Freelance Serenity: Acceptance

At a recent writer's group, a colleague and I were chatting about the kind of work we dream of doing: The kind of long-form, narrative journalism that takes 30,000 words to unfold. The kind that allows you to develop mysteries, characters and ideas before revealing the nugget of fact.

And then I came back to my office and dug into the two edits I was working on. One had been going on since December. The other, for a month. They were unusually long and arduous edits, from editors I knew and trusted and therefore didn't mind.

But it taught me a lesson that I will bring to future stories--or reminded me of it:

Our job as freelancers isn't to do the kind of story we want to do. It's to do the story our clients want.

It seems obvious, but how many times have you tried to structure a story as a medical mystery when your client wanted a by-the-book overview of a subject? How many times have you tried to shoehorn in a delicate turn of phrase when your client wanted pithy, pithy, pithy?

Admit it: We've all done it.

It's not that developing your craft and giving your editor a more complex or interesting story than they asked for is a bad impulse--sometimes it turns out wonderfully. And it's a credit to those of us who love journalism that we're willing to take risks.

But there's a difference between taking risks and letting our ego get in the way of our jobs. It's ego vs. service. And guess what? To get paid--and to maintain serenity--service has to win.

Next time you're sitting in front of your computer, ruing the most recent bulleted service piece you're writing, or irritated at an editor for asking for a different type of story, reflect:

• What type of story does this client usually want from me? If it's always a service feature, don't give them a feature without any helpful hints.
• Why am I resisting doing it their way? Is it because your approach will better elucidate the story's point, or is it because you haven't been able to find an appropriate outlet for your more creative writing style?
• Who am I serving? The first answer to come to your mind will probably be an indignant, "Well, my client, of course!" But look again. If you're trying to make up for feeling stuck in an outworn niche or for the fact that you haven't gone after your dream markets--or haven't had success with them--you're serving your own professional ambitions and ego, not your client.

The key here is to get to get to know yourself. If it really is to give your editor the story better than she asked for it, you can go to bat with your editor.

But you may find that you really want to write medical-mystery stories, or that you want to take a class in literary journalism. Once you have that self-knowledge, you can put it into action, instead of fobbing of your ambitions on your hapless client.

Then you can go about showing up for the work you have as it is, instead of trying to force it to be something it's not--and getting frustrated with clients.

Doing so doesn't have to limit your career either: In fact, realizing where you want to spend your energy and the types of stories you want to do can lead to avenues you might not have pursued otherwise. For instance, now I know: I need to pitch a reslant of a story to a totally different market, with a totally different approach--a completely new story, really--and see what happens.

Energy: Unblocked
Serenity: Maintained
Client: Served
What do you do to make sure you're serving your client's needs instead of your own?
Photo by striatic.

30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: Have you found the time?

As this 30-day challenge winds down--and the year does the same--it's a good time to check in on progress. Tomorrow, I'll sum up this challenge in wrap-up post. But first, a question:

Have you found the time to do your business planning?

I'll be honest: I know exactly what I will do, but I haven't done it yet. Does that mean I won't do it? No. The great thing is, despite the overwhelming number of modules I laid out for you last week and the week before, it only took me two hours to update my business plan last year.

That's because I have a structure and have practice.

That wasn't the case the first year I tried doing it on my own. I didn't get to it until April or May, and I slogged through it over several weeks, each step more painful than the last. Basically, I didn't know what I was doing.

So if it's slow-going this year, don't be put off. Learn from my experience:

Getting through your business plan this year will tell you what information you need to track in 2009 to make your 2010 business plan a breeze.

I've mentioned it several times, but I keep track of my income, my time and my assignments all in one Word doc. For you, it might be better to do it in QuickBooks or Quicken or Excel or on some iPhone app with which I'm unfamiliar. But the point is to create the doc, save it as a new file every month (god bless the creators of the "Save As" button), and track:

• What kind of work you do,
• Who your clients are
• How much you earned and
• From which sources

Then you can sit down at a cafe, as I plan to do tomorrow afternoon, and go through it all with a calculator and a chart. And voila! Business plan!

It really doesn't have to be painful--and keeping track can show you the progress you're making. It's done wonders for my query motivation to see how much money I'm earning from stories I pitch myself.

Do you have one hour you can spend on your business planning this week?

30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: 2009 Modules Part 3

This is the fifth in a series of modules you can choose from to start making a business plan as you go. The first post laid out modules for your values and mission. The second laid out modules for assessing 2008. The third laid out your financial goals for 2009. The fourth helped you come up with a plan for reaching your financial goals.

Today, we'll complete the modules--and help you meet your goals.

Remember: You can start anywhere. I've suggested an order, but please don't let it stop you. Pick one, do it, and go back to work.

Coverage Areas 2009
Looking back on your breakdown of the types of stories you do and the beats you cover and assess. And look at the financial health of your current clients.

Now, make a list:

• Coverage types you love;
• Coverage types you tolerate; and
  
• Coverage types you want to quit in 2009.

Maybe you're sick to death of service pieces. Maybe you love profiles but only did one this year. Make a goal to find and pitch more of the types you like and to let go of the ones that drag you down. Be specific. Do you want to do five profiles? Cut service pieces down to 10 this year? Just make a goal.

Do the same for beats.

New beats 2009
Now that you know what you want to cover next year, look at what new beats you want to add in 2009. Are there areas that are more profitable into which you want to expand? Are there topics that you don't cover but would like to? Maybe there's a coverage area that seems more profitable that you want to explore.

Make a list and spend a few minutes brainstorming stories and markets.

Market Changes
Now that you know who you've worked for this year, how much you like them and how much money you need to make to support your dreams, revisit your list of current clients.

Divide it into:

• Clients you love;
• Clients I'm on the fence about; and
  
• Clients to let go in the coming year.

Target Markets
You may have discovered that you need to pitch. Where will you do it? Look at the magazines, custom pubs and corporate clients you want to break into and choose five primary ones. If they're consumer pubs, subscribe to them and study them. If they're corporate or custom pubs, make a list of 10-20.

Hey guess what? You've done it!

Now go reward yourself!

30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: 2009 Modules Part 2

This is the fourth in a series of modules you can choose from to start making a business plan as you go. The first post laid out modules for your values and mission. The second laid out modules for assessing 2008. The third laid out your financial goals for 2009. And now, we start with the modules that will help you meet those goals.

So if the last post scared you, this one will start giving you answers. Let's get to it!

Remember: You can start anywhere. I've suggested an order, but please don't let it stop you. Pick one, do it, and go back to work.

Where You'll Get the Money
For me, this is the fun part. There are lots of ways to do this. Some freelancers, like Katrina Ramser, come up with exactly how much money they expect each client to give them in 2009 and where she has holes to fill to meet those goals.

I do it a little differently.

I play around with the work types I do and their average pay (department: $1600; short: $300; feature: $3000; etc.) to come up with five or six different scenarios that will help me make my goal.

It's similar to the way novelist and writing instructor Elizabeth Stark describes putting together a piece of fiction. She says, "Putting chunks together is exactly how to build a story." I would say that putting together pieces of income is how you make a living as a freelancer. She goes on to say:

A story was usually about at least two things, two unexpectedly juxtaposed things, out of which a third–call it meaning [ed. note: for our purposes, we'll call it self-sufficiency]–emerged. The tension in story comes where the crosscurrents create suction, movement, a whirlpool.

Try laying out your cards. Shuffle the deck and try it another way. Card by card, lay out the story, until it’s one you’ve never heard before but which you know to be true.

It's the same for coming up with how you'll make your income goal. Lay out the different types of work you do one by one and put them together: two features a month will get you your income goal, perhaps. Or maybe two shorts, a department and a feature. Or some other combination.

Come up with a bunch of these and you'll have the combinations in your head as you query and put together your work for a month. Will it help you meet your financial goals? Now you'll know. This flexibility shows me that there are lots of ways to meet my financial goals.

You may find that none of the work you do will get you to your income goal. Or you may find that one feature client isn't enough an you'll need more. That's okay. I have been there. The next post will show you how to find clients that will get you to your income goals.

30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: 2008 Modules

Yesterday's post laid out a few modules for you to choose from when you start working on a business plan. But wait--there's more! Today, we're focusing on modules that help analyze your 2008 work, with more to come tommorow.

Remember: You can start anywhere. I've suggested an order, but please don't let it stop you. Pick one, do it, and go back to work.

Favorite Clients
List all your clients, then rank them from one to five, with five being "I never want to get an email from them again" and one being, "I want to marry this publication and have lots of zine babies."

You'll use this module as you get to the next section, planning for 2009. You can't know where you're going till you know where you've been.

Client Health
This is a new module I'm thinking of adding to my biz plan this year: In it, I'll look up news on my client's health and see how they're doing. That way, when I get to planning for 2009, I'll have a sense of where I need to take my marketing efforts.

Work Breakdown
Equip yourself with a pen and piece of paper and scan back through your articles for 2008. Make some lists.

• Types of assignments you did: ie, reviews, service pieces, departments, shorts, features, essays, etc.
• Coverage areas: ie, health, real estate, technology, green lifestyle.
  

Whatever it is, list the type of work or beat, and then put hash marks next to each type every time you come across it. Had a year where you felt weighed down by work, irritated? It may be because you were doing types of work that don't feed you anymore. Or it could be that you're no longer excited by a coverage area.

Source of Clients
This is one of my favorite modules, and one that was really eye-opening when I added it last year. Take that list of all your clients and then think back to how you started working for them. This will show you what kind of marketing works for you: Networking, cold calling/pitching, referrals, etc.

Spending Breakdown
To know how much you need to earn next year, you first have to have a baseline of spending from which to start. A quick spin through your online bank account or accounting software may be enough. Or, if you're anal like me, you'll want to go back through a month's worth of spending and write down every penny to see what you really spend. Divide it by "business" and "personal."

I can hear you now: We had unexpected expenses this year. I shouldn't count them. Count everything. You'll always have some unexpected or unusual spending. It's the nature of the beast. Just make a category for "Unexpected." And be sure to include how much you spent on taxes.