Author: Cheryl Paquin
Source: articleage.com
Am badly ailing of spending freezing weekends in bedimmed newsroom earning
$12.36 per hour as annual editor. Too abundant time spent abroad from apron and
children, and it's bare 20 F. if I accomplishment work. Wish to abandon from job
and freelance, and acquire lots of money while ensconced in the amore of my
home, with two daughters arena blithely abreast feet. Wish a job that will
allow me to biking to appointment ancestors in Australia at atomic already a year —
preferably during Minnesotan winter.
Have ordered Secrets of a Freelance Writer: How to Accomplish $85,000 a Year by
Robert W. Bly from Amazon.com. I accept I can reside on this anniversary income
and abutment my biking habit.
March 2000:
Devour Bly's book and accept all he says. Abandon from job with spousal
approval, with abundant money to awning bills for a brace of months.
Enthusiastically architecture and book all my own business cards, letterheads and
stationary. Buy bags of stamps from column appointment for bags of query
letters. Accept noticed, however, that the minute I sit down to address a query
letter, something urgent, like alteration baby's diaper, needs utmost
attention. Organize myself by stacking anew printed anchored tidily into
filing cabinet. Spent time charwoman desk, and affairs pens and paperclips.
Also buy bags of women's magazines — official bazaar research.
April 2000:
Decide I accept to get austere about autograph career with no assets acquired in
March. Enthusiastically accompany hundreds of online autograph lists. Become scared
with professionalism of some groups so absorb hours and canicule in added social
groups. Feel abashed at abbreviating coffer antithesis and conjugal concern
at abridgement of autograph work. Treble efforts patroling online job markets.
May 2000:
Hurrah! Success - acknowledge to online job for writers and editors, pass
editing analysis and accept assignments: $ 700 per commodity and $30 per hour as
editor.
June 2000:
Hurrah! Defy affair guidelines listed in Writer's Bazaar for regional
magazine such as querying by snail mail and cat-and-mouse six weeks for response.
Send e-mail affair to editor allurement if she wants to see biking piece. Editor
replies anon via e-mail. Advertise commodity for for $400 aboriginal rights,
payment on acceptance.
July 2000:
Wait for checks to access in the mail accepting becoming over $2,500 endure month.
Wait some added and put annual into overdraft, paying ample sums in
overdraft fees. Apprentice that banknote breeze is absolute important to apprentice small
business. Also apprentice that it is absolute important to accumulate querying instead of
resting on laurels, admiring achievements.
August 2000:
Checks activate to distill in slowly. Online autograph get arise online. Feel
inspired to accumulate going, about no work. Accouchement are home for the summer
and time is bound for writing. Head lice break out in house, efforts to
control bane that will not abdicate consumes added time. Finally overcome
problem, and advertise, last minute weekend breaks, commodity on assault Nix-resistant nits. Decide life's
little dramas are acceptable autograph fodder.
September 2000:
Children acknowledgment to school, hurrah. Address gets sold. No time to be a
freelance biographer as we backpack and try to acquisition about to live. Hurrah,
magazine with biking appears — my aboriginal "glossy". Am badly captivated and
feel famous.
October 2000:
Settle into new address — accouchement are lice-free; toddler is at childcare,
recommence freelance autograph career. Algid and flu division begins — children
take turns at getting ill over three-week period. Just as they are well, I get
sick.
November 2000:
Hurrah! Annual editor that arise biking commodity calls and asks me to
write account online autograph — alone baby section but feel like a absolute minor
celebrity, about a poor one.
December 2000:
No time for writing! Consumed with authoritative arty-crafty ability for arty-crafty
inlaws. Seriously counterbalance up if freelancing is applicable venture. Feeling very
homesick and abandoned as a work-at-home mother -- missing blithe activities
of plan life. Decide, however, that alive fulltime, and coordinating
offspring amid academy and childcare, would be too difficult. Decide to
get REALLY austere about autograph as anon as new year rolls around. Heartened
at anniversary to ascertain I fabricated a absolute baby accumulation from autograph endeavors.
January 2001:
Have lots and lots of account for queries and anxiously account them, research
them, but assume to accept no time to address absolute queries. Realize I absorb far
too abundant time cerebration about getting a biographer than in fact writing. Realize
that action is the alone way to accomplish autograph success. Realize at times
I am acutely lacking. However, do accept approved annual addition and
editing plan so at atomic feel like I'm accomplishing something.
February 2001:
Dot.com alteration gig folds in accepted bread-and-butter climate. Sigh! Back to the
resume, and canoeing online job sites, and bags of affair letters. Anxiously
checking mailbox anniversary day for checks attributable from above dot.com to
appear.
Realize I will accept to plan a lot harder if I wish to biking to Australia
this year. However, at atomic freezing algid nights are spent at home with
offspring cautiously ensconced at feet.
Decide to accomplish last-ditch attack at writing. Set accessible goals — both
writing and financial, and boldness to acquisition a cure for dabbling — self
discipline.
