What December Will Bring

Oh hey there December and holiday season! While it's been pretty obvious for a while that the year has been wrapping itself up, I'm always surprised when we reach the sunset of another year. It's always like, "Christmas? Again?!"

For whatever reason, this year I've heard a bit about the concept of  passive income. You know, like when you own a rental house. Although I generally give passive income the side-eye since passive income is dependent on having the necessary capital to purchase something that would actually generate money, it's hard to dislike the idea.

Right now, we're in the best financial state we ever been in since reaching adulthood, but that is the result of a lot (a lot) of active income. November and April are normally tied for "blah-est" months in the North woods, but last month was a whirlwind of to-do lists and special projects. While the layout of my days are quite different now that I'm done with the full time, out of the house job for the season, last month I was surprised to find that I don't really have any more free time now that I'm working for home. So if  November was any indicator, this month will not be a gentle and quiet end to 2012.

Here's what's on the docket for December 2012:

• Write a bunch of freelance articles. Hmmm, may have said "yes" to a few too many assignments this months.  
• Interviews. So many interviews for my radio documentary project. Followed by transcribing. So much transcribing. 
• Other contracted work. Oh yeah, that. 
• Finish making this year's batch of venison sausage. We had a bit of meat grinder drama-drama last month that delayed this process -aka, the first meat grinder we bought was totally and absolutely defective. Now we're the proud owners of a 1/2 horsepower Cabela's meat grinder which runs like a champ. We've made 16 lbs of venison sausage this week and will be making some wild rice sausage and chorizo very soon.

• Let the Etsy shop simmer for the month and focus my crafty/knitty energy on finishing up some personal knitting projects, including piecing together this lovely Aran knit afghan. I only knit four of these squares (the dark green ones), the rest were made by the crafting group for a recently married crafter.

• Spend quality time with friends and family who I haven't seen for far too long. While the pounding pavement that accompanies the holiday season can make me weary, I really do look forward to the opportunity to re-connect with some of my favorite people. 
• Find the perfect Christmas tree. Last year's tree was pretty darn perfect, so we'll see how we do. 
• Christmas baking, Christmas cards, wrapping presents, White Elephant gifts, oh my! 

 What are your plans this December? What are you looking forward to this holiday season?

 

Read more ...

The Freelance Writing Trenches: Query Away

The morning started with a county-wide power outage. By the time the power was back up, it was snowing and it hasn't stopped yet. As the hours tick by, the snow's intensity grows. Currently, the far shore of the lake and even the ice house in the middle of lake have disappeared in asnowy whiteout. It seems like a good day to spend in front of the wood stove, drinking cocoa and planning next year's garden.

But as much as the wood stove beckons, after running my latest batch of receipts through QuickBooks, it appears that my time would be better spent sending some queries out. Time to up the income levels at Of Woods and Words!

Oh queries. A pain in the arse really. Yet without the query letter, where would any of us freelance writers of be?

There may be editors out there just dying to give you some work, but unless you specifically and articulately ask for that work, they're going to give the work to another writer who they already know exists. The query letter is our chance to both announce and prove ourselves. When starting out, query letters often seem like time-consuming missives sent off into the ether, but you really do need to query if you want paying gigs. The more you query, the more writing credentials you earn and with more writing credentials, the greater success you'll achieve with your query letters.

Moral of the story: just send out some query letters already!

Even though I now have a much higher rate of success with my query letters then when I started out three years ago, the truth is I don't query as much as I should. I find it easy to get overwhelmed by the process, even though I've done it many times.

Here's the basic process of how to write a query letter:

1) Research the publication you'd like to query.
2) Determine if the publication's a good fit for your writing. Be honest about this. Trying to get a square peg into a round hole really is a waste of time.
3) Come up with a brilliant article idea for the publication. Make sure this idea is fairly original and truly a fit for the publication. (You don't want to come off like Hugh Grant in Notting Hill, interviewing Julia Roberts for Horse and Hound.) You'll also need to check the archives to make sure the magazine hasn't recently published something similar.
4) Carefully outline your article idea. This means you need to use specifics - who you plan to interview, how you plan to organize the article, etc. Sell yourself as the best person to do the job by listing your credentials and highlighting anything else that might make you an especially good choice for writing this particular article. 
5) Submit - making sure you've addressed everything to the appropriate editor, have a completely error-free letter/email that make it sound like you actually know what you're talking about.

There are many, many how-to books devoted to the subject of query letters. My favorite remains Michael Perry's Handbook to Freelance Writing.






On average, a good query letter should take you at least an hour to complete. It's time consuming, which is why I like to procrastinate with them.

Happy querying!

Read more ...

Moving Mountains: Together

You think this is hard? I'm passing a gallstone as we speak! *That's* hard!
- Sue Sylvester

There's another reason I keep fairly mum about my freelancing. Usually, when I try to explain how I make my (albeit: supplemental) income, I get one of two reactions.  Reaction 1) Person has no idea what freelance writing is. Acts like you're the cleverest thing since sliced bread. Reaction 2) The doubt niggling at the corners of the person's smile and they proceed to explain how hard it is to make it as a writer.

Neither reaction is really preferable, although it is nice to feel clever for a bit, even if the feeling's fleeting. But I feel particularly uncomfortable when someone tells me I've chosen a difficult way to make a living. Because really, I don't feel like I've chosen a more difficult way than anyone else. With the decaying traditional job market, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a secure job anymore, especially if you're a 20-something.

It can be trying to hear from someone retired or close to retirement tell you how hard your life is. (Know what's hard? Listening to people tell you how hard your life is.) Although we're all in this less than stellar economy together, there seems to be a certain disconnect amongst older Americans about what work possibilities really lie out there for young Americans. The work world they knew, the one that was secure, doesn't exist anymore.

If you're a 20-something out in the world right now, chances are you didn't you just fall into a traditional 9-5 job, you know, the kind that provides health insurance and retirement options, right after college.  Or if you did, words like "layoffs" and "downsizing" are enough to make your stomach turn on a regular basis.

I know I'm anything but alone when it comes to working to make a living in an unconventional manner. There are so many people out there going beyond the 9-5 hustle to make a more satisfying living. People like Ashley who quit her day job and now make her living with her crafts. Or Amanda, who like me, works a full-time job, but has a freelance writing "side hustle." (By the way, if you haven't checked out my guest post over at Amanda's blog, Grad Meets World, you should check it out now!)  Or Carissa, a photographer and jeweler.  

So when someone acts like I'm doing something extraordinary,  a part of me wants to say: You're the one putting the proverbial mountain in here. We 20-something freelancers aren't really out to prove anything, we're just trying to live a comfortable, fulfilling life.

Sure it's hard. But there's one thing that makes it easier: we're all in it together, 

And we're up to the challenge.

Read more ...

Weeding

Tomorrow marks my return to gainful employment. That is, tomorrow I will leave the house, perform assigned tasks, record my hours, and after couple weeks, get a check. This is as opposed to my current form of employment in which I plunk down and type away at the computer for hours on end, get a headache, check Facebook, check blogger, eat lunch, go for a walk, eat my second lunch (I may actually be half hobbit), type away at the computer some more and every once in a while get a check in the mail.

To prepare myself for this drastic switch in income method I’ve spent the weekend weeding. Not only did I tackle the quack grass in the garden, I sifted through various other projects that have been languishing around the cabin, trying to weed out and complete what I could. I got all my freelance work finished (well, the deadline is tomorrow), got myself a commentary commentary ahead of schedule, finished a sweater, and even did a semi-final edit on the first radio script.

This weekend was Fishing Opener and it’s hard to imagine a more ideal weekend. Right now there’s a fishing boat bobbing out in the bay in 75 degree weather with just a touch of breeze. It’s really not about the fish on days like this. I bet on openers when it’s spitting snow and rain, it’s a little more about the fish.

The garden loves the warm weather. A bunch of onions poked up yesterday morning and I think there might be some peas joining their ranks as well. Some of the seedlings have spent their weekend out on the deck in the true sunlight for the very first time.

The sweater I finished this afternoon is also sunning itself. I had to block the snot out of the sweater (yep, a technical term meaning to pin the knitted garment down to a flat surface to “set” the stitches so the garment hangs right when it’s worn) because the garment is just ever so slightly too large and I’m trying to shrink the sweater in the sunlight. This might be the equivalent of trying to jam a square peg into a round hole, but it seemed worth a try.

It feels too much like summer to be fussing about a sweater. The whole weekend has had a contented, “Anne of Green Gables” sort of feel, filled with good friends, family, laughter and simple pleasures. If this is summer, I say bring it on.

Read more ...