good luck with that — it’s nice to kick up, enjoy yourselves and doing little projects without correspondence. I’m still doing mini projects (I subcontract), but not more than a few hours a week when I’m technically “off.”

By: Diana

Diana — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 07:06:03 +0000

Yeah, seems so I have two weeks off starting on the 28th, so I think my brain is already on vacation mode

By: Jess

Jess — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:42:23 +0000

Hahahhaha Dates are minor details —

By: Diana

Diana — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 16:07:48 +0000

Yeah, apparently don’t know what day I live in

By: Jessica Mousseau

Jessica Mousseau — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 13:12:30 +0000

Actually it was on Wednesday

By: Diana

Diana — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:59:22 +0000

Church on Friday night? Is it a special holiday service or something like that?

By: Jessica Mousseau

Jessica Mousseau — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:45:00 +0000

I agree — I’m thankful I’m a super work woman so I’m still going to church tonight

By: Diana

Diana — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:30:25 +0000

no problem. I’m doing a million little things too, trying to tie up all ends before I go away

By: Jessica Mousseau

Jessica Mousseau — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:44:38 +0000

I agree It’s in the works — I received that email Diana, haven’t replied to anything, going nuts on this end — But I have your contact now

By: Diana

Diana — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:13:44 +0000

@ Jessica. Email sent! Check your inbox

I think templates may be more useful to the beginner writer than just general books. Reading longer books is nice and inspirational, but you still are lost as to what to do when you need to send an invoice or write a letter. Providing a group of templates for pretty much anything a beginner needs can be not only good for the reader but also for you (I think there’s a huge market for it).

By: Jessica Mousseau

Jessica Mousseau — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:27:38 +0000

Yeah it’s all foreign —- you don’t have any idea what to do –and as we continue to – we have say “cover letter templates” – we have samples to follow, like when I do a PR I pull up an old one and use the same format, etc. — so it saves a lot of time — a lot of the beginning stages is time consuming STARTER tasks – like how do you want to bill — and I do electronic AND paper records —- finding what works for you is a long task sometimes.

P.S. I love our conversations Diana…. do you have a messenger program? If so, email me jessicamousseau AT gmail DOT com

By: Diana

Diana — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:20:08 +0000

I think landing your first few gigs is the difficult part. You don’t know where to look, how to approach editors, what to say and what to avoid… It doesn’t necessarily gets easier to land gigs with time, you simply just become more effective at looking for them, so you have a lot more opportunities.

By: Jessica Mousseau

Jessica Mousseau — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 03:09:20 +0000

Honestly the beginning isn’t easy — establishing the clientele and how you want to run your business is like a bottomless pit of decisions, once you have that, it’s just refining it continuously.

By: Diana

Diana — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:56:06 +0000

@ Kathleen. Making a living through writing is not unreasonable at all! I certainly make more writing than I make at my day job (there’s a reason why I’m still keeping my day job, but it’s probably too long and too boring to go into it here). When I first started writing, the idea of making a living at it sounded almost laughable. But I’m definitively the one to tell you that it’s possible.

By: All Freelance Writing | My Publishing Goals for 2008

All Freelance Writing | My Publishing Goals for 2008 — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:46:02 +0000

[...] We’ve talked a little bit about goals and resolutions for writers in 2008, and I shared 13 goals of mine in the comments of this post. [...]

By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:44:12 +0000

I do make a to-do list most days, but I don’t really set bigger goals. I guess my goal is to earn enough to support my family with our working non-stop. Unreasonable? Probably. So I try not to think about it much, but it is still in the back of my head.

By: Jessica Mousseau

Jessica Mousseau — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:18:05 +0000

I think we should cheer each other as much as possible to make 2008 the year that we do BIG BIG BIG things…

By: Jennifer Mattern

Jennifer Mattern — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 20:09:45 +0000

You can definitely break them down. What I do is set up my big yearly goals. Then each month I decide what I’m going to do to reach them, and break it down into weekly and even daily to-do lists as I go along. Baby steps are a wonderful thing, and they make it that much easier to stay motivated.

By: Diana

Diana — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:45:16 +0000

Thanks for posting your goals. It helps to see what others are doing. I haven’t completely finished my goal list for 2008, but I’m pretty sure it will look as long as yours.

@Kathleen — Don’t be afraid to set goals! If you are intimidated by large goals, break them down in small steps and make a list that includes those steps. That way you can feel a sense of accomplishment every time you cross something off your list. Goals do push us to work harder (even if it’s just out of fear of not being able to cross anything off the list), so I would encourage anybody to try it.

Maybe we can all share our goals here in the comments to encourage each other?