Tag Archives: wahm

The Greatest Things About This Freelancing Gig

By on April 25th, 2013

I’m a teacher. I chose to be a teacher, and I continue to teach because I enjoy the challenge and the rewards of the profession. But there are always downsides, and in this season of assessment testing and stress, I was thinking today about my other job. I’m a freelance writer. I chose to start writing and to continue this career in addition to the full-time teaching one about eight years ago. It makes for full days, and there are times when I’m ready to throw in the towel, escape to a beach somewhere and lay still. Okay, we call …

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Posted in Freelance Writing Life |

Shifting Schedules (Again): How to Tell When It’s Time

By on April 11th, 2013

As any work-at-home parent knows, your schedule is at the mercy of your family. The exception might be those who have a babysitter or daycare lined up, but for most of us, we have to plug along as best with we can with holidays, changing sleep schedules, summer vacations and the rest of it. Over the almost eight years I’ve been working from home, I’ve had to adjust my schedule a few times. I went from working naps to nights to nights-and-naps to just nights again. I tried mornings and then went back to nights. And that’s where I’ve been …

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3 Cardinal Rules of Working with Kids at Home

By on February 14th, 2013

There is not much easy about our job unless you compare it to something like digging ditches or building a skyscraper. But that at least wears out your body rather than your mind. At the end of a day wrestling obligations to kids and careers, my brain is tired. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels mentally split almost constantly throughout the day. There is no question that working at home with kids underfoot is challenging. But it’s possible…if you follow a few ironclad rules of the trade. Never take on more than you can handle. For most …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

What We Can Learn from WAHM Writers

By on January 31st, 2013

We all know that the work-at-home-mom (WAHM) writers aren’t considered the upper echelon of the writing community. If you didn’t know that, you’ve never read about the cost-savings to be had by tricking desperate WAHMs into providing ultra cheap articles in a particular forum’s Special Offers. Well, as a few of us here can tell you, having children and enjoying a professional writing career are certainly not exclusive entities, and even when you stop to consider the penny-pinching, low-cost WAHM writers mentioned in those special offers and “tricks of the trade” forum posts we can learn quite a bit from their experiences. Focus on Making What …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Clients We Love to Hate

By on December 20th, 2012

I love my clients. I don’t want you to think I’m a total jerk for getting up here on this proverbial soapbox and bashing the people who routinely buy my services. I’m not bashing them. I have no reason to – in fact, I’m suddenly thinking of dedicating a post to what makes them so amazing, but that’s not as much fun to write so I’ll put that one off for a bit. Instead let me tell you about some of the “clients” that I think we can all agree to hate. Yes, that sounds terribly ugly, but we hate …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Redefining Your Writing: Cleaning Up Your Career

By on December 6th, 2012

Your personality, preferences and skills influence all of your decisions, and that includes your writing career. Most of us who have our own careers in writing would have a hard time living with a set income again. If I need some extra cash, I take on an extra project, for example. You can’t do that if you’re salaried. Jenn’s recent post on her ambitious goals for 2013 made me start some rusty wheels turning about my own plans for the future. I think it’s time to redefine my work and possibly clean up my career. I’m getting a bit bored …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Game Changers: Is It Time to Throw in the Freelance Towel?

By on October 25th, 2012

It’s crossed the mind of every freelancer at one point or another, perhaps on the day that a major deal falls through or you learn you’re looking at a divorce or pregnancy. Is there a good time to stop freelance writing? While our knee jerk reaction may be to immediately deny the thoughts of walking away or scaling back, logically there are some times when life requires we reassess plans and make modifications – sometimes big ones. You Need Money Now Freelance writing can earn you some money quickly if you find jobs quickly or you already have a well-established …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Freelancing Tricks: Find a Comfort Zone

By on October 11th, 2012

One of the hardest things to do as a freelancer is also one of the most critical. You need to find a comfort zone in your professional life. If you don’t find a happy medium where you’re driven to succeed without overwhelming yourself with projects and obligations, your professional life will quickly bleed over into your personal life – and soon you find yourself trapped in a freelance career.  Determine Your Goals Everyone writes for a different reason. Some freelancers want to surround themselves with the written word and they cultivate their passion for writing by pursuing a fully-immersed career …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Working from Home and Wasting Time

By on September 13th, 2012

There is a lot of resistance to the idea that working at home makes you lazy. I’d heartily agree that stereotypes are generally unfounded among successful business people who choose to work from home, but I’d also offer up the argument that having worked in a few places in corporate America, people are lazy workers at times no matter where they are stationed for the job. Sadly that includes many of us would-be highly efficient writer folk. Wasting Time, Wasting Money I’m going to be bold and suggest that working from home does in fact make you waste time – …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Making Big Adjustments as a WAHM

By on August 16th, 2012

It’s that time again! The kids are going back to school! This means my house will in an uproar for a few weeks while we try to get everyone and everything settled again for the school year. While you might expect me to celebrate my kids going back to school as a sign that I’ll have more time in the day to write, I am a bit outside that demographic. I play double-duty ten months of the year as both a WAHM and a WOHM. That means (for those uninitiated in Mom abbreviations) I am both a work-at-home-mom and a …

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