Top 10 Blogs For Freelance Writers

When it comes to freelance writing, there are a multitude of blogs on the Internet that deal with the subject matter of being a writer. Some are good, some are bad, but a select few are great. Below is my list of the Top 10 Blogs For Freelance Writers.

Please keep in mind that though I have sought to be objective, in reality lists like this are very subjective as their inclusion is based on the mindset of the person listing them. In other words, how the chosen blogs speak to the wants and needs of the reader. You may agree or disagree based on YOUR mindset, but I believe that in any case you will find excellent advice, wisdom, guidance and resources from these Top 10 Blogs For Freelance Writers.


10. Quips and Tips for Successful Writers - Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen is a freelance writer whose blog is full of great advice married with quotes that tie in with each post. She also has some extensive sections dealing with Articles and Query Writing, Newspapers and Magazines that I've found extremely helpful.

9. Procrastinating Writers - Jennifer Blanchard is a Writing and Creative Coach who launched Procrastinating Writers in 2008 to help her overcome her own writing procrastination, Her ultimate goal in the community that has developed through her site? To get writing done. As a lifelong procrastinator, I find her blog very relevant and helpful.

8. Writing From My Mountain - Kathryn Magendie's site is one of those rare gems you stumble across by kismet. I freely admit that the only reason I first started reading this blog is because the author is a writer who lives on a mountain in Maggie Valley, NC, where I just moved last June. But it wasn't long before I came to enjoy her sense of humor about life in general and writing in particular. Oh, and her photos. My goal, like the title of her blog, is to be writing from my mountain some day.

7. WordCount: Freelancing in the Digital Age - Michelle Rafter's blog about writing and the business of being a freelance writer. Has a great advice column with realistic questions and sensible answers.

6. Write To Done - Leo Babauta, a journalist and publisher, writes this blog centering on the craft and art of writing.

5. Dollars and Deadlines - Kelly James-Enger is a regular contributor to The Writer magazine (one of my favorites) and a freelance writer who has written articles for more than 55 magazines and blogs here about freelancers and money. I've enjoyed and learned a great deal from her book, "Six-Figure Freelancing" and she always offers common-sense advice in her blog posts that is based on her 14 years of writing experience.

4. Writer Unboxed - Therese Walsh and Kathleen Bolton write this blog which specializes in helping genre-fiction writers by discussing the writing craft and interviewing writers who, as they say, "Have done it with style." They have also conducted and posted interviews with a number of authors, including some of my favorites such as J.C. Hutchins, Joe Abercrombie and Audrey Niffenegger.

3. The Renegade Writer - Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell are published magazine writers who offer great advice and tips. There is a fantastic resource of 10 Free Query Letters (I downloaded these long ago) that were written by  professional writers who landed freelance assignments with the included query letters. Linda also offers teleclasses for writers.

2. The Urban Muse - Susan Johnston covers a wide range of excellent topics that all writers will enjoy. An eclectic mix of pertinent subject matter that is real and down to earth, written by Ms. Johnston and guest bloggers. After discovering her site 2 1/2 years ago, I quickly added both the blog feed to my reader and the monthly e-mail newsletter to my mailbox, as well as purchasing her excellent e-book "Guide to Online Writing Markets" late last year. Great stuff here!

1. Make A Living Writing - Carol Tice and her blog have become my "go-to" place these past few months for guidance in mapping out my freelance writing career hopes. Real-world advice from a writer who has been there and still is, offering information that will aid you in the pursuit of your dream. Her e-book, "Make a Living Writing: The 21st Century Guide" is full of excellent, usable material (I've read it 3 times since purchasing it late last year) and on this blog she regularly gives out free advice about how to improve your own blog and web presence. In addition, Ms. Tice has begun conducting webinars for freelance writers on subjects such as "How to Break In and Earn Big as a Freelance Writer" and "40 Ways to Market Your Writing."


Those are my current Top 10 Blogs For Freelance Writers. As I mentioned above, your mileage may vary but I believe everyone will learn or gain something from reading these blogs.

And I'm always searching for more good blogs on being a freelance writer, so if you have a freelance writing blog of your own or read one that you think is always helpful to you as a writer, please leave a link in the comments so we can all enjoy the goodness.

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Where To Find The Word of Jeff Work Online

Thank you to all of you who have "Liked" The Word of Jeff Facebook Page.  I just thought I'd take this opportunity to welcome those who have connected recently and provide a list of where else you can find my work online.


The Word of Jeff blog - My writing blog (those posts, like this one, are automatically posted to the Facebook Page)

The Verbal Vagabond - My travel blog

Postcards From Maggie Valley - My Maggie Valley, NC photography blog

The Masked Blogger - My comic book industry blog

My articles on Suite101 - I'm formerly a feature writer and currently a contributing writer to Suite101


If you haven't already, I invite you to visit these other sites and again, thank you for liking The Word of Jeff Facebook Page.

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2011 Writer's Market Deluxe Edition

Whooo Hoooo! The mailman delivered my copy of the 2011 Writer's Market Deluxe Edition today!!

This is the version that includes access to an online database of more than 7,000 listings that is updated daily. And, in addition to the market listings of more than 3,000 book, newspaper and magazine publishers, literary agents, greeting card companies and production companies found within the pages of this edition, there are also interviews and articles by successful writers, such as Charlaine Harris, as well as a completely updated "How Much Should I Charge?" rate chart for freelancers. But that's not all! There are also new articles on topics such as how to use social media and online freelance writing.

But, for most freelancer writers, the reason to own this book is the market listings and I'm looking forward to seeing just how much use I can get out of it during the next few months.

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The Only 12 1/2 Writing Rules You'll Ever Need

  

Poster available at AllPosters.com

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Writing Goals For 2011

There is nothing quite like giving your hopes and aspirations some substance by writing them down in black and white.

Like most people, I can say, "I'm going to do this" or "I'm planning on doing that" and really mean it, yet never accomplish what I said I was going to do. Sometimes, as it is with ideas for articles or stories, I will actually forget what I said I was going to do. Sometimes, if it is something that is uncomfortable for me to do, I can easily ignore my unwritten intention.

But when you write it down, make a list, type it out and commit it to reality in this world, then those hopes and aspirations become goals; concrete, substantial goals that look back at you as you look at them, reminding you that you gave life to them and are responsible for them and to them.

I've never been one for making New Year's Resolutions as I consider them to, in reality, be short-term, wishful-thinking exercises that seldom, if ever, bear any lasting fruit. But I do endorse setting realistic, reachable goals that will result in long-term growth in your personal and professional life.

These are my writing goals for 2011:

1. Write at least one article for at least two different local print publications.  - There are a few, not a lot but a few print publications in the surrounding areas of where I live and, while I have lots of web writing samples, I need print clips to give some weight to my writing resume.

2. Write at least one article for at least one regional print publication.

3. Write at least three guest blog posts.  - As a way of getting your work out in front of the blogosphere, guest posts are a great way to spread your name and abilities. They also tend to help bring visitors back to your own website and blog, if they are interested in what you write and how you write it.

4. Write at least one article for at least three different online publications, apart from the guest blog posts.  - The web is full of online publishers that need content to fill their web pages and even though I write for 5 of my own pages or blogs, I'd love to extend myself even further to readers around the Internet.

5. Write at least one e-book to give away and one e-book to sell.  - In that order so that I can gain some personal experience in producing an e-book with some helpful and/or needed information before marketing a larger e-book with more substantial information and content that will make it worth a fair price. I've been working on some ideas and need to focus even more sharply on final subject matters for both of these projects.
  

2011 will be the year that I immerse myself even further in a freelance writing career designed to allow me to write on a variety of subjects while earning a comfortable living and expanding my own knowledge and experience.

Have you made any similar writing goals? Or have you already met those goals and are moving on to new writing peaks? If so, I'd love to hear of your current writing goals or how you met these goals in the past. Please feel free to leave a comment below.

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A Week Inside Demand Studios

Here's a well-written inside look at the experience of a professional journalist attempting to work for online content provider Demand Studios for a week. As with all personal experiences, your mileage may vary. In the interest of full disclosure, I submitted a sample of my writing to them a couple of weeks ago and received a "No thank you" response.

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Can You Correctly Spell The 25 Most Commonly Misspelled Words?

BusinessWriting.com has posted a quiz composed of The 25 Most Commonly Misspelled Words. I scored 23 out of 27 (there are two bonus questions for British variant words) or 85% which does not make me happy. I expected 100%, seeing as how I was the Spelling Bee champion for my elementary school, lol.

Here's the quiz, let me know how you score.

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More News Release Gaffes

I am still amazed every morning at the spelling and grammatical errors I read in news releases that cross my desk, supposedly written by professional journalists. Is this more evidence of the "dumbing down" of America? Is this the quality of graduates that journalism schools are producing? Did spell check break? Was the copy editor napping?

Or am I just too damn picky?

Everyone makes mistakes, I understand that. I do too, all the time. That is why you have proofreaders for manuscripts and books and copy editors for magazines and newspapers and Denise for this blog. And it's why you do those things BEFORE you publish the piece.

Before I met and married the love of my life I used to date a copy editor for a (formerly) great metropolitan newspaper. I would routinely, sometimes daily, dissect the incorrect phrasing of an article or point out the spelling and/or grammatical errors of articles in the paper (that were not in the sections she edited) and she always wondered aloud why I didn't get a job doing what she did.

Anyway, here are the gaffes that came across my desk yesterday morning, along with my snarky remarks.

"...hadn't been in her basement for two weeks, and low and behold she had water in it." Well, now this one makes sense because the basement is "low" in the house, right? However the correct phrase is "lo and behold" which is still rather conversational for a news piece. By the way, "lo and behold", means "look and behold" not "get down and behold", lol.

"What it did, it shook the house and jared the sheet-rock and made it crack." Is that Jared, the Subway Sandwich guy? Is he now "Jared the Sheetrock"? More likely is that the writer meant to write "jarred the sheetrock" though simply stating that it cracked the sheetrock would have been sufficient, given the context. Oh, and yes, "sheetrock" is one word, not hyphenated.

"...determined that it needed to be demobilize and..." Let's just forget about those silly grammar rules that say verb tenses should agree. In other words, if you use a past tense verb in one part of the sentence, any other verbs must be past tense as well. Otherwise you sound like...well, we'll leave that part out of this.

Interestingly, I just received the November 2009 issue of The Writers Network News (a free monthly newsletter available from Zebra Communications) and it has this little piece on proofreading:

Why the world needs editors and proofreaders

Many, many years ago when I had my first newspaper job I had to both write and proofread my articles. I covered a local wedding and wrote "...the bride was draped in Chantilly lace, except I didn't catch myself, and the story ran "the bride was raped in chantilly lace..." and THAT's how you really LEARN. Alvin Guthertz

The Writers Network News is an excellent resource for writers. Go check it out!

I think my desire to read proper English (especially if it is written by professional journalists and writers) is perfectly natural, but Laura Miller has an article up on Salon that says I'm stuck up and should just get over it.

What do you think?

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Another Florida Writers Conference Missed

Once again, I ended up working out of town when the 8th Annual Florida Writers Conference was held this past weekend.



I'm pretty sure I know what will happen now. Since this will be my last year living in Orlando during the annual conference, at some point in the future I'll find myself off during the conference, but I'll be living 10 hours away in Maggie Valley, North Carolina.

Well, I'm sure Cindy will find it to be a good excuse to visit family in the Orlando area.

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Undeserved Authority

Today was one of those days that make me think I should just get into writing full time.

Unqualified people with undeserved authority simply burn my biscuits.

That's all. Thanks for letting me vent

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William Safire's Rules For Writers

William Safire, a Pulitzer Prize winning author and newspaper columnist for the New York Time, former speech writer for President Richard Nixon and wordsmith of deserved renown, passed away Sunday at the age of 79. I always liked his Rules For Writers and present them here for your reading pleasure and edification.


* Remember to never split an infinitive.
* The passive voice should never be used.
* Do not put statements in the negative form.
* Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
* Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
* If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
* A writer must not shift your point of view.
* And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
* Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
* Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
* Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
* If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
* Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
* Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
* Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
* Always pick on the correct idiom.
* The adverb always follows the verb.
* Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

William Safire 1929 - 2009 R.I.P.

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Lark Or Owl?

Are you a morning lark or a night owl? A morning lark is up early in the day, rolling out of bed full of energy and ready to tackle the work of the day. A night owl finds higher energy levels and the ability to form sensible sentences out of words to be easier later in the day and into the evening.

I know a lot of writer advice begins with something that reads like this; rise at 5am while the day is young and begin writing. Do not stop until you have reached _______ (number of) words.

Let me tell you, if I rose at 5am to write, I'd still be struggling to reach three words by the time lunch rolled around. I'm a night owl and always have been. Mornings are not kind to me and the feeling is mutual. Cindy is a morning lark, or as I like to call her; Tigger. She bounces out of bed with boundless energy, fully awake and mind racing. It took a few years, but I finally convinced her, through a series of grunts, groans and sign language, that asking me any kind of question that required me to think was pointless if I hadn't at least had my hot shower and some time to adjust to the ungodly light outside the windows.

Unfortunately, most of my adult life the jobs I have held and/or family responsibilities have required me to wake and work the opposite of my cycle. And I can adjust, but it is difficult. Most of the time, if I'm looking at you, talking and maybe even smiling before noon, you can be sure I'm wishing I was still in bed sleeping soundly instead. No offense.

If I were making my living as a writer and I lived alone, my normal waking hours would be something like 11am until 2am. I love sleeping in late and being up working at night. That just happens to be my body's natural circadian cycle. Up in time to make lunch my first meal, run a few errands during the afternoon and then sit and write for hours through the evening and night past the witching hour. Ah, that sounds SO nice. Well, not the living alone part, but you know what I mean.

So are you a lark or an owl?

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Proofreading

"Proofread carefully to see if you any words out." - Author Unknown

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In The Light Of Day - Grammar Correction

This is a lesson. A lesson to me. A lesson about writing a post (or anything) late at night and submitting it with only a cursory eye toward editing.

In spite of knowing better than to do the above AND in spite of being fairly aware of and conversant with the standard rules of grammar (thought I do not claim to be an expert or master of them), I wrote the following in yesterday's post - Barnes & Noble; Pulling In The Welcome Mat?:

Even the straight back wooden chairs were few and far between and each of them were occupied.

"...each of them were occupied."

God, how it hurt my eyes and my sensibilities to read that line this afternoon in the light of day.

I ignored and overlooked a simple rule; a singular noun requires a singular verb. With the singular noun "each", the plural verb "were" is woefully incorrect. If you removed the words "of them" you can easily see that the resulting phrase, "each were occupied", violates a proper rule of correct grammar and the basics of what obviously sounds right when spoken. I, in writing late at night and in a hurry, fell victim to the mistake of paying more attention to the words "of them" and using the plural verb "were" instead of focusing on the real noun "each" so that my verb would be the singular "was."

If you look at the post now you will see that I have made the correction. You may notice that instead of just correcting "were" to "was" ("...each of them was occupied") that I went a step further. Simply correcting the verb would have rendered the sentence grammatically correct, but removing "of them" completely makes for a better sounding sentence; one that is more pleasing to the eye and sensibilities.

In addition, part of my error, I believe, was mentally referring back to the plural noun/verb found earlier in the same sentence. It may have been better to write them as two separate sentences:

"Even the straight back wooden chairs were few and far between. And each of them was occupied."

But I liked the flow of the sentence as it was originally written, so I only changed the last part of it.

I read spelling and grammatical mistakes on blogs and webpages every day, usually many times a day. What makes me cringe even more when reading them is to see that the people penning the errors have identified themselves as journalists or writers; people you would expect to know better. I very seldom see an acknowledgment or apology for the mistake. This is mine.

Mea culpa.

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Write While The Heat Is In You

"Write while the heat is in you...The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled."

Henry David Thoreau 1817 - 1862

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Shelfari - Neil Gaiman's Library

Over at Shelfari, a social media site for booklovers, they have started a new feature on their blog where they will ask some of their (and our) favorite authors about books on their shelves. The first author they thought of is one of my favorites, Neil Gaiman. But instead of asking about books on his shelves, they asked if they could take photos of his library. Below is just ONE photo of ONE section.



A couple of weeks ago I was reading about the passing of one of Mr. Gaiman's cats, Pod, in her sleep from old age. Lorraine wrote about it in her blog and referred to Pod as "one of Boss's Library Cats" which I found quite endearing. I could not help but try to imagine what Mr. Gaiman's library might look like and so now am very glad to actually see this great writer's library.

The old adage "A writer must first be a reader" is obviously true in Mr. Gaiman's case. I could not find a count of how many volumes are in his library, but it is obviously in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.

Here are the high-res photos, if you'd like to gaze longingly at the individual titles. Right now though, you'll have to excuse me as I need to go wipe the drool off my chin.

Oh, before I go, if you want to be a Shelfari-friend of mine, here is the link to my shelf.

P.S. Right after I posted the above I came across a new post of photos of Mr. Gaiman's upstairs reference library. I need a mop.

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50 Tips To Improve Your Writing Skills

Over at the Dumb Little Man website they have a list of "50 Tools that can Improve your Writing Skills" which, as I glanced over them, looked to be helpful for those of us who want to polish our writing. In addition to the tips or tools, some of the ones I looked at included simple exercises to reinforce the advice.

Here are the 50 tips (without the links; you'll need to go to the actual site for those) for your perusal. This makes a good one-year plan if you learn one tip per week and even allows you a 2 week "vacation."

1: Branch to the Right
2: Use Strong Verbs
3: Beware of Adverbs
4: Period As a Stop Sign
5: Observe Word Territory
6: Play with Words
7: Dig for the Concrete and Specific
8: Seek Original Images
9: Prefer Simple to Technical
10: Recognize Your Story’s Roots
11 Back Off or Show Off
12: Control the Pace
13: Show and Tell
14: Interesting Names
15: Reveal Character Traits
16: Odd and Interesting Things
17: The Number of Elements
18: Internal Cliffhangers
19: Tune Your Voice
20: Narrative Opportunities
21: Quotes and Dialogue
22: Get Ready
23: Place Gold Coins Along the Path
24: Name the Big Parts
25: Repeat
26: Fear Not the Long Sentence
27: Riffing for Originality
28: Writing Cinematically
29: Report for Scenes
30: Write Endings to Lock the Box
31: Parallel Lines
32: Let It Flow
33: Rehearsal
34: Cut Big, Then Small
35: Use Punctuation
36: Write A Mission Statement for Your Story
37: Long Projects
38: Polish Your Jewels
39: The Voice of Verbs
40: The Broken Line
41: X-Ray Reading
42: Paragraphs
43: Self-criticism
44: Save String
45: Foreshadow
46: Storytellers, Start Your Engines
47: Collaboration
48: Create An Editing Support Group
49: Learn from Criticism
50: The Writing Process


Dumb Little Man - Tips For Life is a site that offers tips, advices and tools that can "...save you money, increase your productivity, or simply keep you sane."

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Happy Belated Anniversary To Me

Last Saturday, August 22nd, marked the second anniversary of this blog. I completely let it slip by, so I thought I should correct that oversight. With the exception of one or two days during that time period, I have posted something at least once every day and I believe those non-post days were all the result of having no Internet connectivity.

If you'd like to take a stroll down memory lane, you can click here to read that first post.

Thanks for reading

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It Really IS A Small World

Reading the May/June 2009 issue of Poets & Writers (yes, I AM behind on my reading, thank you) I was surprised to see in the article about Bright Lights, Big City author Jay McInerney, that his former girlfriend and inspiration for the character of Alison Poole was Rielle Hunter, mother of former presidential candidate John Edwards' love child.

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Write In American English

Trolling the online postings for writing jobs I've noticed quite a few ads now contain wording that requests, in effect, the candidate be able to "...write in American English." I believe this is generally for two reasons; even though the entity may be located in lower Slobovia, they want it to appear that they are actually in the good ol' US of A OR the entity wants to be sure that no matter where YOU may be located in the world, you have the ability to write as if you're a red-blooded American. It's all about marketing, presentation and packaging.

That might be an area that e-mail spammers and scammers should consider giving a little extra attention to in order to be more successful in passing off their crap as the real deal. We've all received those "official" e-mail notices which purport to be from some government agency or private business (such as a bank) that contain such mangled "English" wording, goofy grammatical errors and strange syntax as to be immediately identified as fraudulent.

Here's an amusing example of an "official" e-mail supposedly from the FBI that is chock full of misspelled and misused words, twisted phrases, mangled verb tenses and just plain weird ideas about how America's top law enforcement agency ("a biggest security company here in Washington D.C") actually works. That doesn't even count the strange date format that makes it appear this missive has traveled from the future (either September 12, 2009 or December 9, 2009) and the fact that it originated from and refers the reader to a Gmail address.

[Washington Field Office Banner with FBI Seal linking to FBI Home]
Anti-Terrorist and Monitary Crimes Division.
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION.
J. EDGAR. HOOVER BUILDING WASHINGTON D.C
12/09/2009

ATTENTION: beneficiaries,

We received an email, Just to let you know that the said fund has been confirmed in your name, the funds are right now in our custody in your name waiting to be release to you, we have verified and investigated that you are the right beneficiary to claim the funds, all we need from you is verification and proof due to the amount involved.

As a biggest security company here in Washington D.C we are to serve and to protect our citizen. The only advice we can give to you as at this time is to try your best to comply with the required document so that your funds will be release to you in your favor, this funds are rightfully yours. You can obtain the document from our branch Office in New Jersey.

We have done our verification on your FBI Identification Record with our Social Security Number, the only document remaining now is the Diplomatic Immunity Seal Of Transfer(DIST) Which should be issued to you from our branch Office in New Jersey, you are to contact the Federal Bureau Of Investigation (FBI) New Jersey to obtain the above required document, find bellow their contact email address: ( fbi.vision2020@gmail.com) Contact this people immediately to obtain the document.
Furthermore, be advice that according to the United State Law and also the FBI rules and regulations, you are to obtain the document from the FBI in New Jersey where the fund was transferred to. Also Note that you are to take care of the Document to be issued to you right away, because due to how important and secured the document is, it is not issued just like that. You are to take care of the document by sending to the FBI New Jersey right away,That is the only way the FBI New Jersey will issue you the document, because they are going to issue you the Authentic/Original copy of the document.

You are here by advice to Contact them through the email address above to acquire from them on how you are going to send the fee to them. Note that you are to do this immediately if you really want your fund to be credited to your account and also if you don't want any action to be before you. We have already informed the New Jersey FBI about the present situation, so go ahead and contact them immediately. Your fund is now on our custody and will only be release to you with the confirmation of the required document. After that the fund will be release to you immediately without any delay.

NOTE: We have asked for the above documents to make available the most complete and up-to date records possible for no criminal justice purposes.

WARNING: Do not fail to produce the above requirement in the next 72 hours, legal action will be taken immediately by arresting and detaining you, justificated and if found guilty, you will be jailed. As terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering is a serious problem in our community today. The F.B.I will not stop at any length in tracking down and persecuting any criminal who indulge in this criminal act.

Faithfully Yours,
FBI Director
Robert S. Mueller, III

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