All Freelance Writing » Freelance Theater

Freelancing – New Writer’s Beat Series from Freelance Theater

Yo Prinzel — Thu, 06 May 2010 11:13:49 +0000

When Jenn and I started Freelance Theater, we knew that it would be a great new way to approach traditional freelance writing topics. From difficult clients to working alone, to billing and rates to content mill work, there are no topics that we can’t cover in a fun, entertaining and new way through this medium.

Introducing the Writer’s Beat Series

We’ve decided to play around with many different formats for expression and this month we are introducing the first. This new format is a series called Writer’s Beat. Writer’s Beat will help us explore the freelancing lifestyle using Beat poetry as our vehicle. If you aren’t familiar with Beat poetry, here’s Jack Kerouac doin’ a little. And here’s Mike Myers’ version. Basically, it is a nontraditional, ground-breaking style of poetry that was developed by Beat Generation writers during the 40′s and 50′s. It was raw and honest and not all devicey like traditional poetry. Beat is a term that was used by jazz musicians at the time to describe their employment and financial status—which was not good—and most (maybe even all) Beat poems were read with jazz music playing.

Since Beat poets really laid it all out on the line, I appreciate it like I don’t any other kind of poetry. While my version is more satirical than a real poet’s, it does delve into the day of a freelancer.

So grab up a clove cigarette to smoke and adjust your beret, close your eyes and listen to the first installment of Writer’s Beat—snap if you like it.

The Future of Freelance Theater

The longer audio plays that we do through Freelance Theater’s Madlance series take quite a while to produce and we simply aren’t able to keep up that pace on a monthly basis. Our goal is to bring you the full 5-10 minute audio plays 3-4 times per year, and shorter poems and stories during the other months. We’ve got some great, innovative ways to communicate the freelancing lifestyle in the coming months. I can’t wait to hear your reactions!

*I’d like to throw in a special thanks to our sound engineer Frank Prinzel. He really works some magic on these podcasts with the music, timing, voice overs and effects, and his dedication is way appreciated. Oh and he’s really cute.

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What You Won’t Want to Miss on All Freelance Writing

Jennifer Mattern — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 09:17:21 +0000

Periodically I try to update you on the goings-on around All Freelance Writing. And with so much going on, now is a perfect time for an update! Here’s what you can expect during the rest of this month, in March, and through the next couple of months.

February

I’ll be recruiting the last of our new writers for now (we already announced that Dan Smith and Catherine L. Tully are joining the team — please don’t contact me to apply though; it’s a specialized niche and I’ll be recruiting this one independently).
Our marketplace is launching this week. I’m working out a few final bugs in the ad submission process, and then we’ll be live!
Our next free online tool for writers will be launched this month. It goes to the coder tomorrow. We have three more planned (and I’ll come up with other ideas after that). It’s possible we’ll have two new tools releasing before the end of this month, but I’m only promising one for now.

March

Catherine, Dan, and hopefully our third new writer will be starting.
The writer’s market directory will re-launch (this is still a part of the merger of AFW with the writer’s market directory I’ve owned for a couple of years on another domain as a part of my previous writing site network).
You will most likely see the launch of a new series on Freelance Theater.
We’ll be releasing one or two new online tools (depending on how many release yet in February).
I’m planning a virtual book club for freelance writers who want to improve their business skills. There will be more information about this later. There’s a slight chance the launch will happen a little after March, but that’s the plan right now.
I’m talking to an illustrator about a possible cartoon series here. Nothing’s final, and I haven’t decided if I’d prefer static comic-style or something animated. If the illustrator I want isn’t available, it might get put off until either he’s available or I find someone else that I feel is a good match.

Other

The big industry survey I’ve mentioned previously will likely come out anywhere from mid-spring to the end of the second quarter. This isn’t a quickly slapped-together survey with leading questions to get results we want to hear. This is a serious, long-term research project that will continue for several months. Right now I’m still in the development stage. Then partners will have a chance to review and critique the survey to ensure there are no biases, important options missing, or leading or misleading questions involved. Only then will the survey be published and be ready for you to share your valuable insight.
The podcast series on All Freelance Writing is also currently scheduled for a spring release — I would guess May, but I’d like to have it launched by April.
We’ll certainly continue to bring you more free online tools throughout the year. I’m very open to you suggestions, so feel free to mention them and I’ll see if it’s something one of my coders can put together for us.
We’ll have plenty of WordPress themes released for free as well throughout the year. We’re about giving you the tools to make career changes happen, and professional designs (without spammy-looking required designer links in the footer) are a very important tool for writers looking to build their visibility.
I’ll be releasing my e-books whenever I get around to them (they’re never really a top priority these days, so I won’t make promises about when they’re coming).
I’ll release a white paper here probably in June; possibly earlier.
My series of e-courses will probably launch in the second half of the year (too many other large projects to worry about until then).
I’ll be expanding the collection of free forms and templates for freelance writers in our freebies section (in the black bar at the top of the blog) periodically over the next several months.

I feel like I’m forgetting some things, but that should give you a general roadmap of where All Freelance Writing is heading this year — bigger and better resources with serious freelancers in mind. I hope you’ll find something resulting from our growth that helps in your own business growth this year. If you want to suggest or request anything else, feel free to comment here and I’ll consider it. :)

Freelance Theater has Officially Launched!

Jennifer Mattern — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:00:45 +0000

You’ll have to pardon my delayed announcement here, but I didn’t want this announcement to interfere with our word count trackers’ release and the launch of our two newest series: Jenn Escalona’s monthly DIY series and Chris Bibey’s “How to Write” series. In my continuing stream of news and launches, Freelance Theater is officially up and running.

What is Freelance Theater?

Freelance Theater is a joint project I’ve partnered with Yolander Prinzel on — a series of audio plays attempting to take a lighthearted look at serious issues some freelance writers face (while offering a tip or two for overcoming them). We started working on the first episode of this project way back in July. Although it took much longer than expected to get logistics worked out to have it ready, we’re hoping to release one episode monthly moving forward (today I’m actually finishing up the rough draft for our second show and Yo’s already working on December’s).

The MadLance Series

We were inspired by old horror-style radio shows, so you’ll see a bit of influence from that style in the first series we’ve launched — the MadLance series. Our first episode of the series covers the issue of “vampire clients” who seem to suck the life right out of you from time to time. You can listen to “The Dead Don’t Write” at FreelanceTheater.com (the “Theatre” version should also properly redirect for our “Queen’s English” folks). There’s also an .mp3 download link available in the post for the episode, so you can listen to us on the go if you prefer.

While there’s a way you can embed the episode on your own site if you’d like to (a feature we’re hoping future guests will enjoy to promote their own shows), I’m going to ask that you don’t do it for now. We’re going to be switching to another podcast host soon that will allow better embed features, iTunes inclusion and more (if I’m not mistaken), so there will be some minor changes before the next episode goes up.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy “The Dead Don’t Write.”

Note: Oh, and the guy doing the show introduction? That’s Yo’s hubby. He’s awesome. In fact he puts the rest to shame. So a big thanks to Hubby Prinzel for his help with the project, not to mention our awesome WordPress designer and logo designer who will soon be featured on the site’s About page — I wholeheartedly recommend either of them for your coding or design projects. :)

Freelance Theater: Coming Soon(ish)

Jennifer Mattern — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:31:10 +0000

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen past tweets where a hush-hush project in the works with Yolander Prinzel of Freelance Writerville was mentioned. Well, we’ve decided it’s time to give you an early sneak peak at what’s coming, and “what’s coming” is Freelance Theater.

As you can see, there’s really nothing on the site yet — just some dummy text to test features and a temporary intro post until a bit closer to launch time when we’ll reveal more about the first episode.

The launch has been a slow, but quite amusing and rewarding, one. The first show was scripted back in July, and we’ve finished rehearsing and will be dealing with recording and production very shortly. We’re hoping for a launch either at the end of September or early October.

While Freelance Theater will be something a little bit different than your typical freelance writing blogs, you’ll still get plenty of our signature tough love, doses of reality, and smart-ass quips (all accompanied by good intentions as always). We’re combining freelance and fiction to create a new brand of fun for freelance writers. And to be quite honest, it just amused the hell out of us to do it which I suppose is the real reason behind it. I guess you can say we were tired of having to say the same things over and over and over again without it sinking in. We’ve been driven batty enough that we felt the only solution was just to poke fun at some of the ridiculous realities of what freelance writers face (and choose to put themselves through).

So we hope you’ll follow us on Twitter to get updates on the progress, and check out the first show on launch. But more on that later….