"Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive -- the risk to be alive and express what we really are."
--Don Miguel Ruiz














Photo by roland.

Writing the Dream Query for the Dream Job

Recently, the fabulous Renegade Writer Blog posted a q&a with former New Yorker writer Dan Baum, and he shares both an interesting approach to freelancing and a whole treasure-trove of detailed queries. Some of those landed assignments at The New Yorker.

I point this out because it's interesting to see the amount of detail and the work he's put into his queries. One query I read, which landed him an assignment writing about the "jake leg" for The New Yorker, was so compelling I couldn't stop reading. No surprise it landed the assignment. It taught me a couple things about long-form narrative non-fiction pitches:

• Write like you've got the assignment. Duh, right? But I know I've queried the New Yorker with far less narrative pitches, and I can see why his pitch sold and mine didn't. It's a case of show-don't-tell.
• Details, details. The pitch is like a short article--fully researched, sourced and well-crafted.
• Open access. All good queries should do tell the editor about access, but his do a good job of showing the editor that he's thought out how much background he'll need and where he'll need to go to get it. It makes the job easier on the editor and builds trust.

He also has a great quote about how he pursues his sources for his queries. It fits with the persistence theme, but also gives a window into another freelancer's world (emphasis mine):

[To make it,] I think it takes relentlessness. When I’m starting to work on a story, I’ll start reading about something, and I’ll just follow every link, and as I’m doing it I’ll make a list in a Word document of the people that I need to find.

I start calling them immediately, and talking to them and taking notes on my computer. The expression I use with Margaret is “I had a red dog day today,” which means I had my nose down on the ground and I was going after everything today. Just hoovering in enormous amounts of information. And when I start a proposal, I try to have a series of red dog days where I am just relentless, going after everybody, and as soon as I encounter somebody’s name I pick up the phone and I call. When I finish the interview I say, Who else should I talk to? Then I call those people.

I don’t put it off — I don’t say these are people I’m going to call later — I do it right then. Man, there are times when in one day I can get enough information to write a proposal that will get me a $12,000 magazine assignment.

If you're a freelancer interested in long-form narrative, check out his archive and try an exercise:

• Take one of the queries
• Take a story you've written that you thought had narrative potential
• Start playing with your notes and research and practice making a narrative query from those notes and that research.

See how it works. Is there more research you need to do? What's missing? Do you know how to find the missing piece, or do you need to talk to someone about it?

It's fun. Try it and tell me how it works, and I'll do the same.

30-Day Marketing Challenge: Saturday Bloglink Edition, Now With Extra Twittering

To follow up on yesterday's Q&A with Jenny Cromie, I decided to take the plung. I'm Twittering (or is it tweeting? I don't know the lingo yet) at HeatherBoerner. Follow me!

Now for some helpful links.

Speaking of Twitter, I'm loving Robert Middleton's more frequent blogging efforts, and his most recent post breaking down some rules for tweeting. The gist: Focus your tweets on a narrow specialty area, make sure they're of value and link, link, link. He says more, though and you should check it out.

And one more great post from Robert: Time to reevaluate your professional Web site or create one? (Remember, Jenny mentioned yesterday that having a professional Web site is one part of a marketing plan.) Robert gives you some clues about how to rate your Web site and ways to make it more marketable. It's given me some great ideas for improving my site as well.

If you're guilty of avoiding marketing--and who isn't?--consider reading Janine Adams' great post on what to do instead when you want to check your email, Twitter, Facebook or organize your sock drawer instead of marketing.

Finally, I'll end this bloglink edition with Elizabeth Stark's literate and inspiring post about why we market in the first place. Using the analogy of throwing the ball around (an activity she says is more fun when you "push the ball away" instead of holding it close), she says the joy of marketing is sharing your creativity with the world:

You throw the ball when you take an idea and toss it onto the page. You throw the ball when you edit this work and renew it, and again when you show it to someone else, and again when it bounces out and back to various publications, agents, editors. You throw the ball when you blog, too, or comment on a blog. It’s a handy little game of catch, not the World Series, but a friendly back and forth while you chat about what is going on in your life.

Finally, let's be honest: Being a freelancer right now is scary. But you can't let the fear stop you from marketing. Consider Linda Formichelli's great post on the Renegade Writer blog that details six ways to eliminate the fear, or at least manage it. Some may look familiar to readers of this blog.

Now take a few minutes to relax, and let the marketing ideas come to you. Happy Saturday!

30-Day Marketing Challenge: Should you care about money?

You're a writer. You love words. You might walk around saying "kumquat" because you like the way it pops from your mouth. Or you might look for a way to use "shacking up" in a sentence because it's such a fun and evocative phrase.

But then you think about marketing. The words dry up. The sentences, chalky and anemic, sputter from your fingertips.

Ugh. You hate thinking about money. You hate asking for it worst of all.

Sisters and brothers, I feel your pain. For real.

I spent almost 10 years at newspapers, where I thought advertising, to put a spin on the phrase, was the enemy of the good. Sponsors pulled ads because of articles I wrote. I saw it as a badge of honor. My colleagues and I bragged about it, whispering conspiratorially between assignments.

And now I'm running a challenge to encourage you to market your work and your ideas? What gives?

It wasn't an easy transition for me, from idealistic journalist to freewheeling query queen. But it's amazing how quickly you can grow to love marketing when you have no savings, no prospects and the rent is due. And then I discovered something surprising: Marketing offered its own creative pleasures.

For instance: How to write short. How to grab a reader. How to, simply, get attention.

These are all things I've always loved about writing. I'm a big fan of the cartridge lede. And I might just cop to the fact that I am, as my j-school professor once said about the whole of the journalist race, a "shy egomaniac."

And admit it: There are some stories that get you so jazzed, so giddy, that you can't wait to tell your friends, your editors, and--dare I say it--your clients. That's all a query is.

It's bragging about your great story ideas for fun and profit.

The profit part is no small incentive. I have come to think of it this way:

There's one story idea I've had for two years now. Two years! It's brilliant. I love it. It's compelling and heart-rending and inspiring, and I can't wait to write it. I could probably write it tomorrow for a very small publication that pays 10 cents a word on publication.

I could even write it for free.

But what I want for this story, this creative baby of mine, is a wide audience. I want it to make a difference in as many people's lives as possible. It's not going to do that for 10 cents a word on publication. There's a reason that the big-name publications pay $3 and $4 a word. They have a broad reach and clout. They matter.

So does this story. I want the best for it. It deserves to shine in a bright light. It gets there through me pitching it to a place that's going to pay me well, also.

Here's another fact: The places that pay well? They also tend to have good editors. They care about your copy. They want it to be just as good as you do. You can learn something from them.

The higher-paying clients--that's where the action's at.

That's not to say there aren't some phenomenal editors at smaller publications. And that's not to say that some lower-paying publications don't have a wide reach, especially for niche markets. Aside from all the hard-headed business reasons in the world to market your work, the reason you should care about money is because it's good for your work and your craft.

Money, it turns out, isn't the enemy of the creative after all. Money in freelance writing is a barometer of how much some publications value writing and journalism, and a measure of their capacity to back it up. That's where I want my work and my career to go.

What about you? Does the thought of trying to sell your work mortify you? How do you deal with that?