Natalia M. Sylvester

I’ve been focusing on redesigning my website lately and that’s created a kind of domino effect with this blog. In writing, you really have to stay focused on the point of the story so that everything you write services it in one way or another, which is why I’ve decided to shift the focus of this blog to just freelance writing. I’ll still be writing about creative writing, but possibly on another blog. I’m still working out all the details, but will let you know the link once everything’s ready.

Aside from the blog, I have some other big news to share in the weeks to come. Let’s just say I’ll be putting the idea that we writers can work from anywhere to a very big test. So expect that things will look a bit different around here in 2010.

On a little side note…am I the only one who feels weird just saying ‘10? It seems we’ve grown so used to saying Oh-nine, Oh-eight, Oh-anything, that one lonely little syllable sounds insufficient all of a sudden. Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, does it?

Here’s a great, quick exercise in evaluating your marketing efforts to make sure they’re paying off. At a networking event I recently attended, Michelle Villalobos of Mivista Consulting asked everyone to write down their Top 5 Clients. Then write down how you got those clients.

Was it through a networking event? A simple Google search leading to your website? Maybe it was through social media or a client referral? Chances are, it’s a mixture of all these things, but if there’s a pattern, that’s something to think about.

For me, two of my biggest clients I met at networking events, two I got through word of mouth, and another I got through my Freelance Marketplace listing on Mediabistro.

Which reinforces two things: networking pays off, and so does nurturing the business relationships you’ve already got. Now I know that when it’s time to ramp up my marketing efforts (and when isn’t it?), I can focus on the things that have worked best for me.

It’s not a bad idea to do this exercise every couple of months, to stay on top of what strategy is most effective, and let go of ones that just aren’t working. You might be surprised what you learn.

It’s funny the random things we learn from. Last night, while watching supplements for the first Harry Potter movie (I think I’m one of the few who watch supplements, thanks to my film-loving husband), one of the writers said something that got me thinking. While adapting the book to a screenplay, he was impressed by the wealth of information J.K. Rowlings had about the world she’d created. He said that the book was like a tree that only those above the ground got to see, while Rowlings knew every detail of every root.

What a great way to describe the relationship between research and writing of any capacity. After all, you’ll never get a tree without the roots. And, even though they’re essential to a tree’s growth, the majority of roots stay underground, where no one would ever suspect how far down they reach, or how much they ground the tree. My first thought was that this is how crafting a character works in fiction—authors should know details about their lives that readers might not ever learn, but they’re the details that shape them.

But then I realized everything we ever write starts with a seed (an idea) before it spreads its roots (the research) and then branches out into a tree (the writing). Read the rest of this entry »

In freelancing, it’s totally possible to be swamped even when you’re not swamped with work. Allow me to explain.

We’ve all heard of the ebb and flow cycle. The way it basically works is that when things are ebbing we run around trying to make them flow, and when they finally flow they usually overflow, and we end up wishing we’d appreciated the downtime when we had it.

You know, it’s the whole “grass is greener when you have no time to lie in it and read a good book” theory.

So really, there is no downtime, even in times when work is slow, because when work is slow I pick up my marketing efforts. I go to more networking events, I schedule more meetings with potential clients and spend time researching publications and pitching them.

When I don’t have a lot of work coming in, there’s no end to how much I’ll do to bring the work back in. And since networking and sending out proposals and pitches aren’t the kinds of things that show instant results, nothing ever feels like it’s enough. My time management skills pretty much disappear and I become swamped with the non-work work.

Until that one contract gets signed. And then another, and another…and poof! Suddenly I’m busy again and I have a set schedule. I’m the type of person who’s so deadline-driven that if I forget to write something on my to-do list I’ll still write it in after I’m done, just to get the satisfaction of checking it off the list.

The only thing that doesn’t end up making it onto the list is some downtime. And really, I’m not sure that it should. Downtime outside of work is one thing, and I’m all for that. But when there’s downtime in my freelancing, I remember my internship at an ad agency my freshmen year in college. At one point, I thought I had nothing to do, until my boss saw me doing nothing and gave me the task of archiving their entire stock of digital images.

Lesson learned: There’s always something we could be doing.

When I started this blog I aimed to post at least three times a week, and in the past couple of weeks I’ve only been able to post about twice a week. Even though I’m sure I have a readership of about ten (that’s being kind, I’m sure) I still feel a responsibility to update frequently, so I apologize. I’ve just been swamped. If you were to come into my office right now it’d look a lot like this:

While I’m excited to be busy I always feel sooooo guilty about all the printing my work requires. Reading on a laptop only goes so far for me, especially when it comes to editing. Tomorrow I have to buy a new ream of paper (recycled, of course) and fresh toner for the printer, so the guilt keeps piling up. My next mission will be to make my office more eco-friendly. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes…

Just about a couple of weeks to go till September 15, which means estimated taxes are due!

Eliza does her taxes, from www.willwriteforchocolate.com

Taxes are never fun for anyone, but as freelancers we get the short end of the stick on this deal: We send payments four times a year and pay our taxes in their entirety, so it’s a bigger chunk off our paycheck. Payments are due Jan. 15, April 15, June 15 and Sept. 15. The first time I ever sent in my quarterly payments I was quite the wreck, but it’s really not as intimidating as it seems if you follow these important steps. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s an old episode of Sex and the City in which Carrie is called in for jury duty and tries getting out of it by saying something like: “See, I work for myself, and if I don’t come in to work one day, there’s no one to cover for me.”

I’m reminded of this every time I get ready for a vacation. When a freelancer leaves the office there is no alternative contact to include in your Autoreply emails; there’s no one you can leave an unfinished project with to finalize the last details. And even though I CAN take my work with me wherever I go, the point of a vacation is to unplug a bit, right? Since I’ll be skipping town for a few days over the upcoming holiday weekend, I thought I’d share how I prepare to leave my office unmanned. It’s kind of like those wedding to-do lists you’ll find in magazines.

1 to 2 months before the big day: The first step is to determine just how unplugged you’re going to be while you’re out. For the purposes of this trip, I’m okay with receiving emails on my phone, but realistically I know I won’t have time to write. So as new work comes in, I make sure to schedule all deadlines for the week before I leave or a couple of weeks after I return. Personally, I prefer to have as much done as possible before I leave, so that I can really unwind and not worry about all the unfinished business I have to take care of the second I return. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll keep this short because it’s Friday and I like to start winding down on Friday. What I mean by this is that I set aside Fridays to do work that doesn’t feel as much like work.

Today, for example, I have a networking lunch, which is nice because I’ve noticed that people are usually a little more relaxed and social with the weekend approaching. Networking has become a huge part of my work, but it doesn’t feel like work at all. I get out of the house, meet some great people and get my name out there so that I’m not working in a vacuum (which, admittedly, I did do for a while when I first started freelancing, when my shyness just got the better  of me).

Other things I set aside for Fridays are small things that just have to be done, like if I need to update my profile on LinkedIn, upload a new picture onto Gravatar (which is the plan for next Friday, since I’m waiting on my pictures) or tweak my resume to reflect my latest work. I brainstorm ideas for new work. I let my curiosity loose and indulge in some aimless web surfing for an hour or so to see where it takes me. And I read. A lot. I read blogs and websites I’ve been meaning to read all week, I read magazines that have arrived in my mailbox and books that are just so well-written they make me want to write. I love that reading is such an important part of my job.

What about you?  Do you wind down on Fridays?

There’s been quite a discussion over at FreelanceFolder about vampire clients who suck the life out of a freelancer’s business. It’s a subject that touched a lot of nerves because most freelancers have dealt with clients like these before–they may be extremely demanding, not at all sure of what they want, or they’re constantly changing the direction of the project.

The truth is that I’ve been there before. I can understand the need to vent (and I vented myself, because it’s a very real problem in our line of work). But then I realized on the flip side of things, I’ve been lucky enough to work with some really amazing clients who are a freelancer’s dream. I think they deserve a little recognition in the blogosphere, too, and maybe in the process it’ll help some potential vampire clients out there get a better idea of what to expect when they work with a freelancer. Because more often than not, vamp clients are usually those that have never worked with a freelancer before. They might be used to micromanaging, or they’re unfamiliar with the idea that a freelancer is an independent worker who isn’t working exclusively for them.

But then there are those clients who just get it. They’re the ones you want to hold on to, the ones you want to work with over and over again. When I think of my favorite clients, they all have these qualities in common: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hard to vent about your work anxieties when there’s no watercooler in your home office, or when the only semblance of a co-worker at your job has four legs and doesn’t really talk much.

But recently I’ve had the pleasure of meeting several work-from-home freelancers and was so happy to hear I wasn’t alone in my pet peeves.  It’s true that we don’t deal with some of the more typical office problems like having a tough boss, clashing with co-workers, dealing with bad parking spots or disappearing red staplers (I love Office Space, can you tell?). But our unique working situations can lead to dilemmas that only other freelancers could understand. Here are just a few of mine:

People assume I’m not working since I work from home: It took some time and conditioning before family and friends got the hint that I can’t take personal calls at all hours of the day or hang out at their house to wait for a UPS delivery while they went to work. Just because we don’t have a typical 9-to-5 schedule doesn’t mean we don’t need time to work. A flexible schedule is not the same as an open schedule. Read the rest of this entry »