How to Use Skeleton Outlines to Write Faster

A fellow writer mentioned client projects sometimes took longer than they hoped, so they wanted to learn to write faster in order to avoid this. While there are plenty of ways you can increase your writing speed, one tip I gave them was to use “skeleton outlines.” I worked through the beginning stages of of a skeleton outline while they watched to show how quick

How to Prepare Your Professional Website for a Break

Do you ever feel overwhelmed, and you just need to step away and take some time to yourself? Maybe you still intend to work, but you just want some quiet time away from other people while you do so you can recharge and clear your head a bit. When that happens, what should you do with your professional website? You might be inclined to leave

Getting Started (or Starting Over): 3 Simple Tasks for Freelance Writers

Are you thinking about jumping into freelance writing for the first time in the New Year? Or are you thinking about starting over or making major changes in your freelance business? In either case, you still have a bit of time to get prepared so you don’t kick off 2018 feeling overwhelmed. I definitely fall in the latter group this year. To say nothing has

Are You Working the Wrong Freelance Writing Schedule?

Do you ever look at your fellow freelance writers and wonder how they seem to fit so much into their days? Do you struggle to get through your daily to-do lists? Have you felt forced to work more than 40 hours per week to take care of projects you’ve gotten behind on? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you might be working the

Spring Cleaning for Freelance Writers

I spent time yesterday afternoon meandering around my gardens, taking in the scent of hyacinths while I looked in on some of my favorite flower beds. It was warm, after a rather chilly morning up here on the hill. And it hit me… It’s spring. Yes. I know it’s been spring for a while now. But with unseasonably late snowstorms flip-flopping with 70+ degree days,

Math as Motivation for Writers (No, Really!)

I don’t believe in perfection. Just two things in this world come close: Music and math. They’re the only two truly universal languages. One can solve almost any problem. The other can touch any soul. And a world without either is one I can’t bear to imagine. Today I’d like to talk about math. I can already sense some of you cringing. But bear with

Paralyzing Fear and Creative Professions

Creative work is unlike any other job you could take on. When you create, you leave a piece of yourself behind for the world to see. There’s a certain amount of vulnerability involved. That vulnerability can make it difficult to separate you, the artist, from your art. And that can lead to paralyzing fear of sharing your work. If you’ve ever dreaded sharing a creative project for

How Writers Can Prepare Early for a Productive New Year

I don’t know about you, but I am so done with 2016. One more week of work for me, and then I’m off until January. When I come back from my holiday vacation, I like to hit the ground running with my work. Everything is planned, organized and ready to go before that clock strikes twelve on New Year’s Eve. Because of that early planning and prep

Falling Behind During NaNoWriMo? 3 Tips to Get You Back on Track

NaNoWriMo has barely started, and I’m already behind this year. I changed my novel idea at the last minute (I believe around 10:00 p.m. the night before). I still haven’t finished the scene-by-scene outline, though I hope to by tomorrow morning. And it’s now November 3rd and I haven’t even begun drafting my novel yet. That seems like a cause for concern, right? But I’m

An Early 2016 Mid-Year Writing Check-In (And Why You Should Do One Too)

We’re coming up on the midpoint of 2016. That means it’s a great time to reflect on our progress thus far. Most years I share my writing goals and resolutions with readers around January and then post a mid-year check-in around early July. This year I conducted my mid-year check-in early. And I highly recommend you do the same. Why Conduct an Early Mid-Year Review? The

A Writer’s Guide to Pulling a Successful All-Nighter

Ah, the dreaded all-nighter. They’re gobs of fun, aren’t they? When you work as a freelance writer, they’re occasionally a necessary evil if you get behind on a project and you’re on a deadline. Thankfully I haven’t had one of those kinds of all-nighters in quite some time. In my case it’s usually somewhere between insomnia (due to stress or evil kitties conspiring against me)

Dreams, Ambitions, and Finding Balance in Your Business

Do you ever feel like you aren’t living the life you really want to live? That your dreams and ambitions are going unfulfilled? That you’ve lost sight of things you’re passionate about, and you’re not quite sure when you got off-track? I do sometimes. Actually, these days, make that a lot. Maybe your dreams involve publishing your first novel. Maybe you dream of running a successful

How You Can be a More Prolific Writer – No Superpowers Needed

A friend and member of the All Freelance Writing community contacted me recently with a question about being a more prolific writer and balancing multiple writing ambitions. She asked to remain anonymous but agreed to let me share her question here in the hopes my answer might help someone else in a similar predicament. Here’s the gist: This is a writer in a similar position

3 Things Writers Should Rethink in the New Year

Happy New Year! I hope 2016 is off to a great start for all of you. I’m excited to be back to work. There’s something about the fresh slate of a new year that ignites a fire under me to tackle big things. Even if you don’t have big projects planned, now is a great time to make other tweaks to your business. If you’re

3 Tools for More Productive and Organized Writing

Today marks the start of my usual year-end vacation, meaning I won’t be around much until the New Year (January 4th in this case). Before taking these yearly breaks I spend a lot of time evaluating my previous year. It’s how I set goals for the next year, but it’s also when I look at the tools and processes I’ve been using to decide what

Find an Extra Hour Every Day With a 5-Minute List

There are days when 24 hours just isn’t enough. I’m sure you’ve experienced at least a few of those. Wouldn’t it be great if you could find an extra hour without having to sacrifice sleep or something else you love to do? Finding that extra hour a day might be easier than  you think. The trick? Create a “5-minute list.” What is a 5-Minute List? Your 5-minute

No. You Don’t Have to “Write Every Day.”

There’s one kind of blog post I dread seeing in my feed reader. They’re the blog posts that sport headlines like “The ONE Thing You Need to do to Become a Successful Writer” or “The Best Writing Advice You’ll Ever Get.” Why do I dread these kinds of posts? Well, other than the obnoxiously gimmicky clickbait titles they tend to use, I usually know what

Quick Tip: Write Blog Posts Faster with Formatting Shortcuts

WordPress 4.3 was recently released, and if you haven’t upgraded yet you should. It has a great new feature for writers, helping you write blog posts faster while spending less time formatting your content. When we talked about using Scrivener for blogging, I shared a free Markdown cheat sheet with you. Markdown lets you use simple formatting shortcuts as you type so you don’t have

Keep Your Inbox Cleaner with This Quick Tip

Do you ever start work on Monday mornings feeling suffocated by your email inbox? That’s how I felt yesterday morning. I receive a lot of email every day, including on the weekends. But this weekend I received a couple thousand extras beyond my norm, and I never poked my head in to stay on top of it (not that I should on my days off). While

Review of The Freelancer Planner

Not long ago I was contacted by Michelle Nickolaisen, asking if I’d like to review The Freelancer Planner. Of course I said “yes.” Planners? Organization? Schedules? She clearly knew the way to this freelancer’s heart. Total organization junkie over here. Michelle sent over a review copy of the downloadable version of her planner. This is a six-page .pdf planner (minus the cover page) that you can print

Quick Tip: Determine Your “Perfect Day”

Do you know what your “perfect day” looks like? Those are the days when you achieve far more than you might normally expect, where you feel good and rested but still productive. They’re the days that don’t leave you feeling drained. They’re the days that leave you wanting more. I know what my “perfect day” looks like because I’ve lived it plenty of times. And

Quick Tip: Sort and Filter for Easier Email Management

A frequent productivity complaint of writers is that social media can become a big distraction from their writing. That hasn’t been an issue for me recently. But something else has: email. Today is my first day back to work after about a week off. It wasn’t planned time off. I simply decided to take some personal time, after clearing up client projects early. Normally when

5 Useful Scrivener Keyboard Shortcuts for Writers

Scrivener is a wonderful tool for writers. You can use it to write a novel or nonfiction book. You can use it to format your writing as an e-book. You can even use Scrivener for blogging. That said, Scrivener can also be a complicated tool to use. I doubt I even know half of what it can do. It’s one of those tools that you

5 Stupid Excuses Freelance Writers Make for Not Reaching Their Goals

When you work as a freelancer, sometimes you’ll struggle to reach your goals. But one of the most destructive things you can do when that happens is make excuses. Yet freelance writers makes excuses all the time to justify their lack of success in one area or another. After all, that’s easier than taking responsibility and making changes. Today let’s look at some of those

A Simple To Do List Tweak for More Productive Writing

When you work as a writer — especially a freelance writer — your schedule can feel a bit scattered. You don’t have one job that you go to, where you follow a basic plan under one boss. You instead have to balance (or is that juggle?) multiple projects and multiple clients. Bouncing around from one project to another isn’t the most efficient use of your

Quick Tip: Talk Your Way to Faster Blogging

Do you suffer from the common blogging problem of never feeling like you have enough time to write? Do you type slower than you’d like? Do you wish there was a secret to faster blogging? There isn’t just one thing. But here’s something that might help: Let your computer (or phone or tablet) do your “writing” for you. How? Give voice-to-text apps a try. Let me

The Easy Editorial Calendar Template for Bloggers

It’s no secret that I usually have a lot going on as a writer. I run quite a few blogs of my own. I take on freelance writing projects for clients. I write nonfiction e-books. And I’m working on much more fiction this year as well. As a result, one of the biggest questions I get from colleagues in my network is “how do you

Revenue Streams for Writers: Blogs and E-books (Podcast)

Today I released the first podcast episode for 2015 (and sixth overall). In this episode I mostly deal with the topic of revenue streams for writers. First, I run through eleven blog revenue streams you can use to monetize blogs of your own. Then I tackle a question about e-book revenue (and share a story about my own first e-book, which is scheduled to be

Getting Back Into Writing After a Break

Before the holidays we talked about preparing to take time away from writing or blogging and how you can set yourself up for success on your return to work. Well, today is that day for me — my first work day of 2015. And getting back into the swing of things has been both exciting and challenging I had a rougher start than I’d like