writing and research» writing

Writing Through the Night

suejeff — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:52:12 +0000

Most freelancers end up writing through the night on occasion, either to avoid missing a deadline, or because they have overloaded themselves with work, or because sometimes, life just gets in the way of writing.

From time to time I try to update my daily working regime, either to try and get a quart out of a pint pot, or simply because I feel like a change. I am not sure whether this process helps or hinders my writing, but when I do it I feel virtuous – and it looks as though I am not the sort of writer who ends up writing through the night a bit too often.

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When Your Writing Sucks

suejeff — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:48:22 +0000

There are times when my writing sucks, or so it seems and then I cannot think of anything creative no matter how hard I try. As a rule I love to write, why else would I do it for a living. Ok, enough wallowing.

I have decided that I need to be more organised, especially in my writing and research business and less affected by what is going on around me. When a string of things have gone wrong then I drift and lose my focus. I don’t whether this is just typical of me or whether other writers go through such things.

The only way not to write stuff that sucks is to work harder, think more clearly, and not get bogged down by things I cannot control. This year I will; finish my book, I will not neglect my friends, and I will attempt to produce stuff that does not suck.

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When Life and Work Get in the Way of Writing

suejeff — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:33:11 +0000

Sometimes life gets in the way and prevents you from doing what you want to do. Family members have problems that they believe can only be dealt with by you and your senile old dog takes the same attitude. For some reason he refuses to be walked by anyone but me at the moment. My poor DH got grunted at all the way and then spurned on their return the last time he took our dog for a walk, just because he has decided that only I will do.

When work gets in the way that’s my fault because I’m either not working to schedule or I have underestimated the work involved in a particular project, sometimes it is both of these. I drastically underestimated the amount of research involved in one particular job, which meant that it took me three times as long as normal and I had not charged enough at the outset. All of which has been a problem because I had intended to be well on the way with preparation for this year’s Nano Wrimo – haven’t finished the last one off yet but it has been worked on and will continue until finished.

I have been almost totally absent from Twitter and anywhere else that I network and chat. I’m hoping that this weekend I will be able to start on this years preparation for Nano. Are you going for it this year, if so, what gets in the way of your writing?

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When Writing is Your Passion

suejeff — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:25:39 +0000

I like being a work at home writer. A lot of the writing that I do is paid writing for other people, but that is not all of the writing that I do. I try to keep up with blogging and a couple of times a week I will free write in my journal or try and work through a plot or character problem that I’m having. I try to work on my novel a couple of times a week. Occasionally I write poetry, or at least rhyme. This last batch is the writing that I love, yet I try to write everything with passion. While passion may be a bit short when you reach the twentieth article on dog food or the tenth on web hosting, I will still aim to do my best work.

Writing When You’re Tired

Sometimes I don’t write as much as others because I am tired, that does not mean I’m tired of writing, I just get tired because I have an immune system disease. Working from home most of the time is ideal for me, if I am feeling under the weather then I can take things slowly, or even not at all if I feel that bad. I get time to sit and read when I want to, which is great, because if you are going to have some degree of freshness in your writing then reading the work of others is a must.

Writing for Money

Yes I do write for money, and sometimes if I need the money I will write for one cent a word, that doesn’t mean that I will turn in shoddy work because I care about writing. When I started out freelancing I wasn’t looking for a way to make money online, I don’t have the patience for that kind of thing, but I was over the moon when I realized that I could write and get paid for it. If writing is your passion and you can earn a living from your passion, then I don’t see that as a problem.

Reading About Writing

I love to read books about writing and I enjoy other people’s writing blogs, I also find myself scrolling through Twitter when I am bored just looking for the tweets that have been posted by writer friends. Writing interests me, whether I am doing it or reading how someone else does it, I don’t get bored writing or reading about writing because writing is my passion. Is it yours?

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When Clients Don’t Pay For Your Writing and Research

suejeff — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:18:09 +0000

People in the writing and research business, whether clients or providers, are generally up front and honest. Very occasionally you might get stiffed by a client, as I did recently. These people must have known when they accepted my work that their business was on a nose dive. Instead of letting me down gently and promising payment for work already completed, this company let me continue believing that last month’s invoice had been forgotten and would be paid with this month’s (start of the month).

I don’t usually complain too much, if a client is in trouble and can’t pay me for $20 of work then it is easy to write off against experience. This company seemed like a respectable seo company who needed a copy editor. I’m quite proficient at editing because of my time in academic circles, editing students’ work.

Long story short I undertook almost $400 of work for them and now they say they don’t know when or if they can pay me, and they want all of the work delivered again to remind them of what I had done. Luckily I always keep copies on my hard drive for several months at least, in case something goes wrong. So now I have to locate everything and get it back to them not knowing whether or not I will ever see the $400 I can ill afford to lose.

Lesson Learned

The lesson I have learned is one that I should have learned long ago, don’t work without some sort of upfront payment agreement.

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writing and research» writing

Writing Through the Night

Clearing Your Mind For Writing

When Your Writing Sucks

When Life and Work Get in the Way of Writing

When Writing is Your Passion

Writing When You’re Tired

Writing for Money

Reading About Writing

Clearing Your Mind For Writing

When Clients Don’t Pay For Your Writing and Research

Lesson Learned