Natalia M. Sylvester

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…

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I’m still on the fence about the whole traditional books vs digital books debate. While traveling over Labor Day weekend, I’m sure I made a few airplane passengers uncomfortable as I lingered in the aisle a bit too long, peeking over their shoulders at their Kindles. Yes, they carried less baggage on board than I did with their slick screens and 1,500 book memory, but I happily sat in my seat and finished my paperback copy of Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge. Now that I’m halfway through another book (The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg) I’ve noticed I’ve been hypersensitive to the experience of holding a book in my hand.

I can safely say that I’ve taken quite a few steps back towards the traditional books side of the fence, and what’s made the difference are the little things. These are things that make the experience of reading a book worth holding on to.

1. When I read a book in bed at the end of a long day, my bookmark rests on my belly, and re-inserting it into the book’s pages when I’m done brings a sense of accomplishment.

2. Squeezing the book and seeing how the bookmark’s placement moves from the beginning, to the middle, to the end of the pages. It’s progress.

3. Dog ears. Yes, I use bookmarks to keep my place, but I use dog ears when I find a line in a book that just shakes me, to the point that I know that on a random day a few months from now, when I’m making a cup of tea or heading out of my home on a hectic day, I’ll want to pluck the book from its shelf and read those lines,  let the words grab me over and over.

4. I love that when I’m done with a book, its spine is a bit worn and the cover’s edges curl up ever so slightly, proof that it was read and loved.

Would love to hear readers’ thoughts, from either side of the fence.

On a trip to San Francisco over Labor Day weekend with my husband, we were having Clam Chowder and Crab Dungeness at this  little bistro on the Wharf. The tables were small and very close to one another, and pretty soon, instead of focusing on how romantic it was, I found myself eavesdropping on the conversation next to my table. I couldn’t help it — they were talking books! And, I reasoned, it’s part of my work. The best way to write great dialogue is to listen to how people talk. It was a mini-lesson in in how dialogue can reveal character.

These two women, let’s call them Jan and Tina, were talking about Jennifer Weiner’s books. Tina had read only one of her books, but Jan was a huge fan, so she used the opportunity to talk for about ten minutes about Weiner’s entire collection, and what she liked/disliked about each and every one. Tina mostly nodded and smiled politely while Jan described at length and in unnecessary detail for this level of friendship, how her boyfriend was totally the same as the boyfriend in Good in Bed. The few words Tina got in to the conversation were “That’s usually what’ll keep me reading an author, if I can really relate to the people in them.” (Proof that you can say a lot with very little words, or say very little in a lot of words).

Jan kept talking about said boyfriend, then transitioned into yogurts, how she’ll only eat X type of yogurt and is thankful that X type got her into yogurts in the first place, because she knows yogurt’s good for her but has hated every other type she’s tried since. When the check came, she suggested they split the bill evenly, even though she’d had much more to eat and drink than Tina. Tina agreed.

I was fascinated because, had this been a book, there were many conclusions we could’ve come to about these characters. Read the rest of this entry »

You knew this was coming. Everyone’s talking about it. Local news stations have an account. Your kids’ PTA has one. Most of the blogs you follow have one. Heck, even your dry cleaner has one.

So what can you really get out of Twitter other than updates on your friends’ lunches and the whereabouts of your coworkers on their off days?

Short, insightful glimpses into the lives of people that matter to you.

Now, let’s not get personal. I’m not talking about a best friend or a grandchild. I’m talking about people that matter to your goals. I was just as hesitant to join Twitter as the next guy until I realized how many literary agents tweet little nuggets of information to whomever is willing to listen in. The result is that I’ve learned more about publishing from Twitter than I would have from any book. Getting the information in such concise spurts (and from so many different perspectives) leaves no room for jargon or overwhelming confusion. The point is…people get to the point.

The hardest thing about joining Twitter is figuring out who to follow (follow me!). Shameless plug aside, if you have a book in the works and you’d like to learn a thing or two about publishing, here are my recommendations for some of the most informative literary agents you’ll find on Twitter (shall we call them Twiterary agents? Sound too creepy? Yeah, I thought so, too). Read the rest of this entry »

In bird by bird by Anne Lamott, Lamott wrote that in order to not worry that what we write might offend people, we should “write as if [our] parents are dead.” Which is funny, considering that my parents probably would die if they were to read some of my writing.

It’s not that I write about them. It’s not even that my writing is incredibly risque. It’s just that when you’re a writer, the people in your life will always look for the bits of themselves that pop up in your work, and in my case, they wouldn’t have to look for long.

Much like a dream will take random pieces of my day and swirl them into a completely nonsense narrative as I sleep, I’ve realized I take pieces of my life and swirl them into my fiction. They’re usually memories, people, or even words of dialogue that for some reason have resonated with me throughout the years. These things stick with me, and I can’t think of a better way to make something of them than to interpret them in my writing.

I’ve given a character one of my childhood memories, only in her case it affected her in a totally different way than it did me. Something a friend’s mom once said to me inspired an important piece of plot. I even have a story that was born out of my wondering what would’ve happened to me and my best friend one summer had the people around us been different.

In each case the writing became its own fictionalized version of the truth. The pieces of my life took on a life of their own, and even if the people closest to me could see pieces of themselves in it, they would just be glimpses, caught on their way to a transformation.

Fiction might be make believe, but the best convinces us it’s true.

Outside of this blog, I don’t usually tell people that I’m writing a novel. Sure, my family and close friends know, and the topic might have come up here and there over lunch with a few acquaintances, but I usually try not to make a big fuss over it because, well…most people make a big fuss over it.

My parents and sister swear my book will be a bestseller. Friends ask me if I’m done writing it so that they can buy it in stores (if only it were that simple, right?).

But I’m trying to be a realist. I’ve tried to immerse myself in the world of publishing and researched how it works. I’ve read the do’s and don’ts of writing a query letter and know that when the time comes, mine will be up against a digital pile so high it may take some agent several minutes of scrolling to get through them all. I know that even once I have an agent they’ll have to sell an editor on it, and even if a publishing house buys the book it won’t make it an automatic bestseller.

I’m armed with a sense of reality only attainable by keeping an eye on with those who are actually in the biz. I’m betting plenty of the writers who read this blog and other publishing blogs are with me on this: When people tell us they can’t wait till our books become movies, we just kind of nod and smile politely. There’s no need to tell them that in actuality, many books that are optioned for films just get shelved, never to see as much as a script or a pre-production meeting.

But I have to wonder, are we being such realists that we’ve become cynics? Maybe we shouldn’t underestimate the value of talking about our books with people who aren’t in publishing.

After all, we are so in tune with the hardships of publishing that we often forget to pat ourselves on the back (or, as Nathan Bransford suggested, give ourselves a big hug) for writing a book in the first place. We need other people’s enthusiasm to remind us that yes, in fact, it IS so cool that we’re writing a book, and yes, it IS amazing that we’ve stuck with something for so many years despite not knowing if we’ll ever get paid for it. Maybe we need to look at our accomplishments through an outsider’s eyes every once in a while to stay motivated.

And, feel-good emotions aside, we should talk about our books with non-publishing people because, though they may not be editors, they could be our readers down the road. If you tell someone about your work, you can usually tell who’s feigning enthusiasm and who’s truly interested, and you can learn a lot about what does and doesn’t work from both types of people. You’ll also learn how to describe your book in just a few sentences, because chances are that’s all most people will tolerate over drinks at a dinner party or loud music at a club.

And no, you won’t jinx it by talking about it. The way I see it, that only happens when you brag, right?

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 »