blog @ spacebarpress

People often ask me where I get my writing ideas, and because I’ve been a writer most of my life (official, technical, or otherwise), I haven’t actually thought about it too much. I’m forever composing short stories, blog posts and articles in my head, or at least coming up with the ideas for all those things as I go through my daily life.

– Waiting for an elevator, sitting on the subway on my way to the office, as I go for a walk in the park –

These are the times that I use to think of ideas for writing projects. Of course this is not where my obstacles lie. I’m definitely an ideas gal.

My issues lie in the fact that I often don’t have an outlet for these ideas. By outlet I mean somewhere to post / publish / send my ideas. I would spend time in actually writing these things up, but since I don’t have any end goal for them, I often don’t even bother.

Further extrapolating this idea, I’ve been trying to push the boundaries of the types of writing that I do. While I enjoy technical writing, and producing documents that people find helpful, I’m always looking to flex my writing muscles and work on other topics and project types. That’s why in my Services page, I talk about the technical writing projects alongside my article writing, my editing services and more. Most freelancers will talk about how you need to pick a niche and write about it and stick to it, but at this point I’m thinking I need to cast a wider net to drum up initial business.

Now it’s time to take the ideas from thought to action.

I’ve been talking about it for a while now, but I’ve finally gotten off my duff and back to some freelancing work! I’ve updated my freelance site (spacebarpress.com, in case you were wondering), and I cleaned up my job site list. Today I’m about to dive back into things by hunting around the job sites and start applying for some freelance jobs. Just little projects at first, as I am still working full-time, but projects nonetheless.

I’ve since decided that I’m not going to be participating in Nanowrimo this year, as I’m just not feeling inspired. Plus, as a published friend of mine commented, “I only write when there’s either an editor or a paycheque at the end of the day.” Okay, so that doesn’t really foster the whole “let’s write for the sake of writing”, but I think it’s a good point to make to me, at least, since at this point in time I need a bit more motivation than just the idea of finishing a story, you know?

So like the woman in the picture here, I’m getting off my duff today and starting the marathon. I’ve got the running shoes out of the closet, and I’m pulling on my socks right now!

Again, my RSS reader was chock-a-block of great posts, and since I’m behind in my reading, you’ll have to forgive the slew of posts my backlog might produce.

There’s a a great post on Freelance Switch titled “The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Guide to Freelancing”, that deals with two of my favourite things (Buffy & writing), which got me thinking. Since I’m just trying to jump back into the freelancing life while still working full-time, I definitely need to make sure that I’m ready to go at a moment’s notice. I don’t have time to pussy-foot around (as my father used to say when I was a little girl), and the idea of thinking about my freelance career like Buffy thought about slaying was just too intriguing.

Grace brings up a lot of good points in her post, and the one that really struck me is the “Grab your opportunities with full force” idea. (Before I continue please don’t forget to go and read the full article on FreelanceSwitch, as these are just my thoughts on the ideas that she brings up.)

The first step would be to simply recognize the opportunity that presents itself to you. Writing opportunities aren’t as obvious as vampire-staking ones (in my opinion <wink>), so it’s important to simply recognize them. Aside from the obvious “I just got an email about a potential writing job” type of opportunities, what about the subtle ones? The ones that you wouldn’t normally think as a freelance writing opportunity? Like:

• Did one of my freelance friends tweet that they were having problems writing up a proposal? Perhaps I could help out.
• Did one of my developer friends mention he was getting ready to release a new Wordpress theme? Maybe I could offer my technical editing services and clean up any default text he’s got in there.

I’ve got to start recognizing these types of opportunities, because they’re not in my usual “realm” of technical writing (at least not in my freelancing life). I’ve also got to start recognizing the non-traditional types of writing opportunities that appear to me like blog post jobs, editing jobs and so on. If I want to expand my product offering, I’ve got to be on the lookout for these types of jobs as well.

The second step for me is simply asking for the job. Whenever I go on a job interview, I’m able to clearly say to the interviewer that I want the job, that I hope they give me the job, and that I look forward to working with them when they offer me the job. I’m confident in both my skills as a writer and an interviewee that I’m able to ask for the job. But it’s something that took me a lot of years to learn and remember. I often thought that just getting the interview and answering all the questions was enough. But if you don’t tell them that you’re interested in the job and that you want it, they might just give it to someone else. Same thing with writing jobs. I might hear about writing issues people are having, or see a job post somewhere that interests me, but unless I get off my duff and send off an email or make a phone call, I’m not going to get that job. When I was rocking the freelance life full time, I was able to do that in spades, with both this blog, my Twitter account and other freelance connections. Now I’ve got to dive back into that, to start looking at what’s out there and then start asking for those jobs. I need to find the opportunities and then go after them. That could be with an email, a phone call, or a tweet (for now I’m going to skip the in-person chances since I’m just looking for part-time work right now–plus, since I’m at the office working during the day, meetings will be a little more difficult).

And on that note, I’m going to sign off and start hunting around for a few opportunities. I’ve got to get started sometime!

This week my RSS reader brought me a post from Lisa over at Getting it Write for You that I thought was appropriate for me. She blogged about setting goals the other day, and I thought it was quite timely for me as I attempt to get back into freelancing part-time. Given that I’m going to be doing this part-time, I’ve got to figure out how to do it and keep  my sanity. I think I’ve got to break this down into phases, as there’s no way I can do it all in one go. So, after reading about Lisa and her goals and how she had achieved some of them already, I’m going to dive in and start on mine.

Phase 1: Site Maintenance

You’re already looking at the first half of Phase 1, in that I’ve tweaked and played around with my blog’s look and feel. Next up will be the main freelancing site at Spacebarpress.com. Deadline: end of August.

Phase 2: What Kind of Writing Projects Do I Want to Start Working On?

When I was doing this full time, it was easier to decide what types of projects I want to work on, since I had more time to devote to them, so this will be interesting.

Reminder: I am a technical writer, not a writer who writes about technical topics. This means that I can write up software manuals, help files and organize your technical documentation, and not write blog posts on the latest apps in the Apple App Store. While I am a computer/technical geek and probably would read up on blog posts about the Apple App Store, that’s not my expertise. If you’re looking to figure out the best way to write up docs for an app that’s in the App Store, then give me a call.

Deadline: end of August

Phase 3: Devise a writing schedule for both paying and non-paying projects

Don’t worry, I’m not going to start writing up things for free, but I’m just talking about some of my non-technical writing projects (i.e. my novel). I’d like to finish this one as it’s been lingering around for a while now (read: over a year), so I’d like to devote some time to that as well. Some friends and I have started up a writing group that gathers monthly, so I think this will help, but still, I’d like to block off time for that.

Deadline: Labour Day weekend (since I’m not going out of town, and am actually taking one of my vacation days from the F/T job because I need an extra day of rest, I figure this is definitely doable).

Phase 4: Get the word out that I’m back in part-time business

This will be fun, because it means that I get to catch up and interact with those of you that I haven’t spoken to in a while (Hi Yo!) I had a blast doing it earlier this year, so I’m looking forward to catching up with y’all and seeing what you’ve been up to since I’ve been away.

There you have it y’all, but 4 phase plan to getting my part-time freelance writing back on track. See y’all out there!