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

 

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

 

 

 

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.

How NOT to make money as a technical writer

I just talked my favorite client into updating his own document. 

"You did what?" 

I know you won't find that tip in any book called How To Make Tons of Money Writing Boring Documents (hey, maybe that's my next book!  Nah, you write it).

But in this case, that is best for the client, and for the readers of his documentation.

I did the same thing on software teams.  I would explain to the god-like developer (actually some were VERY nice), "Either you can explain the software to me, and I will document it, or you can write down how it works, and I will confirm it and edit the content."

Ideally, I would get access to every user-level of the software and be trained on it, or be given time to learn and use it, plus have access to actual software users who are willing to take time to tell me/show me how they use the tool, where they get stumped, and what they'd like to see in user documentation.

Ideally, the software developer has done this before in the requirements-gathering stage, before development started. 

Yeah, right.

My point is, when you help your clients help themselves, your job is easier in the end.  I will receive a draft updated by the man who knows the tool inside and out (I HOPE), and I will learn the tool as I prove his instructions are accurate.  Then I will polish the document in ways too complex and mysterious to explain here.

Tada!  I am SO wise.  Uh oh.  I think I stood too close to a software developer.

If you are working independently, check out my updated book, "How to Make Money While You Look for a Job."  The e-book edition is free for folks who join my Seven Steps to Money motivational list. 

Write Away!
Donna 

Ant Massacre at Divinity Vines

The scene of the mayhem is my kitchen, Divinity Vines being the name of our property, where we are using bottled coyote pee pee to keep the deer from nibbling our new vines.  Grapes next year, and perhaps wine the year after that!

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, where it was 92 degrees yesterday (the AC is working today, thank GOD), ant corpses litter the counter edges where my sponge swiped a path through water-melon juice and the tiny, feasting army.

It was good to wake at a normal hour, seven A.M. being a bit later than I like to get up.  The night before, however, I went to bed at midnight but couldn't sleep.  I got up at 1 A.M. to work a bit, and then the sun came up! 

Eight hours later, I had FINALLY updated my book (How to Make Money While You Look for a Job) with the really great content Chuck wrote for me, and with my interview with Peter Prestipino, Editor in Chief at Website Magazine.

When I was laid off in November I said, "The first thing I have to do is update my book."  But I did everything except that.

Here's what happened: My chicken-self went to bed and my writer-self got out of bed.  I snuck up on myself.

Here's what's happening now: I am completing the update and writing the press release, but first, I must more thoroughly cleanse the kitchen of my slain enemy's corpses, and never leave water-melon rind on my counter overnight again!

Ants, 37,289,983,883

Humans, 1.  

My Fellow Chickens

My Fellow Chickens,

Like water washing over my parched nervous system, I read these words moments ago.  "He rewrote pieces twenty times or more and sometimes pleaded with the postmaster of North Brooklin, Maine, to return a just-mailed manuscript so he could punch up its ending or rewrite the lead. 

"In addition to being a consummate rewriter, White was a gifted procrastinator."  E. B. White, of course.  Woo hoo!  I already know I'm not alone in my fear, but it feels SO GOOD to  know I am in such good company.

And you?  How chicken are you? This might help.

This recent post from copyblogger, 5 Reasons Why Trying to Be Successful Will Keep You Poor, is really about fear, too, and overcoming it.

I especially like this from #5 in his post: "If success is achieved by taking repeated, meaningful action, then what happens if you’re not confident enough to take the actions that scare the crap out of you?"

YEAH.  The message I took away from this is RELAX INTO IT.  You can't do it (write, publish, start a business) to be successful.  You have to do it because it is meaningful to you. 

And DON'T LET FEAR STOP YOU.

The E.B. White quote above is from a book I serendipitously found in a used bookstore today, "The Courage to Write; How Writers Transcend Fear" by Ralph Keyes.  I can't wait to read the rest of the book to find out!

Mr. White is further quoted as considering himself, "....the second most inactive writer living, and the third most discouraged."

Let's be BRAVE, shall we?  If he did it, we can do it.  Good. Now, I'm going to bed.  I'll be brave in the morning.

Ggggood Night,
Donna, One American Writer

Summer Publishing Project

It's the first day of summer vacation. The kids are in bed but the cat woke me up so I am up at six thirty in the morning, blogging.  I could have gone back to sleep but if I want to work for myself, I have to work for myself.  (The job search can wait until after breakfast.)

If you have kids on your hands for the summer, or your have yourself on your hands (like my remaining coworkers who were laid off last Friday -- happy first week of freedom!), why not try a publishing project?

Last summer when my friend Ruth Anne invited us to her beach house on Harker's Island, I told her about Lulu and Create Space and I suggested that her kids write and publish a guide to the island from a kid's perspective.  I'll best it would sell alongside the homemade fudge in the gift shop.

Here's how it works:

1. Pick a fun topic to write about.
2. Write the book (see other posts for tips in that).
3. Edit the book or ask a friend who is nuts about grammar to help you.
4. Go to Lulu.com or CreateSpace.com to get the template and format the manuscript in Microsoft Word or another word-processing program.
5. PDF the book and submit it per their instructions.
6. Order a proof copy for under $10.

Tada! You have your book in your hands.  

For more serious book projects,there are many, many services that will charge you hundreds of dollars for a similar process, but I recommend starting with a free service because it helps you learn what it feels like to have your published book in your hands.  It makes you ask, "Now what?" The answer is, "Now you have to market your book!"

For more on publicizing your book, see Linda's great information at lindarohrbough.com. She taught an excellent seminar at a North Carolina Writers' Network conference and I'm still trying to work up the nerve to do what she suggests.

Of course, you could pick a depressing topic, too.  Seriously.  People who are looking for work and considering downsizing need to hear from other people who are also going through those transitions.  I remember how much it helped when I read about women going through a mid-life crisis when I felt like I was on the wrong planet.  Those of us who are in career transition at the same time that our parents are failing can be especially vulnerable to a crisis, so share what you're going through.  It helps.

Or, a publishing project like, "How To Start a Lawn-Mowing Service" could help you and the kids.  You can relax while they are out of the house, or you can step it up a notch and start a landscape service yourself.  It can be a lot more fun than sitting in an office cubicle doing someone else's work.

Happy Writing!
One American Writer Up Early on the First Day of Summer