30-Day Persistence Challenge: Persevering with this blog, even

Have you noticed more blog posts from me this week? That's because I'm crazy--I signed on to do a blogathon. That means 31 posts in 31 days. You know, because I'm not busy enough.

Still, it will be fun! Lots of small snippets, lots of guest posts. I hope you enjoy it.

As blogathon organizer Michelle Rafter wrote on her site WordCount:

For the next 31 days, a merry band of freelance writer are teaming up to take part in the second annual WordCount blogathon. We’ll be testing the limits of our blogging endurance to find out if we can successfully post every day in May.

How hard can it be, right? Well, pretty darn hard. Those of us who make our living writing have those pesky paid assignments to attend to in addition to hanging out on our much more fun blogs. And while some days ideas for blog posts are as bountiful as cherry blossoms in spring, other days the idea well is as barren as those same cherry boughs in winter. Then there are the weekends, when nobody in their right mind wants to be at a keyboard.

But we’re determined to persevere. As professional blogger have noted, the more you post, the better you get at it – and if you’re doing it right – the more traffic you’ll attract to your blog.

So here’s to blogging, here’s to May and here’s to us.

Hey! There's that persistence again! And here are the brave souls who are taking the challenge with me:

• Vera Marie Badertscher – A Travelers Library – Books and movies that influence travel.
• Tim Beyers – The Social Writer – Motley Fool tech contributor and co-host of Twitter’s #editorchat.
• Heather Boerner – Serenity for the Self Employed – Advice for the self-employed among us.
• Jane Boursaw – Film Gecko – May Movie Madness and other film-related stuff.
• Melanie Bonsall – Expert Editing – The online home of this editor, proofreader and writer.
• Danielle Buffardi – Horrible Sanity – Random thoughts of a mother and freelance writer.
• Sona Charaipotra – Sona Charaipotra – for entertainmnet topics, and Ishq in a Backpack on travel and food.
• Rosie Colombraro – Trust the Universe – There is always a Plan B.
• Sue Dickman – A Life Divided – Food, gardening, travel, books and more.
• Jackie Dishner – BIKE with Jackie – Improving your life with the B.I.K.E. spiritual navigation tool.
• Ron S. Doyle – Ron S. Doyle – The literary equivalent of fruit salad and Cyclorati – Exercising my cyclophilia.
• Kelly Estes – Big Government in Your Wallet – A political blog.
• Jennifer L.W. Fink – Blogging ‘Bout Boys – With 4 boys between 11 & 3, this writer knows her subject.
• Sydne George - I’ll Have What She’s Cooking – Good eats.
• Debra Gordon – Wine on Tuesdays
• Nancy Hall – Floating Ink – How to fit making art into your every day life.
• KT Hinderer – Write Beyond the Cubicle – Musings of a full-time freelance writer and editor.
• Heather Holliday – Zazou Marketing – Putting your best words forward.
• Elizabeth Humphrey – TheWriteElizabeth – Introducing creativity into daily life.
• Leah Ingram – Suddenly Frugal – Tips for frugal living.
• JoAnn Jagroop – This Dame Cooks – Recipes from Alaska to the South Pacific.
• Sara Lancaster – No. 2 Pen Blog – Blog of this Denver, freelance Web & marketing writer.
• Doug Lance – Freelance Fiction – “I get paid to tell sweet, sweet lies.”
• Jared Lopatin – Sign in Ink – Everyday life as motivated by astrological happenings.
• Jenn Maciejewski – Cities on the Cheap – Freebies and deals in multiple cities across the U.S.
• Eric Mack – Wrecking Ball Report, MountainDaddy and SaveThatReceipt.
• Lisa Mann – Sonoma on the Cheap – One of the Cities on the Cheap blogs, this one for Sonoma, Calif.
• Joy Manning – What I Weigh Today – A food writer reflects on weight and body image issues.
• Teresa Mears – Miami on the Cheap – A Cities on the Cheap blog for Miami.
• Amy Rauch Neilson – It’s in the Genes – Thoughts of a breast cancer survivor.
• Jennifer Netherby – Jennifer Netherby – Musings of a freelance writer.
• Sarah E. Ludwig – Parenting by Trial and Error – Learning, growing, staying flexible.
• Michelle V. Rafter – WordCount: Freelancing in the Digital Age – Plugging into the online news biz.
• Kate Reilly – Polka Dot Suitcase – Finding fun in everyday life.
• Meredith Resnick – Inner Writing Journey – Authors & professional creatives in quirky dialogue on how they write and why it works.
• Melissa Sais – Digital Mom – Raising kids in a digital world.
• Brette Sember – Martha and Me – One Martha Stewart makeover a day.
• Kathy Summers – EcoPregnancy & Baby and Health Writing Hints.
• Jodi Torpey – Western Gardeners – Your online guide to gardening in the West.
• Sarah Webb – Webb of Science – Where science meets life.
• Jennifer Willis – The Green Soul Guide – Where sustainability and spirituality meet.

Enjoy!

More on sustainability

Yesterday, I met with some extremely successful, prodigious freelance writers, and we shared what was working for us and what wasn't. All that talk got me thinking of sustainability in another way.

Let's just talk about money for a minute.

I touched on this yesterday. Sustainable work may be calculated by dividing the money you're earning by the amount of time you actually want to spend working, but there are other calculations:

* How long does it take to get paid?

It's been my experience that, as a writer, it's not sustainable to work for places that pay on publication. Why? Because by doing so you're essentially giving your client a business loan: I'll write this story for you, and if your publication folds, I'll agree to take the loss. Pay on publication also hints at a client who's having financial trouble. Think of it this way: If you told the electric company that you would pay them when you had the money, they'd shut off your lights. Why are your services any more expendable?

I've had lots of clients like this, and many of the staff people I dealt with were a delight, and I loved the work itself. But I couldn't sustain myself on the several month pay cycle pay-on-publication requires.

Of course there's a place for long-paying clients, but waiting a year for payment is egregious. Especially with a startup, you may be putting yourself in a position to never get paid, and that kind of stress can cloud your serenity and your thinking, leading you to believe that the client has more power than you do.

It's okay to say no.

One of the writers I talked to last night had a brilliant plan: She went out and had a stamp made up. On her new pay-on-publication contract, she stamped it with, "Payment due by ____"--a date that was 30 days from acceptance.

She got paid in one week.

She also approached her editors and told them politely that she had "changed my payment policy. I now only accept payment on acceptance."

It worked.

Not only will that kind of self-advocacy pay for itself with a quicker--and guaranteed--return on your investment, but it creates sustainable work that allows you to keep going in a field you love.

Serenity Tip: Working Toward Sustainability

Sustainability is one of those words that's starting to get a bad rap. Read it now, and there's almost a Pavlovian response: eco, green, kitchen grease powering your car... (not that there's anything wrong with that).

But I want to talk about it from a different perspective. For something to be sustainable, it has to be sane, somewhat moderate and have the ability to be self-perpetuating. In a way, this is another definition of serenity.

Take a look at your work life: In this culture, most of us are encouraged to take part in behaviors that are not really self-perpetuating. I talked to a freelance friend the other day who goes through these cycles: Incredibly productive, working 10 hour days and taking a few hours off on the weekends, getting a lot done, making deadlines, making money. And then she crashes, and can't work for weeks.

Everything is big: Big work, big rest. As a self-employed person you may be familiar with this cycle. And there's something natural about boom and bust cycles, even when it comes to productivity and energy.

But. There is another way.

This gets to that other dreaded buzz word: "balance." Balance can be a bludgeon people use to harangue those of us who put work first. But instead, think about it this way:

* How do you really want to spend your time?
* How are you spending your time?
* What parts of your life give you the most joy?

It could be that the answers to those three things are all completely different. Or it could be that they're pretty well in line.

Then ask yourself:

* How can I sustain those things I love doing?

For work, that could be nurturing your relationship with clients you particularly enjoy working with or who assign you projects that are really fulfilling.

And then there's the other part of sustainability, which is financial:

* How much money do you need to support those values and sustain them?

That means money for trips to see far-flung loved ones, or money to support the volunteer work you love. Or it means attracting high-enough-paying clients to knock off work at 5 o'clock every night. Or taking a month off every six months to recharge your batteries.

What does sustainability look like for you?

The scary part of looking at this stuff is that it forces your to get clarity about what all your expenses actually are. It can be a shock: How much does it really cost, if you're Christian, to buy all those Christmas presents, to attend your loved ones' weddings, to go on that romantic vacation with your partner? And then how much time does it take to sustain friendships and love relationships?

Put those together and you have a new way of figuring your minimum hourly income: Divide the amount of money you need to support the life you want ongoing, by the time you need to set aside for work after you account for the time you need for things outside work.

Is that number realistic?

Before you run off and find a full time job, it's possible that it's more possible than you think. You don't need to achieve it right now, but it's a goal, just like your monthly income targets and your target clients. Let it be there, and see where you can make just a little more of it work in your real life.

Serenity Tip: Diversifying

To follow up on yesterday's post, let's talk a little more about how to set up your work to make cash flow more serene.

We've already covered how to create a cushion for your self with spending.

Now, let's talk about how to create a mix of clients to address cashflow and sustainability of your self-employed career. If you've been doing this for any length of time, you may already know this stuff. I hope this can be helpful, though.

When I started freelancing, I set out a plan:

* Find clients that pay quickly

In Six Figure Freelancing, Kelly James-Enger suggests finding clients who will pay you quickly to shore up any holes in your cash flow. Often, these are low paying clients. But if you can form a regular relationship with them, you'll have money to pull you through. And you'll have a guaranteed base of income, at least for a while.

* Find clients that pay well:

Ideally, these would be the same as the first, but many clients, I find, pay slowly if they pay well. But if you've got a balance, it won't matter much. The important thing here is to find several of these.

When you're starting out, it's easy to feel relieved when you've found a client that pays you a livable wage, but sadly one is not enough. If something happens to that one client, you're left scrambling and feeling, perhaps, like you're not being a good steward to yourself and your business.

One person I talked to recommended having no one client represent more than a quarter of your income in any month. The reasoning? A quarter of your income is easier to make up or cope with in a month than 3/4th of your income.

* Try trial and error:

Having said all this, I've found that experiencing the ebbs and flow of business naturally guide me to what I need to do to shore up cash flow. So be proud of that Big Fish client, and if for some reason it doesn't pay as expected, feel what it's like to scramble to replace most of your feelings. Create awareness by doing a written check in, meditate or at least take a day to experience what it feels like in your body, and then take the next step: seek out other abundant clients, follow up on pay, figure out what happened and add it to your list of situations that can--and will--happen in your professional life. And then accept it.

Finding Serenity with Income Goals

If you have a business plan, then chances are you have income goals. And if you're like a lot of self-employed people, your income goals are probably a whole lot higher than your income history. Either you're new to self-employment and growing your business or you're experiencing a slowing of income increases that a 2004 study documented in the journal Science.

When considering my income goals for this year, some self employed friends gave me the following advice:

"If you're the type of person who can handle it when you don't meet your goals, then shoot for the moon. If, on the other hand, you feel like a failure and spend a lot of energy beating yourself up when you don't reach a goal, then you should set more modest goals.

Now, I've always fallen into the latter category. I'm very goal oriented, very Type A--but the unintended consequence of being so oriented towards outcomes is that inevitably you don't reach your goals at some point and not reaching those goals can send you into a spin of self-loathing and self-pity. Ans serenity? Right out the window.

So you're coming to the end of the first month of the year and it's a good time to reflect back on those goals you created at the end of 2007. How are you doing?

To assess, consider the following questions:

Are you close to your goal for the month?
What's the margin of difference between your goal and the reality for the month?
How does that goal feel in your body as you are putting it into action? What I mean is, when you think about that goal and how your income is actually flowing in comparison, do you feel panicky?
Do you feel proud?
Do you feel hopeless?
Do you feel like a failure?
Do you feel secure?

You get the point. A business plan isn't some dusty thing you put on a shelf. It's a living thing that--and here's the important part--you can adjust to match your needs. The important thing about a business plan is that it motivates and supports your business and your serenity as a self-employed person. If you're in the panicky category, you may be tempted to tone down those goals. That's allowed after all. But before you do that, consider this:

Wait a few months.

I know, it can feel excruciating. But you need to see where the gap between your earnings and your goals is the result of an unrealistic goal or if it's the result of some oversight in your marketing efforts.

So before you scale back, see where you can increase your income next month to balance your earning from this month. It's less important what you make this month than what you make on average over the next six months.

So don't be precipitous with your goal fiddling. But do be aware. Just do one small thing to increase your company's profile today. If after a few months, you're continuing to feel terrible, consider changing your goal.

Until then, consider it a practice of setting your intention with the universe.

If, at the end of those few months--let's say, at the end of the first quarter--you find you're not okay with falling short of your goals, then it's possible that you need to revise it--and then revise your expectations for spending, too.

And it's possible that you need to look at your mix of clients and marketing to see what's most effective for you.

The point is not the goal. The point is whether it motivates you in a positive way.

Serenity in business, I feel, comes from sustainability more than anything else.

So did I reach my goal for this month? Nope.

But I'm oddly fine with it. I don't know if it's the meditation, the support or the planning, but I can see my income stream projected for the next two months and it's outstripping this month several times over. Part of that, I'm finding, is seasonal. Last year, January was a tough month, too. The difference this year is that I'm better targeting my marketing and doing more work I love with better reward (both intellectually and financially) than I was last year.

Having a plan, more than anything, makes it so I find it easier to bounce back after a stressful or short month. Let's face it--cash flow will always be an issue for us self-employed people. That's out of our control.

What we can focus on, then, is how we plan for and react to our circumstances.