Creative Writing

Are you a responsible writer?  I’m in the process of learning a valuable lesson.  I sort of screwed up and it may have cost me a client.  Here’s the scoop.  With the influx of people contacting me for writing assignments, I accidentally misplaced one of the emails and totally forgot about someone.  Seriously, I forgot about them all together.

This person contacted me today to see how the article was coming along, and I had a panic attack.  As soon as I saw their name in the from field, I knew I was in trouble.  I sent them an apology letter and told them what had happened.  But more important, I took responsibility for my actions.  I didn’t make any excuses, like the dog ate my computer or anything like that.  I was honest and told them that I’d forgotten about the email.

This person sent a message back and sounded like they understood and had forgiven me, but I guess time will tell.  I went ahead and finished the article, then told the client that there was no charge.  I feel so guilty for spacing them off, that I didn’t think asking for money would be appropriate.  I had made a mistake but that doesn’t make it easier for a client who’s expecting an article on time.

In my real world life, I’m a Boy Scout leader.  One of the things I try to teach the kids, and my own children for that matter, is that we all must be responsible for what we do and say.  It’s the same thing for writers.  When someone asks us to write for them, we have to be responsible enough to do the work in a timely manner, and make sure that they’re happy with the end results.

I hope the client is happy with the article, and that they will come to me again in the future.  Though it’s true that stuff happens, it’s also true that we writers have an obligation to meet our deadlines and have the decency to be held accountable for what we put down into words.  When there are a few or a hundred other people out there reading the things we have to say, we need to take into consideration that those words may hit home with some.  We need to be responsible writers.

Holy Cow!!! It’s April and I haven’t posted anything new here. Guess I need to fix that. I do apologize for not posting anything new around here, but I’ve been very busy which is a good thing. I think I mentioned a few posts ago, about a friend of mine who went and told the world that if they were in the market for a great writer, they should look me up. Though I wasn’t sure my friend was in his right mind, I did appreciate what he did for me, and more so now.

I’m thrilled to admit that I have 5 clients that I write for on a regular basis. You have no idea how cool that is for me. Since I was a little kid, I’ve always wanted to be a professional writer. I had no idea what that entailed at the time, but I sure do now. So, here’s my take on what it is to be a real writer. For my real writing buddies out there, please bare in mind that I have had no official education in this area, I just knew this is what I wanted to do, and I did everything I could to see it happen. Ok, I guess you could call 10 years of trying to make things work on the Internet before getting to this point a formal education, but you know what I mean.

Ok, now for those of you who want to be professional writers, here’s what you need to be aware of. First of all, you will have clients who think you’re the greatest writer in the world, and you’ll have clients who will have you rework your articles a hundred times before they’re happy. You can’t please everybody no matter how hard you try. You will also have the client who will tell you pretty much what they want word for word. I used to hate these types of clients until it dawned on me that they were paying me to let them write the article. Well duh!!!

You will have periods when you think the work will never end. Guess what, it does. Just when you think you can’t handle one more assignment, it all goes away. First time this happened to me, I thought I’d done something wrong. Don’t take it personal. Unless your clients have come to you and said, “Hey, you suck”, it could just be that they’ve got all the articles they need or that they’re just out of money. This is when you need to have a few projects on the back-burner. I have several, sometimes way too many. Yeah, I’m one of those people who has too many irons in the fire.

You will also have clients who order a couple of articles, then suddenly won’t have the funds to pay you. This is where a writer’s life can get sticky. Depending on the client, you need to stay on top of this matter. Don’t be too overbearing, or they won’t pay at all. However, if you let it slide, you may never see your money. If you run into this, my suggestion is to send gentle reminders about once a week. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of reminding them. They’re busy people too. I can’t tell you what to do if they don’t pay you at all, as I haven’t run into this problem yet.

Finally, be prepared to bang your head against your keyboard on regular occasions. Some of the assignments that clients send you will have you tearing your hair out. You’ll be pretty sure that the client is a total nutjob and wants to take you with them. When this happens, my suggestion is to breathe in deep, close your eyes, then dive in with both feet. Sometimes riding the crazy train is a good thing.

Honestly, I can’t say if this is the life of every freelance writer. This is the way it works for me, and so far it’s been well worth the time. If you can take a little rejection, a lot of frustration, and find it within yourself to laugh off the garbage, then you’ll be a writer in no time. It only took me 10 years.

I’ve always heard the terms, “…so strange it had to be real”. Though I did know what that meant, I really didn’t think anything had ever happened to me that could be put in that category. Then it dawned on me that there are things going on around me all the time that would be more than perfect for this idea. One of those things is the weather around my part of the country.

I live in Western Nebraska and we have a saying around here that goes, “If you don’t like the weather, stick around a minute and it will change”, and truer words were never spoken. In just the past few days we’ve seen a serious electrical storm that struck a transformer in our town and took out the electricity (Monday morning). Then we got to experience our annual spring blizzard (Monday afternoon), then warm winds that melted everything into huge puddles (Tuesday), and then 55* temperatures and sunshine, (Today). Tomorrow, we’re expecting more snow and by Friday, it’s supposed to be in the 60’s.

The point I’m trying to make is that when you’re working on a story or an idea for a scene, there is no such thing as “unbelievable weather”. Trust me, I’ve seen it all right here in my own backyard. I’ve even seen a phenomenon that has been referred to as “rare” and “a once in a lifetime” moment. That phenomenon is when it thunders-lightnings-and snows. Yes, snows. I read recently on National Geographic ’s website that this is something that is extremely rare. Oddly enough, I’ve seen it happen more than once in my lifetime. I had no idea that it was such a rare event.

When you write about a strange event, in this case something pertaining to the weather, you don’t have to stick to what everyone else deems as normal. You can go above and beyond the norm and still create a believable story. There are instances when you can take your story too far. But, when it comes to adding little details to your, such as thunder-lightning-and snow, go for it. Minor details like these will give body to your story and make your reader feel the scene, not just read about it.

I have something to admit to the world. I am a Thesaurus junkie. I’ve known this for some time now, but was never able to admit it openly. Thanks to my friend Nannette , I can now come clean. Nannette is also a self-proclaimed Thesaurus junkie, and I felt better getting it off my chest and out to the rest of the world. I’m also learning that there are several Thesaurus junkies out there, and I want to help save as many as I can, so here is my story.

My name is Christine and I am a Thesaurus junkie. I grabbed my first Thesaurus copy while still in high school. All the kids in English class were doing it, and I jumped in without a care in the world. After all, I was young and I’d had a taste of the writing drug. It didn’t take me long to become completely hooked.

By the time I had gotten out of high school, I carried a Thesaurus with me all the time. I always had a story in my head, and was always on the lookout for just the right words. Being the naive child that I was, I had no idea what I was doing by mixing story telling and thesaurus use at the same time. It took me a long time to see the downward spiral I was heading in.

One I got married and began having children, I knew I had to do something about my Thesaurus habit, but I just couldn’t stop. I was reading my thesaurus for several hours a day. When the kids were taking a nap, I’d sneak in a few pages. While I was making dinner, I’d scan a quick peak when nobody was looking. I even found myself staying up till all hours of the morning rummaging through my thesaurus for odd words I knew I’d never use in a story. I just needed my Thesaurus fix.

It wasn’t until about 2 years ago, that I realized that my Thesaurus habit had gotten out of hand. I began yelling at the people around me, as I was sure that one of them had stolen my Thesaurus and hidden it from me. I tore my house apart and eventually found it under my pillow, where I’d had it the night before. I had gotten so intoxicated on mixing and matching words that I had totally blacked out. That was when I knew it was time to seek help.

I have worked very hard these past few years to curb my thirst for words have similar meanings to the ones I have in my head. I can’t say that I’m 100% Thesaurus free, but I have forced myself to look inside myself for my word weaving fix. Today, I am down to only one page a day. With any luck, I’ll be able to kick my Thesaurus habit for good, or at least stop using it as a dictionary.

My name is Christine and I am a Thesaurus Addict.

As I’ve said many times before, I don’t particularly believe in the term “writer’s block”.  If you’re a writer, you can always find something to write about.  I was sitting here tonight, thinking of what to write about when I realized that I have a ton of ideas sitting just a few feet away from me.  As someone who’s been writing and scribbling for many years, I’ve got a ton of notebooks and loose sheets of paper lying around filled with little notes and tidbits.  So, I decided to go through a few of these and see what I could find.

For anyone who’s had the itch to write over the years, it’s a pretty good bet that you’ve got something similar to my situation.  You may not have quite the volume I’ve got, but you’ve probably got notebooks lying around, computer files sitting there doing nothing, or just little slips of paper with basic ideas scratched on them.  So, pick them up, rummage through them, get them organized in a way that makes some sort of sense.

As I sat here going through a few of my old notebooks, I began to think about all the things I’ve been interested in over the years.  I’ve also come to the realization that I may need a therapist, but that’s a different story.  The point is that over time, you’ve surely come up with a few ideas that you may have thought were totally worthless, but may now be something you can use.  You never know unless you take the time to go back and look them over again.

A great way to take stock of all your past writings and scribbles, is to sit down and get them organized.  I do this by creating several different files in my computer for different things.  I have files for writing prompts, story starters, mythology, historical facts, and article starters.  I never know what I’ll find to go in each of these files, but it’s a blast looking through some of my older notebooks and getting them put into their prospective files.  It’s also a great way to go back to the folders and see some of the things already in there that I’d forgotten about.  Over time, you can create a ton of ideas for those days when there just doesn’t seem to be any inspiration.

So, rummage through all your old ideas and see if you can’t find a few diamonds in the rough.  You might be amazed at how many things you thought to be bunk, could end up being just the thing to get you back on track and writing your little heart out.  Go ahead, I dare you.