Two Weeks

I’m in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, for two weeks as a writer-in-residence at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow.

I have several goals for the next two weeks. The main ones are to go to Books in Bloom at the Crescent Hotel next Sunday and to get as much of the 25,000 words added to KIERNAN’S CURSE as possible.

Another goal would be to find a way to stay in this town permanently, but that’s definitely a work-in-progress.

If I think about my goals for the next two weeks, I get overwhelmed. If I just jump in and do it, it’ll get done. So that’s what I’m doing. I’ve gotten settled in to my suite/apartment and I’m ready to get started. A nap sounds very tempting, but I think I’m going to pass on that.

Busy Busy Bee

Early in the month, I had applied for a writing gig about writing health articles. I had resisted it for a while, but eventually common sense won out.

I do medical transcription. I have internists, gastroenterologists, pediatricians, neurologists, orthopedic surgeons, psychiatrists, and psychologists I can call in for expert sources.

So I applied for the gig and promptly forgot about it.

One day last week, I got an e-mail stating they were interested in working for me but would like a health-related sample article rather than the writing- and freelance-related ones I had submitted.

I weighed the pros and cons. I researched the company. I finally decided to take the risk and do the sample article. If they took it and ran, shame on me. I submitted it, as requested, by Sunday evening.

They didn’t take it and run.

I got an e-mail Wednesday afternoon requesting an invoice and mailing information so they could send me a check. They liked the article! They also asked when I could start writing for them regularly.

Of course, I said, basically, “whenever you want me to.”

So I got another e-mail with a list of topics for my next assignments due by next Friday.

The point, other than I’m very happy to have a new gig and have some work coming in that’s not from the day job?

Persistence pays off. Keep on keeping on. Set goals for yourself and work towards them.

I’m still doing that. What I have now isn’t enough for me to go full-[time yet, but I’m working on it and definitely making progress.

Writing Goals for 2009

The other night, I wrote these out. I’ve taken some time to think about them since then and have made a few changes. That said, here are my goals for 2009:

• Acceptance and publication in a national glossy, sich as O, Woman’s World, Figure, Glamour, etc.
• Submissions to 36 publishers/agents for book manuscripts. (This would be 3 submissions a month.)
• Write a creative tips ebook.
• Write a KNOWS ebook.
• Query $80/day five days a week (toward the ultimate goal of going full-time with freelancing).
• Update all blogs 3x a week.
• Minimum of 2 articles for Bukisa a week.
• Minimum of 2 articles for eHow a week.

I have plans/processes in place for all of these. These are just my writing goals, not my personal ones, which I may or may not post on another blog.

What are your goals for 2009?

Looking Back at 2008

I started looking through the archives for my list of writing goals for 2008. Apparently, I didn’t post them on the blog. Bad Jen.

This year had a lot of successes for me, writing-wise. I have:

• 4 website reviews published in the OWFI Report.
• 3 articles published with WritingforDollars.
• 1 request for a full manuscript from an agent.
• 2 requests for partial manuscripts from publishers.
• won 1st place at the OWFI conference for a technical/how-to article.
• won 3rd place at the OCWI conference for a novel.
• judged the nonfiction article category for a contest.
• successfully completed 1 fixed-rate job with oDesk.
• successfully completed 1 hourly-rate job with oDesk.
• had a poem, “Gestation,” published in the November/December issue of Writers’ Journal.

I also

• completed the rough draft of DEVON’S WISH, the second book in the Maguire Men series set in medieval Ireland.
• re-edited KIERNAN’S CURSE (the first of the Maguire Men).
• started BENEN’S BURDEN (the third of the Maguire Men).
• started and finished NAVAJO ROSE (will soon be re-editing that.)
• spent two weeks at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
• submitted queries/synopses to 3 agents and at least 10 publishers on various manuscripts (mainly KIERNAN’S CURSE, NAVAJO ROSE, and CONFESSIONS OF A FAT CHICK.
• bought the domains for www.confessionsofafatchick.com and www.theideapocket.com.
• achieved PRO status with RWA.
• joined OK-RWA, the Oklahoma City chapter of RWA.
• led a “buzz session,” an informal workshop, on blogging at the OWFI conference in May.

This has been a very busy writing year. It’s not possible to list all the queries for articles I’ve sent, essays and short stories written, and so on.

Perhaps with continuing all this and more, I’ll have an even better year in 2009. (A 2009 goal entry will be coming soon.)

A Good Kind of Trolling

A few months ago, I started a new strategy for achieving my goal of making a living as a freelance writer.

I query a potential income of $80 a day, no carry-over. I do it five days a week for a potential $400, or $1,600 a month.

The question has been asked about how I do that. To put it simply, I go trolling. I troll job boards, Craigslist, and guidelines databases.

I have an ad up on Craigslist.

I am a freelance provider for writing, editing, data entry, and transcription on oDesk.

I frequent Freelance Writing Jobs and the Problogger JOb Board.

I have written for WritingforDollars and make use of their guideliens database. I also subscribe to Writers Market Online and Funds for Writers.

I don’t apply for anything that I think would be boring or that would cause me to compromise my sense of eithcs. Because of that, I don’t apply for anything that appears that it could be a term paper mill. I do not and will never condone cheating or plagiarism of any kind.

I also contribute articles to Bukisa and have attempted to to write for eHow, though none of what I have submitted has been accepted at this point.

As of right now, I have approximately 25 items out that I am waiting to hear back on. I keep track of magazine queries in an Excel spreadsheet. I should probably keep track of jobs/gigs I’ve applied for in a similar manner, but I have yet to do that.

That is basically how I meet my $80 a day goal. I don’t do everything everyday, especially since some of it comes out only once a week, but I do most of it.

De Ja Vu

One of my goals for this month is to edit Devon’s Wish, which I’ve been working on.  But, for some reason, I also decided to pull Kiernan’s Curse out and dust it off again.

(Actually, I have a good reason for that, but I’ll tell you about it when the reason actually comes about and gets done.)

In chapters 1-3 of Kiernan’s Curse edits, though, I kept feeling like I’d been over it before, doing what I was doing then.  It wasn’t on my computer or my flash drive, though.

Last night, I started chapter 4.  On one section in particular, I thought, “I know I’ve already done this!”

I went and turned the laptop on.  (When I first moved here, before I got my desktop computer, I used the laptop for a while.)  I found the file and….

I WAS RIGHT!!!

So I’ve worked on re-doing edits for the past few days that I had already done.  If I’d followed the de ja vu feeling the first time and investigated all possiblities, it would’ve saved some time.

That’s OK, though.  It means I was on the right track with those edits the first time around because I was doing the exact same thing this time.