When you finish a writing assignment, who is the first person to edit your work? Here’s a clue: if you answer the publisher of your work, and that isn’t you, you’re in for a surprise.
Okay, everything is in place. Your computer is on in the right program, your glass of water is cool, and your fingers are all warmed up. What’s the first thing you think of?
If the first thing that crosses your mind, is the endpoint, then you might be missing the good parts of work. The best way to do a job is to focus on the process of doing it. When I sit down with a project, I think about how I’m going to do my best work.
As technology advances, information and people can reach us wherever we are if we let it. Most cell phones let you receive text messages. Some phones let you read your email while you await your flight. I surf the web on my iPhone and it blows me away. That’s a lot of connectivity. And it’s a great help in professional writing.
After the research is done, though, some time should be spent in thought. It’s necessary to be clear in your personal thoughts to get your best writing. Disconnecting is a way to do that.
I’m always amazed by how much things can change in writing.
For Mother’s Day, I decided to write a poem for my mom. Getting a jump on things, I started writing the night before. But, I thought about it for longer than that. Anyway, I had this bumpy, lumpy and awkward thing that halfway through, started to resemble what I wanted to say.
After a while, I put it to bed. The project was leading me to that area of my brain I didn’t want to go. The signpost reads:
r u kidding me? you say you write poetry? hahahahaha, tell me a nudda one
People ask me about Twitter because I’m doing it. I would love to tell them something insightful, wise and born of my months of tweeting. But really it’s something that you have to do to learn how to do it. And relax on demanding that you understand it.
Read the rest of this entry »
It happens sometimes that we get caught up in doing, in acting on plans that we’ve made. I know it happens to me. And it’s great when your job can transport you out of time and place for a while. A lot of times though, we go through life, living whole chunks in passing without focusing on anything.
From time to time though you have to assess where you are. You need to look up from your grindstone to make sure the pieces your milling will still fit into your bigger picture.
The way to gain perspective is to ask yourself questions. Start with three. If your first 3 questions don’t get you where you need to be, then switch out the questions.
I’ll usually keep separate the ones I swapped out, to use later. When I did this exercise using the questions below, I had three alternate queries that got swapped out because they were too far removed from what I was looking for, in the first round.
Read the rest of this entry »
You ever notice how people and events, seem to have commonalities in their success stories? Certain characteristic traits are present in success stories I read and hear about, and they tend to jump out at me sometimes. This year, I went home to New Orleans, Louisiana over the Mardi Gras celebration. I witnessed these four common threads of successful behavior in action.
Freelance is the life! I work when I want, doing the jobs I want to do. I’m going to be so successful! Isn’t it grand! Well, yes and no.
Like most things in life, freelance is what you bring to it. To get the best results, you should be bringing your A game to whatever work you do. That means doing the administrative stuff behind the glamor of say freelance writing. Yes, I’m smiling.
One of the things I really like about freelancing is that it challenges me to be creative about how I get the attention of folks who may be in need of my services. Consider the following.
Bio: Shari Smothers writes web and print copy, poetry, essays and more. This blog is the journal of what she has discovered and is learning from her writing life.