One American Writer

You CAN work for yourself

    

Available now!

Click the book's image above, or click here to read more and order your copy.

Thank you, and stay encouraged!

Regards,
Donna D. Buskirk
One American Writer

 

 

 

Shooting high

I am working for my husband's release from Corporate America.  He works and lives in Arlington, Virginia during the week (near Washington, D.C.), and every Friday at 7PM, he drives five hours south to our small family farm in Graham, North Carolina.

I enjoy the honeymoon benefit of his weekend visits, but I want him home full-time. 

A year after being laid off at Microsoft, I landed a contract job writing Army proposals and that work is ending.  I plan to aim high.  I don't want to earn only enough writing income to replace my own corporate salary -- I want to earn enough so that my husband can stay home and tend our vineyard, too. (See DivinityVines.com)

Ours is a very bootstrap operation -- we (he, mostly) do the work ourselves, and we'll harvest our first crop of grapes this fall.

Let's see -- a goal is supposed to have a target date...

OK, then, shooting in the dark (assuredly not the scientific way to set a goal), I'd like to be earning 200K writing and speaking by my birthday, October 1, 2011.

Ouch.  Maybe that's not a goal.  That sounds more like wishful thinking.  Well, I'll put some numbers behind it and, if I can't stomach shooting that high, I will revise my target income downward.

Here's to your own target practice as you aim to make the income you need to work for yourself full-time. (See How to Make Money While You Look for a Job)

Cheers!
Donna D. Buskirk
One American Writer

 

We goofed. We're sorry we forced slavery (horribly sorry) and the North is sorry for its treatment of the South after the war, and we're sorry today there is no safety net for families losing their homes. I'm sorry I don't know the second verse of "America the Beautiful." Watching my grandson sing in a better-late-than-never MLK celebration (snow make-up date), I'm still proud and delighted to be an American. "...America! America! God mend thine every flaw!"

Basket Case is Corporate Success

It is apparently possible to be a basket case and still be a corporate success.  Take away the corporate success, and you are left with the basket case.  Don't ask me how I know this.

I know writers, artists and other humans are subject to ups and downs, but in the corporate world, the need to function in polite society (admittedly, in many cases, dysfunctional polite society) paints a glossy sheen over the mood dips.

At home, where the only face I see is mine in the mirror, the gloss is gone.  One executive placement pro I talked with said that executives who start solo ventures face the same challenge.

Freelancing while job searching is so much fun.  Not.  Well, it is fun, but when it's not fun, it is REALLY not fun, and there's no one there to tell.

So I'm telling you.  How do you beat the blues when you're alone?

I could write. There's a novel idea!

Waiting for a call-back on a story for The Alamance News*, making corrections to my book, and talking with an artist about a new cover, I am working.  But am I writing?

My 14-year-old is sick so my 28-year-old wants me to watch my grand-baby at her apartment.  "But, what can I do there with no Internet?" I asked.  "Oh," I answered myself doubtfully, "I could write."

Keeping up with Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogs is important to friendships, careers and book sales, but it is NOT writing.

How much time are you actually writing?  Keep track.  The zeros might scare you into productivity.  Go write something!

* Publisher of The Alamance News in the news!  The Alamance News, the paper I write for, is a weekly newspaper exclusively covering Alamance County, NC, USA.  They/we don't have a Web site yet (time for hard news only) so looking for a reference, I found this story (link above).  Cool.  The media at work.

Writer Regards,
Donna D. Buskirk
One American Writer

How does a self-employed person get fired?

How does a self-employed person get fired? S/he gets hired.  You work for yourself so ineffectively that you can't earn a living.  So, you find a job.

NOW I know why employers make you sit in an office cubicle eight or more hours a day. 

They hope to get three or more hours of work out of you.

At home, it is possible to work hard seventeen hours a day and still not work effectively (especially when home is a small farm). 

• At the office, your work is in front of you.
• At home, your work is mixed in with the work of living.

How do you focus?  Here's a motivator:

IF YOU DON'T FIND A WAY TO CARVE WRITING TIME OUT OF THE REST OF THE WORK YOU MUST DO, YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF IN AN OFFICE CUBICLE AGAIN.

Make.

it.

work.

Bathrobe at noon confession

Here's how I ended up wearing my robe at -- well, read the sequence:

1. Pre-coffee, 7 am, trek to the barn (the robe part comes later).
2. Feed and water goats, chickens, cats and dogs.
3. Go in for coffee and hot bath.
4. Oops!   Give the dogs Frontline for fleas.
5. On the way back to the house, the dog passes me.  He's long gone for now.
6. Email technical writing client about proof.  Notice footer must be fixed.  Email graphic artist to fix it.
7. Return phone calls to kids' soccer coaches.  Practice starts next week.
8. Dog comes back.  Take Copper back to the pen and secure it more thoroughly.
9. Upstairs for bath, coffee is cold.  Put on robe and go downstairs to reheat it.
10. Email is in from graphic artist. Call about number-sequence typo.
11. Receive final proof and client's email approval.

This is how, when you work for yourself, you can end up in your robe at noon.  OK, it's only 10:30, but to someone who likes to get up at 4 or 5, 10:30 might as well be lunchtime, and I'm still in my robe!  Arghh.

So when a friend says, "I'd love to work for myself -- I can stay in my robe until noon," secretly smile and knowingly nod.  Let her find out the hard way.

He said yes, she said no. Author Ralph Keyes said I can offer workshops based on his book, "The Courage to Write." Plans are in the works -- there is a lot of local interest.

A story subject for the newspaper said she's far too busy to let me take another photo of her. The publisher says it must be her, not her colleagues.

Challenges, challenges. Are you up for them? Be kind to your story subjects! I was, but perhaps something I said was taken the wrong way. Work and learn!

Write on,
Donna

This just in: "Venture capital investments surge to highest levels in nearly two years" http://localtechwire.com/business/local_tech_wire/news/blogpost/7973168/ Be encouraged! Every biz-starter must write well or hire a writer.

The courage to write Ralph Keyes

I am reading the final pages of "The Courage to Write" by Ralph Keyes, and I want to teach a workshop using that book as the text.

Teaching is what I love best.  When my articles have been published on-line or in print, I never get to see the "AHA" or correct the "HUH?" in readers' faces.

So, now that I have the courage to write (I'm writing features and covering town meetings for The Alamance News here in North Carolina, doing some freelance tech writing...does that count?, and working on a book proposal), I need the courage to ask the author and/or his publisher if I can conduct workshops based on that book.

I need the courage to e-mail Ralph Keyes.  Here goes (popping over to do that now).  There.  Not so hard.  Now all I need, all WE need, is the courage to stick with it.  What is IT?  Whatever we are doing to stay encouraged and be brave in the face of our current challenges.

Up one road and down another,
Donna D. Buskirk
One American Writer

King Content says

Content is king, and King Content says:

"My loyal subjects.  I know you are not perfect.  But write.  Post to blogs!  Write your book.  Complete that story.  Design that Web site so there is a place in the world for your content.  And then MONETIZE!"

King Content, in an aside to his assistant:

"MUST I say, 'monetize?'  I don't WANT to say 'monetize.'  I HATE that word.  I want to say, 'Make money.'  You can say 'CONTENT IS KING' as often as you wish, but we all know that MONEY is king.  I, King Content, am only king as long as content brings profit.  But back to my speech:...

"My loyal subjects.  Stop learning and write!  There will always be another blog post, another resource, another free webinar.  WRITE.  Start to PRODUCE and then, as you continue to learn from resourceful blog posts and webinars, you can WRITE about those, and share your learning with others.  Learn as you go, but WRITE.  You must write! Remember, content is king!

If you cannot or will not write, because content is king, you must hire a writer.  Connect with professional writers at MediaBistro.com.  Find Freelance Connect from their menu and describe your project.  Writer's Market judged them on of the top writing sites.  

So, loyal subjects, write!  And now, we must get on over to Media Bistro and complete our own royal profile!  Later!