It’s pretty hard to find some time for writing a new blog post when there is so much stuff to do: contests, press releases, etc. But our editors will always find time to share some freelancing goodies with you.

This is the third part of our article, dedicated to information, and how freelance writers should handle it. You can find part 1 – here; and part 2 – here. But let’s go with part 3.

As freelancers, our time, and our brains, are our stock-in-trade. We need to optimize our use of both in order to make the effort pay off. We have discussed, in two previous posts, some suggestions for capturing useful ideas and data from the whirlwind of information swirling around us. Where to direct our attention, how to decide what to retain, how to build on previous work – these are just a few of the strategies outlined. There are so many stimuli bombarding us daily – how can we snatch the most useful from the air, as it were, and use them to improve our writing overall? Some strategies follow. Read the rest of this entry »

The newest article from our “Blast from the Past” series is here! With all these updates and upgrades we forgot about the min purpose of our blog: offering you awesome freelance writing content.

As you know, the series is dedicated to highlighting some of the best articles, which were previously posted on our blog. Our audience is growing and some of these articles were posted when we haven’t had a Facebook page, so we haven’t had that many channels to get the articles to our audience. We want to change that, because these articles truly deserve your attention

This time we are offering you a couple of articles posted in December of last year and in January 2011. Here we go: Read the rest of this entry »

Part 2 of our awesome article! Let’s not waste your time! And so…

Freelancing means putting our knowledge at the service of clients who may be quite desperate, at the moment. Our customers hope, and have a right to expect, that we will bring something to whatever document we are producing that the customer could not have thought of themselves.

In fact, a most painful client feedback comment is, “I could/should have done this myself”. How can we enhance the fund of ideas and information that we can contribute to orders? In an earlier blog post, we discussed a few ideas regarding paying attention to the quality of one’s media consumption, choosing, retaining, and reinforcing useful ideas, and using them in a document. Let’s examine some more ideas on fully exploiting the information stream that we wade in daily, to succeed in freelancing. Read the rest of this entry »

We do hope that you liked the first part of this article, if you haven’t had the chance to read it – check it out right here! But let’s proceed…

Having support for our freelance work in our own home is critical for our success as freelance writers.

Since families can find many grounds for complaint regarding your work choices, disarming them is a daunting challenge.

We examined some strategies recently for garnering such backing.

We discussed the advisability of preparing a sound bite summary of our work, delineating our work time, space, and identity clearly, and documenting the benefits of that work.

Let’s consider some other possible routes to at least a grudging acceptance of our chosen career path.

This is not an inconsequential issue. As of 2005, a third of the US work force could be considered freelancers, and at least 2% of Americans consider home their primary place of employment.

We are not alone! However, if the people we live with oppose our efforts, we have little chance of making it in this new freelance economy. How can we get these dear ones ‘on board’?
Read the rest of this entry »

Capturing useful ideas as they occur is a writer’s secret weapon for incorporating current interest, color, novelty, and, originality into a project. Since we can’t anticipate what we are assigned, anything that we see or hear in daily life could conceivably turn out to be useful.

How can we maximize our chances of gleaning usable ideas from our environment? How can we recognize, take note of, and retain, successfully, potentially useful information? These are skills worth cultivating. We’ll examine some approaches.

The first strategy is to ensure our minimum daily requirement of nutritionally dense nourishment for our brains. By exposing ourselves to intellectually stimulating sources, we increase our chances of capturing relevant ideas. Similarly, we should go light on the empty calories of media and activities.

To accomplish this we need to be proactive about our media exposure. We can use the time we spend at work, or, if that is distracting, then when we are doing chores. At the risk of sounding biased, the choice between top 40 pop music, or an article on lip gloss, on the one hand, and a piece about an author, statesperson, or scientist on the other, seems clear. Unless your field of writing IS, in fact, the review, critique, and analysis of top 40 popular music, isn’t a serious interview or news program more likely to contain usable notions? Read the rest of this entry »