News And Updates
For the past six or seven weeks, I’ve been participating in Freelance Success’s Query Challenge.
The last time I participated, I broke into new markets and gained a whole lot of momentum in my freelance writing career. This time around, I’m floundering. A lot of that is due to the fact that I’m juggling so many different things right now: I work in NYC three days a week, have various copywriting gigs on my plate, and am in the midst of launching my career coaching practice/taking on practicum clients. For these reasons (and because I’m finding that–more and more often–work is coming to me), sending out queries is just a much smaller part of my freelance life at this point.
But the other reason I’m floundering–both in this query challenge and on my blog lately–is because I haven’t been generating new ideas.
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For a few months now, I’ve been working on a copywriting project made up of very adult content. And so, I’ve been spending my weekends at Barnes & Noble, researching sexting and lube and anal sex for beginners and writing furiously. A few weeks ago, upon telling my husband about the latest topic I was researching, he smirked and said, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t take your work seriously.”
I get the feeling this is a problem many writers have, even if they aren’t writing about nude wrestling and shower sex.
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I don’t typically write about writing here. Or at least I try not to. Not directly.
I try to keep my content inclusive to all freelancers, despite how obvious it is that I’m a total booktard, and a slave to producing content.
But this past Monday marked the beginning of the FLX Query Challenge, a friendly, biannual competition in which teams rack up points depending upon how many queries they send out each week, and how many assignments they land. I’ve been on a pitching hiatus for awhile now — due to my new job at YourTango, my career coaching certification program, and an ongoing copywriting project — but I’m excited to start putting out feelers again … especially since I’m a team leader this time around.
So for all those writers out there — writers who are trying to get back into the pitching rhythm, writers who have been pitching all along (show-offs), and writers who are just starting out — I thought I’d put up a refresher on the pitch process.
I’ve always had a thing for glossy magazines.
It started with Highlights and, since then, I’ve subscribed to maybe 30 or 40 different titles (seven of which I’m still subscribed to now). And while they’ve never held the same allure for me as those thick paperbacks I’m constantly losing myself in, they provided me with something even better: a vision of my future as a writer.
I was going to write up a different post today. One on the benefits of online education. But then I was blindsided by the news that Conde Nast is folding Gourmet, Cookie, Modern Bride, and Elegant Bride, and I felt a sharp pang of sadness, followed by a little shiver of fear.
Have you guys felt it, too?
[Illustration by Deanna Staffo, via TONY]
Hey there you guys. I thought I’d just quickly indulge in a little bit of shameless self-promotion by linking to my latest two published pieces.
Yesterday, CNN sent a camera crew to my house so that they could interview me for a segment on compulsive shopping. They had seen an old article of mine on Tango, and thought I would be the perfect interview subject. I experienced sweaty palms and extreme dry mouth as I attempted to sound coherent in front of the lights, camera, and crew. I worried that I was shouting in my attempt to be vivacious, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was oddly perky as I gave the guys a tour of my condo, pointing out frivolous purchases in a voice that didn’t exactly express my regret. I was an anxious mess. Read the rest of this entry »
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Oh, writers.
We already have it tough enough, what with being our own worst critics and all.
Unfortunately, launching our words out into the world also opens us up to the criticism of others, criticism that can be either constructive or just plain cruel.
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For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on an article that has required me to interview various luminaries in the NYC-based sex-positive world. This kind of thing always makes me…nauseous. I became a writer, after all, so that I could communicate with others while simultaneously remaining isolated. I even take medication for social anxiety.
My bank account has been scary-empty lately, yet I’ve been busier than ever before since taking on a regular proofreading gig and starting work on two new magazine assignments. The money will come…later…but, for the moment, it’s enough to be doing work that I love.
Back in April, I posted a monster roundup of the 20 books I built my freelance life upon. Readers (and writers, obvs) were quick to point out that I had made an egregious omission by not including Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.
The truth is, I had plumb forgot about it because, long ago, I lent my copy to someone else, and it was never returned.
Recently, I bought myself a new copy, and immediately fell in love all over again.