I generally don’t talk about myself as I accept that people don’t come here for my personality. Instead, people like you come for the information I provide that I hope helps you in your life.

From reading other blogs, it looks like many love to hear how writers and freelancers went full-time. So here’s the full story.

In the beginning…

After kid #2 arrived, I started New York University’s online program in Internet Technology while on maternity leave. Initially, I wanted to do web design. After few Web design projects, I discovered web design was more frustrating than enjoyable.

Around this time, an e-mail newsletter for web designers had a contest where readers could submit an article related to web design. The winners received high quality software like Photoshop, so I gave it a shot. Readers loved the article, so I wrote a few more in the series for the newsletter.

The series started my writing portfolio and helped my land my first paid professional writing gig with a web design magazine. Slowly, I picked up more paid writing assignments discovering I loved working as a writer.

However, I was apprehensive about pursuing a career as a writer. I heard from many people how they wanted to be a writer. I honestly didn’t think I offered anything special as a writer. It also didn’t help with many talented bloggers and web site writers hitting the writing circuit. Regardless, I kept my eyes open for gigs and considered writing a sideline since I still had my corporate job.

Furthermore, I never dreamed of having my own business. I feared the sales aspect — getting more clients — because I couldn’t make normal phone calls. Cold calling was always awkward no matter how comfortable I was with making phone calls. Then there was finances, bookkeeping, the usual business stuff.

Returning to the Dilbertesque world

I returned to work a couple of weeks early from maternity leave on a part-time basis in hopes to convince management that I could do the job part-time. Management wasn’t receptive to the idea.

I wrote a memo with various options supported by data. Eventually, the company let me work part-time because there was another part-time employee who joined the team. We didn’t job share, however. Together, we made up one employee.

Eventually, she went with the wireless part of the business and I stayed with long distance retaining my part-time status. This let me build the writing business.

Dot com blah

I lost several clients when dot com went boom. This was a turning point because I could either scramble to get more clients or resign myself to a corporate career.

While feeling a pit in my stomach stomach I hit send and emailed people in my network including those I had interviewed for articles. I landed two new clients, one of which I met in person for the first time after working with him for six years.

I worked part-time until March 2005 when my company required me to return to a full-time schedule. By this time, I had plenty of business writing experience and a healthy portfolio.

The benefits… the benefits…

I couldn’t quit my job yet because my husband didn’t have health benefits. We had three kids, so it was important. My husband landed a job with decent benefits in June 2005. A month later, I retired from corporate America for full-time freelancing.

Just found this article on health insurance for freelancers for those who don’t have the luxury of relying on someone else for benefits.

Other becoming a writer stories…

Mary E. Lyons

Bob Younce

Many at how we became writers

Delaune Michel

Philip McCord

Catherine Shaffer

Catherine Leigh

Geoffrey Zimmerman (video)

Earl Pomerantz, TV writer

Jared Head (video)

Yours?

Last week, my schedule contained too many appointments not related to writing work. So I planned to work whenever I had the chance to be at my desk… at least, that was what I told myself. Myself decided to rebel.

Unmotivated. Uninspired. Un-everything. I couldn’t and wouldn’t budge. I spent this time clicking “Check e-mail” and guilt-tripping myself.

Don’t you hate days like this? You want to work, but your writing fingers and brain just won’t tune in. It isn’t a case of writer’s block… more of a writer’s body refuses to do anything productive.

Unless you’re fortunate to have a partner or underlings, writing is a solitary business. My dog has no desire to motivate me, so I’m stuck being my own cheerleader. Rah rah turns into blah blah. “Cut it out,” I think to myself.

“Nuh uh,” myself responded like a stubborn toddler.

The first thing I did was agree not to work on one of the client assignments. Whenever I decided to work on this assignment for the day, it tended to make me freeze and this affected all other clients because I told myself I would do that assignment.

OK, well, I needed to work… so assignment removed from task. Barrier removed and myself cooperated and started working. Obviously, I should drop this assignment, but for various reasons… I can’t.

This situation meant removing a barrier. Other situations may call for something else. What could that be? How do you deal with days like this?

I asked Twitterers this question and got nice responses:

“Push through by doing brain stimulus things that will get my brain flowing on ideas and material. I watch Christian videos on TBN through their video portal. Also, read articles similar to my book’s topic. Another thing that I do is play word games such as WordTwist or Scramble online via FB.” Kim Beasley

“Wait until Monday? I’m kind of joking, but, honestly trying to work when my heart and mind aren’t in it is usually a waste.” Keith Robinson

“I don’t do it unless it’s a matter of life and death, i.e. too important.” Moshin Naqi

“Go outside, read something awesome, talk on the phone with someone who makes me laugh, then try again.” Chelle Parmele

“Take a nice walk and don’t think about anything but breathing.” Virginia DeBolt

Inspirational quotes on not giving up.

I admit it. For a long time, figuring out rates and providing quotes was a weak area for me. It took time, practice, and hard lessons to arrive at the point where I can confidently and calmly provide a quote. Before, I’d be figuratively biting my nails as I submitted my quotes and second guessing myself.

John Hewitt has the answer I wish I had when I started freelancing as a writer. It works for every freelancing career. Well, except the per word part. Just remove that or substitute with “per page,” “per design,” etc.

1. Start at $20 an hour or $.20 a word. This is a fairly low level. Feel free to start higher.
2. Increase your fee by 5 ($25 an hour $.25 a word) with each successful gig.
3. When your prospects start telling you that you charge too much, don’t raise your rates for six months.
4. Try raising it again.

Too simple and sometimes the best answer is the simplest one. The day before a state-wide math assessment test, my husband asked our oldest who takes algebra, “Do you remember how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide?”

She responded, “I don’t know. When I do a math problem now… if the answer is simple, I think it’s wrong because it has to be more complicated than that.”

Uh oh. Her mind is starting to work like an adult’s. We forget the answer can still be simple. It reminded me of a riddle I read years ago where kindergarteners (five and six-year-olds) easily answered the riddle while educated adults struggled or didn’t get it. I thought it was this one:

Question: What is greater than God? What is more evil than the devil? The poor has it. The rich need it, if you eat it you will die. What is it?

Answer: Nothing

But research says it was this one where the kids outscored the adults.

I turn polar bears white.
And I will make you cry.
I make guys have to pee
And girls comb their hair.
I make celebrities look stupid.
And normal people look like celebrities.
I turn pancakes brown
And make your champane bubble.
If you sqeeze me, I’ll pop.
If you look at me, you’ll pop.
Can you guess the riddle?

Answer: No.

True or not — the point is clear… we sometimes overlook the obvious.

Simple Doesn’t Come to the Rescue

I’m working on a quote for a client. The problem is I can’t determine how many articles I can write per week. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. Charge by article? Well, that wouldn’t work either as it could be 300 one time, 700 another.

Charge by the hour? I try to avoid that. What would you do?

Jakob Nielsen’s Blah-Blah Text makes an important point that web site visitors want to cut to the chase. They don’t want to waste time with a welcome message or any of that.

We writers have learned that we need to have an opening, body, and conclusion. But we also know that writing for the web breaks many standard writing rules. Whether a site should have an intro depends on its purpose and audience (You’ve heard this a thousand times, I’m sure).

Yahoo! needs no introduction. Almost everyone knows what it is. Instead of an intro, Yahoo! gets down to business with headlines and a sentence for its latest news items. The rest of its content leads users to where they want to go as users go there for different reasons… search, e-mail, news, and specific sections.

Users go to Google to search. Some use it for news, but not like with Yahoo! Google compromised by providing two home pages — one with the famous signature Google logo and a search box with a few links around it; and the other customized for users (iGoogle). iGoogle’s default (for users not signed in) home page contains the more popular widgets.

On the flip side, few know meryl.net and what it’s about. The name gives away nothing. I chose not to put the blog on the home page because my business comes first and many people will find their way to the home page. Not all of my clients care about blogging, but they get a bite of it on the home page right after the introduction to the business.

A random testimonial appears on the top right letting current clients speak for my work. The newsletter provides a way to capture names and e-mails in exchange for providing visitors with information of value (at least, I try!).

Gulp. I don’t know whether to be honored or afraid. For those not into NCAA basketball or love March Madness… here’s March Madness for writing blogs. Get the details on how Writing March Writing Blog Madness works.

I admit it. I’m competitive. Playing sports while growing up does that to you. Plus, when you have a difference… you want people to think of you as strong not weak. Of course, I’m going through a burnout period… so not posting as often or as detailed.

The list contains superior blogs, so like any competition… I don’t want to finish low. But then I know many blogs don’t appear in the list (and I know that’s frustrating as I’ve been there many times)… so I should be proud to be a contender. Thank you, John.

Yuwanda Black wrote a two part (scroll down in both links) article sharing her 19 years of experience as a freelance writer. She shares wonderful insight that I’ve discovered in the past few years. Here is her list with my comments on some items:

1. Staying abreast of technology is crucial: Lucky this isn’t an issue with me.
2. Writing is a skill: I hear those “Duhs!” But we all write. We learned to write stories and reports in school, so that makes us a writer by profession? Sorry. No. It took me five years to get where I am today. Practice, study, learn, practice.
3. Freelancing full-time is not hard: Start doing freelance work on the side — don’t just quit your day job cold. Instead, build up your business on the side. I did that for five years before I went full-time freelancing.
4. Marketing is a skill that must be developed: This is where working on the side helps. I slowly added more clients without the pressure of wondering where my next pay check would come. I always keep my eyes open for opportunities even though I hardly have room to take on more. Things fall through. Projects end. You may want to drop a client that’s more trouble than it’s worth. I believe that freelancers who cut the difficult or incompatible clients are happier and end up with more assignments though it means losing some.
5. Employers don’t like to hire freelancers for full-time jobs: No thoughts here. Makes sense in some cases.
6. You can’t change your rates every year: Guilty. Not of changing rates, but my inability to quote projects. Some clients don’t have all the information or details of what they need me to do. I explain to them that since we can’t see exactly the work involved that I’ll have to quote by the hour. The problem is they can’t side aside a budget for writing work since hourly is ongoing. I’m still developing my skills in this area.
7. You must develop a niche: I believe this is true and spent a lot of time thinking about this. But I’m happy with my variety and lucky I have a nice amount of work though it’s not in a specific niche. Sure, I cover a lot of tech, but I also cover B2B, web design, newsletters and online marketing, education (not from a writing perspective) and games. Maybe it’s my nature not to fall into one thing. Since it’s working, I’m not going to go crazy working my way to a niche. If it happens, it happens.
8. Patience is a virtue: Definitely. Five years before I left corporate America for Meryl Co.
9. Retirement is not planned for: I’m working to change this. Investing in an IRA can help with taxes, too.
10. Longevity pays: “The longer you freelance, the easier it gets,” writes Black. I find this work easier than I did as little as one year ago. Practice, practice, practice.

When wanna-be writers ask me about writing and how to become a writer, the first place I send them to is AbsoluteWrite (AW). AW’s ISP took down the site with only one hour’s notice. Writers and fans everywhere couldn’t access the forums or any of its information. All because of one woman who took her problem to AW’s ISP.

AW’s community pulled together and started a variety of activities to help AW. I was delighted to see BoingBoing report on this.

More links related to the AW scandal

AbsoluteWrite’s Mom, Jenna Glatzer, wrote two books that I strongly recommend. Items ordered through these links will go to AbsoluteWrite, not meryl.net. I recommend her others, but these are tops..

* The Street Smart Writer: Self Defense Against Sharks and Scams in the Writing World

* Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer: How to Win Top Writing Assignments