The Writer’s Twitter Dilemma

Posted by george on January 17, 2012
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: . 8 comments

When I first set up my writing blog and freelance writing business, I set up a Twitter account. Twitter was still relatively new and even though I didn’t quite “get it” I sensed Twitter would be around for a while. Getting started was tough in those early days. Figuring out who to follow took a bit of work and a lot of searching.

So here I sit three and a half years later. I follow about 1,300 folks and I have about 2,650 followers. I’ve grown my Twitter organically. In other words, I haven’t participated in any schemes to get 10,000 followers or anything like that. I’m happy with the numbers and haven’t had any plans to really change how/who I follow. I’m thinking that may change in the near future.

Even though I’m happy with the raw numbers, I find myself in a bit of a dilemma. My interests are in the area of writing, publishing and reading. This means that most of the folks I follow are writers. In a lot of ways this is a very good thing. I end up finding some great articles about writing and I feel like I have my finger on the pulse.

The problem is that my Twitter feed has gone stale.

Here is how a typical scenario plays out: I receive notification of a follow (or I find someone to follow in a re-tweet) and I go have a look at their profile page. If there is a decent profile page then I usually don’t hesitate  to follow them. A vast majority of these folks are writers and almost all of them have a book out and they call themselves an author. As I peruse my feed each day, I look for interesting things to examine or re-tweet. I do a lot of re-tweeting because I want to support the authors and recognize their hard work. What I’ve found recently is that my Twitter feed is absolutely littered with tweets that are nothing more than marketing for an author’s book. Frankly, it’s making my feed a bit ho-hum and boring. It’s not so bad if the person is interacting with folks and engaging in true a social media way. Quite often this is not the case.

Do you see what I’m saying? I want to support other authors and their work. Therefore I follow a lot of authors. Unfortunately, a lot of them are less than engaging on Twitter. I’m becoming hesitant to follow any more authors. Then I think, Well, who AM I going to follow? And I’m not sure what the answer to that question is.

Fellow writers, what is your take on this? Do you use Twitter? If so, have you noticed this same trend?

 

Using Your Indoor Voice

Posted by george on January 13, 2012
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: . 8 comments

Image from: ifthiscouchcouldtalk.com

My daughter has a neighbor friend that she plays with now and then. I cringe whenever the girl comes over because she has no indoor voice. She yells everything – conversations, wants, needs, hellos, good-byes – everything. While she is here, I am guaranteed to have to (gently) admonish her to please use her indoor voice. “BUT MY MOM SAYS I HAVE A BEAUTIFUL VOICE! I WAS JUST BORN LOUD!” Sheesh. Besides the obvious parenting issues (and it would take several blog posts just to cover that topic), there is the concept of appropriate voices in appropriate situations. And don’tcha know this translates into a good topic about writing.

One of the most popular posts from when I first started blogging was about finding your writer’s voice. It made a lot of sense back then and it makes a lot of sense now. These last few years have taught me a lot about using my indoor voice. For writers, using your indoor voice means using a writing voice that is appropriate for the kind of writing you’re doing.

Generally, my writing voice is conversational, informal. If you read this blog at all, you know what I mean. I translate the voice in my head into words on the screen so you’ll find things like “sheesh” and “dont’cha” and other things that look like what they sound like in my head. Unfortunately, this also means that sometimes grammar takes a back seat. I write incomplete sentences. And sometimes I’ll start a sentence with “And.” In my mind that’s all okay because that’s how it sounds in my mind. It’s my blog dang it and if my voice violates a rule or two then so be it.

With that said, I have learned when to formalize my voice. Essentially, I’ve learned when to use my indoor voice. A valuable lesson in this went something like this: The owner of a blog I write for thought it would be a good idea to write some articles for one of her client’s blogs. This blog is fairly well known and I jumped at the chance. Well, the stuff I submitted was written in my usual style. I didn’t spend nearly enough time looking at the client’s blog to get a sense of the style. Needless to say, I got word that she had to re-write all of my articles before the client would accept them. A bit embarrassed, I let her know – and she agreed – that maybe my writing style wasn’t the best fit in this instance. If I had to do it all over again, I would have spent a lot more time researching the site and I would have put more effort into figuring out my indoor voice.

These days, I pay a lot of attention to who I’m writing for. When I’m on a freelance writing site, I take a good look at the directions for the article to get a sense for what the client is like. If the directions are stuffy and formal, then usually the style they are looking for is the same. So far that strategy has worked pretty well.

The importance of this for freelance writers cannot be understated. If you only have one voice, your freelance writing career is going to be a tough one.

How many voices do you have?

Are You Sure You Want To Do This? A Short Review of Clients From Hell

Posted by george on January 10, 2012
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , . 7 comments

When folks first start looking at becoming a freelance writer, they typically have bright, shining enthusiasm. They are excited. Some have expectations of fame and fortune. Others would be happy just making a bit of money. I think when I started, I was somewhere in between. I will say that in the last four years, I’ve experienced some up times and a few downers. Probably not too different from most any other profession.

It’s important that any relatively new freelance writers not interpret this post as a cynical attempt to get them fleeing into the hills. This review of Clients From Hell will hopefully serve as an eye opener into the real world of serving clients. The anecdotes seen on Clients will make you laugh. Or cry. Or maybe scare you a little. No matter which way you feel, there is no denying the entertainment value here.

I’ve known about Clients From Hell for a while. I follow them on Twitter and whenever I see a tweet, I just have to go and read the pithy little conversational excerpts that are posted there. I would be less than honest if I said I’ve not had similar experiences.

The web site does not have a lot of doo-dads, side-bars and information overload. It is refreshingly clean and simple. One of the pages I do enjoy is the Clients From Hell shop. Stickers, tee-shirts and even stress balls all emblazoned with the pencil drawn face and the devil horns.

I’m not including any of the excerpts here because I do not have permission to do so. They are simple enough to get at, though. Just click through to the Clients From Hell website and there ya go.

Finally, although I’ve not read it yet, there is the Clients From Hell: A collection of anonymously-contributed client horror stories from designers book available at Amazon. It is soon to be added to my Kindle collection and I just know it won’t disappoint.

If you go over there and poke around a bit, come on back and let us know what you think.

Three ways to pull yourself back from the brink of writer’s block

Posted by george on January 6, 2012
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: . 2 comments

Image from mlm for success.com

Please welcome Lauren Bailey, who was kind enough to submit this guest post for us.

Writer’s block plagues every writer whether or not they like to admit it. It’s a natural part of the writing process. And even though it’s a universal experience among writers, many of them panic when they see the warning signs of writer’s block set in. Notorious accessories to writer’s block include avoiding the writing desk, talking about your writing far more than actually doing it, surfing the web for nothing in particular, and so on. If you find yourself suffering from any of these distractions, you may be in the midst of it.

Of course the best solution to writer’s block is somewhat counter-intuitive: keep writing. Unfortunately telling a writer to write more when they feel blocked is the equivalent of telling a sick person to simply “get better”. In other words, writer’s block can be difficult to overcome, largely because victims can’t always identify the cause. It could be your brain’s way of saying “This isn’t working” about some aspect of your writing. Or it might be the case that you need a change in the scenery of your creative landscape. But how do you reorient your writing without affecting the quality or quantity of your work? Consider these three strategies.

Explore undeveloped ideas

Whether I’m writing fiction or blogging for business, I’ll inevitably get distracted by stray ideas that have nothing to do with the work at hand. If an idea persists as I write, I’ll jot it down in my idea journal for later investigation. I usually revisit these ideas and random thoughts when I feel blocked by a major project or if I’m just too burned out with other writing assignments.

These undeveloped ideas can be a real boon when you feel blocked. You can take a briefly imagined character or setting and flesh it out for as long as it takes for you to take your mind off your blocked project. I find that it’s best to try executing these periphery ideas in short story format. What started as a few sentences suddenly stretches into thousands of words of short fiction that does wonders for reinvigorating my brain’s creativity. What’s more, I can write out a short story fairly quickly which gives me a nice feeling of accomplishment after completing it. A brief side project might just give you the boost in creative confidence to start on your blocked work with renewed enthusiasm.

Change up your reading list

It’s no secret that a large part of a writer’s inspiration comes from their reading material. If you feel stuck in your writing, take a long hard look at what you’ve been reading lately and determine if the books on your bedside table are to blame. You’d be surprised at the immediate affect your current reading has on your writing.

For instance, say you’re plodding through the final section of mystery novel manuscript, trying to elicit high drama from your characters and resolve a complicated plot. As part of your research for the book, you’ve been engrossed in detective novels and hard-boiled fiction. While the books may have been what opened you up to the core ideas and characters of your novel, they now might be the impediment stunting you from finishing it. You might feel like everything you’re trying has been done before; you’ll see passages in other novels as identical to those in your manuscript, or you’ll fret over how to make your book stand out in the genre. In this case, a change in your reading habits could make all the difference in your writing. You may be better off reading material that has no direct bearing on your writing projects so your mind can rest when it’s not at work.

Reassess your writing

It sounds cliché, but sometimes you just need to give your writing an honest, intimate edit in order to overcome a case of writer’s block. Some writers get blocked because they refuse to face hard truths about their work, preferring to avoid problems as long as they can. It might be easier to ignore a poorly realized supporting character or an erroneous chapter, but big mistakes have a tendency of piling up when unaddressed. Eventually you’ll have to cut or severely edit weaker portions of your writing. But this shouldn’t be a cause for fear or hesitation; your writing will be all the more readable and enjoyable with all the fat trimmed off. The sooner you address the obstacles to your writing, the sooner you can address them and move on to more pressing matters.

This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who regularly writes for accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99 @gmail.com.

Still A Textbroker Fan

Posted by george on January 4, 2012
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , . 3 comments

My very first post on this blog was about Textbroker. At the time, I was a fresh-faced, enthusiastic freelance writer. Not so certain about my face being fresh these days but I am still a freelance writer. And I am still a fan of Textbroker. I spent a lot of time there after not visiting for a year or so and I was pleasantly surprised.

Here’s Why

  • It’s not a bidding site. The jobs are listed and categorized. I go through the list, find something I want to write and get started right away. I have control and I don’t have to wait and submit sample articles to the client.
  • There is an expanded author profile section that allows me to add a photo, writing samples, a resume and my interests/hobbies. This is important because Textbroker clients can find me directly and request my services as the writer for their project.
  • I’m paid monthly through PayPal, no muss, no fuss. UPDATE! The folks at Textbroker just tweeted me to let me know that now, weekly payouts are available!
  • I get paid based on my hard work. When you first start with Textbroker you may only accept jobs based on your current rating (a 2-5 scale). The higher your rating, the higher the pay per word. If you do a lot of jobs, you can move up fairly quick. Also, there are a lot more level 5 jobs now as opposed to a year or so ago.
  • Direct orders from clients have the potential to pay even more and can lead to long term client relationships.
  • I can take on as many jobs as I like, although one job has to be completed before another can be taken on.
  • You have the ability to rate the client instructions for each job. Thank goodness because in the past some of the instructions were so convoluted you couldn’t make heads or tails out of what the client wanted.

I encourage you to check them out. If you are a brand-spankin’ new writer then it is a gentle way to cut your teeth. If you are a seasoned freelance writer, it is a quick and easy way to supplement your income during slow times.

Have a peek and come on back to let us know what you think.