When life throws curveballs…
In the past I’ve crowded the plate, overrelying on the strike zone to deliver just the right hit. But that’s a good way to miss the zone entirely — or get hit by a pitch.
Planning while ADHD: What's coming for 2020?
I’m trying to learn how to think about time differently — to view it, paradoxically, as abundant rather than scarce. That’s a key tenet, if not the whole point, of Off the Clock by Laura Vanderkam.
December's Freelance Blog: Year-End Review
When your year starts with a layoff, you know it’s going to be a roller coaster. Let go from a job I really thought was The One (I know, I know) I realized that its whole purpose was to set […]
Time and relative dimensions in fiction
No matter how much I might like to brand myself as “consistently inconsistent,” I’d like to find a better way. I’m not a fan of either separate accounts or one social network per interest. Neither feels quite right to me; it’s as if you’d be getting pieces, but not an integrated whole, not the full representation of me as a writer.
Cultivating sources and stories: November's freelance update
With October’s focus on pitching clients and editors, my attention in November shifted slightly: to build a sustainable freelance business by cultivating the stories to pitch editors with, and the sources to support them. In my past freelance life — […]
Pitching clients and editors: October’s freelance update
This month saw the publication of my first non-law enforcement, (sort of) non-tech article, a piece of first-person journalism that delved into “Hacking My ADHD.” It’s sort of a continuation of my blog posts on the subject, a more positive […]
When “too much” might actually be enough: October’s fiction update
Writing this blog this week, I had the thought that I’m really doing an awful lot. Two very different kinds of fiction, plus journalism, plus freelance clients, plus nonprofit work, plus family and home is… more than I suspect a lot of people do.
Old dogs, new and refreshed tricks: September’s freelance update
This month, my first solid month home after a fairly active couple of travel weeks, was all about regrouping. Since recommitting to journalism earlier this summer, I’ve found myself flexing muscles I haven’t worked in awhile, flexing toward new ones, […]
More incremental progress — and new crowdfunding opportunities! — in September’s fiction update
Like most people, we hardly have $5,000 lying around. Obviously we’re financing the system, but therein lies the rub: it’s another monthly payment when our family is already strapped. So naturally, I did what any writer does when faced with such circumstances: I started a new crowdfunding account.
Finding the forest among the trees: August’s freelance update
August was a busy, but at the same time slow month. Even when I was full time, I remember not a lot ever got done in August; vacations made it difficult to arrange interviews and pre-publication reviews, so often the […]