You can’t control the economy or which client could be the next to stop making assignments.

In the face of so much uncertainty, it’s easy to feel helpless, especially when your livelihood depends on the circumstances of others. But between doing nothing and feeling helpless and doing something, I vote for doing something.

Here are some things that writers can do today to deal with an uncertain economy. I wrote this when the world was experiencing the initial fallout of another recession. Years later, the advice is as relevant today as it was then.

Quick Fixes

1. Update your resume. When you’re busy, it’s easy to let months or even years pass without updating your resume or the “About” page of your website. Now’s the time. Add fresh details about the type of work you do, specialties you’ve added, and new writing samples.

2. Update social accounts. Revamp profiles on social sites you use for work. On LinkedIn, add a tag or line to your profile to indicate you’re available for work. Don’t forget to update portfolio sites with your latest clips. List skills or clients you’ve picked up since your last update, credentials you’ve earned, awards you’ve won, and groups you’ve joined. 

3. Submit expense receipts. Filing expenses is a pain, which is why it’s easy to put off. If you have clients that reimburse expenses, that’s money in your pocket. What are you waiting for?

4. Send invoices. This is another task that’s easy to neglect when you’re on deadline. One trick: fill out the invoice as soon as you turn in the assignment and keep it in your email drafts folder until you get the go-ahead to send it. That way you don’t have to spend time on it later. Ask clients to pay via direct deposit. If they don’t or won’t, use your bank’s mobile deposit app to minimize how long you have to wait for the money to show up in your account.

Intermediate Steps

5. Pitch, pitch and pitch some more. Queries don’t have to be the world’s best or longest, as long as they meet the client’s requirements for what they should include. The point is to send things out to get the process going. The same goes for letters of introduction, which prospects like content marketing agencies prefer. Send a few paragraphs explaining who you are, your specialties or expertise, and link to your clips. If you heard about an opportunity through your business network, open with that – it could set your LOI apart.

6. Reconnect with former contacts. Reach out to anyone who’s taken a new job or moved to a different company to say hi. Not every communication has to be about work, but you never know when a simple “How’s it going?” could open the door to a new opportunity.

7. Ask for work. There’s no harm in being direct. Contact clients you’ve worked with over the years. Ask if they’re taking pitches or have work to assign. Inquire about other types of work that needs doing – copyediting, content audits, proofreading, etc. Ask if they know other editors at their publication who need help. In other words, ask.

8. Brainstorm. Read through old story notes or PR pitches for a nugget or thread that you could turn into a query. Take a shower. Walk the dog. Go for a bike ride – whatever you use to get the creative juices flowing. Bring a phone or notepad in case you’re inspired.

9. Pivot! Back in the day, pivot was something basketball players did. Then, it was something startups did when they realized they couldn’t make money from their original concept. Now it’s what freelancers might need to do to re-engineer their business – especially if they’ve specialized in an area like hospitality, travel or sports that right now is DOA. 

Keep Busy

10. Clean your office. Go through files. Throw away stuff you don’t use and don’t need. Flipping through ephemera might flip on the old idea switch. Even if it doesn’t, a clean office is like a fresh start.

11. Commiserate. You might work alone, you might be self-isolating alone, but you don’t need to go through this alone. Freelancers everywhere are in the same boat. You don’t need to do Zoom calls to connect. Pick up the phone. Share suggestions. Why reinvent the wheel when you can brainstorm with people who’re in the same situation.

The post 11 things to do in a recession appeared first on Michelle Rafter.

Awhile back, friends invited me to join a Facebook challenge to list 10 books that influenced me.  The trick is not to think about it too much and share the first titles that come to mind.

How’s an English major, freelance writer, and life-long reader supposed to narrow a list of cherished books down to 10?

Here’s what I came up with, along with why I picked what I did. Many of these titles evoke a specific memory or moment in my life. When I could find them, I included an image of the book jacket of the edition that I read:

The Once and Future King

I read this for a high school junior year literature class with an awesome teacher who taught me how to write a term paper.

The Great Gatsby

For the last paragraph alone.

Paradise Lost

This makes the list because my college professor Dr. Sawaya was hot, and not just because he was so damn smart. It was one of my first experiences with explicating a classic text.

Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead

I consumed this in late-night reading jags in my dingy grad school apartment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when I should have been working on my master’s thesis. Everybody has an Ayn Rand phase, don’t they?

A Tale of Two Cities

My first time backpacking through Europe, this book was my companion for a few rainy days in Austria, and the start of my love for a certain Mr. Dickens.

Possession

A.S. Byatt’s romantic novel is a masterpiece. It was also the impetus for the start of a book club I joined in 1994, left when I moved to Oregon, and  rejoined for a time during Covid. I read the end sitting in my car in the Orange County Register parking structure before work one day bawling my eyes out.

I’ve Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots

If you don’t know southern California novelist Susan Straight, you need to read this. And Highwire Moon.

Cold Mountain

One of those books that you have to force yourself through the first 50 or 60 pages and then…..wow. The Odyssey retold in the hills of North Carolina. And so much better than the movie.

Atonement

I hadn’t reached the ending by our book club met to talk about it — and we never avoided talking about endings because someone hadn’t finished. The ending still blew me away. So many good books start well but end poorly. This one doesn’t disappoint.

Stones for Ibarra

Heartbreakingly beautiful short stories set in Mexico that Harriett Doerr published as a first-time novelist when she was 74. There’s hope for me yet.

The Power Broker

Robert Caro’s groundbreaking portrait of New York public works powerhouse Robert Moses; a study in in-depth journalism that makes a difference.

The Barbarians at the Gate

This book made me want to be a newspaper business reporter. This real-life Wall Street mergers and acquisitions thriller that came out in 1989, around the same time as two fictional takes on the same subject, Tom Wolfe’s novel, Bonfire of the Vanities, and the movie, “Wall Street.”

On Writing Well

I’ve blogged about this one, by William Zinsser. It’s one of my top picks for books on the art and craft of writing, along with one-time WSJ writing coach William Blundell’s now out-of-print classic The Art and Craft of Feature Writing, and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

And if I could add to the list: Pride and Prejudice, The Education of Henry Adams, The Scarlett Letter, Ethan Frome, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Sophie’s Choice, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, The Signature of All Things, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Katherine Graham, Slouching Toward Bethlehem, The White Album, East of Eden, The Sun Also Rises……

The post 12 books that influenced my life appeared first on Michelle Rafter.

If I’m honest with myself, I’m not a ghostwriter, I’m a ghost rewriter. As a someone who gets paid to put words in other people’s mouths, I spend a lot of time going back and forth about exactly what those words should be. It involves a lot of revisions as I help the authors I work with – primarily consultants and corporate executives – refine their ideas and then attach the clearest, most concise language to them.

Sometimes things come together quickly and we’re good to go after a first draft and a follow-up for minor changes. More often than not, an article or longer report will go through multiple rounds of revisions before everyone’s happy. Add multiple authors to the mix, and revisions can climb into double digits. My record is 14 versions over almost as many months.

Because so much of what I do is rewriting, I’ve come up with ways to make it as efficient, painless and mutually beneficial as possible.

Sleep on it.

Even the worst rewrites don’t feel as daunting after a good night’s sleep. If a request for revisions arrives late in the day, I let it sit until morning to tackle when I’m fresh. If you open a Word doc and see only red markups and you’re not on an immediate deadline, close it, and come back to it later. Works every time.

Use Track Changes.

I can’t imagine doing what I do without Track Changes, or the Google Doc equivalent. I make liberal use of Track Changes comment boxes to share background info for fact checking – just like when I work as a reporter – and to explain my rationale for writing or rewriting something in a certain way. I ask collaborators to use Track Changes too, so it’s easier to see what changes they’ve made to the text.

Go from easiest to hardest.

If I’m making a lot of changes, I start with the easiest, things I don’t have to think about for more than a second, like correcting the spelling or grammar of new text that authors have added. Next, I tackle the slightly harder changes, things I need to reword or find information about in order to change. I save the hardest stuff for last – things I need to rewrite entirely.

The only time I don’t work in this order is if I need to do major restructuring, which I get out of the way first and then make other changes.

Turn it into a game.

If I have a particularly thorny rewrite or have to work on something really long, I write the total number of pages on a notepad, and then cross each page off as I finish the rewrites on it. Somehow, crossing off the pages as I go makes the work less onerous.

Switch views.

Marked up text is hard to read. To get a better sense of how the final version looks, switch the document view to hide the changes. On Word, do this from the main toolbar by going to Review > Track Changes and changing the view from “All Markup” to “No Markup.” To read a clean copy and still be able to see or make comments, switch to “Simple Markup.”

Work with a liaison.

On projects with multiple contributors, rewrites can go sideways if people give conflicting guidance what to change. To minimize that, I try to work with a point person who’s the arbiter of which change requests to make and which to ignore. Other contributors can send feedback to that person to coordinate before forwarding it to me. I say “encourage” because it doesn’t always work that way. But it’s worth asking.

Explain your work. Some collaborators are gems. Others want to debate every change. I’ve learned over time to give explanations for why I’ve rewritten something a certain way, so my intention is clear and if the authors don’t agree, they can propose a different approach.

It takes time to articulate the reason for a change, and I sometimes need to look up a grammar or usage rule or check with a client’s style guide to build my case. But I’ve found that collaborators appreciating knowing that the reason for a change isn’t just “Because I think it sounds better.”

Ask for a call.

Sometimes it’s better to talk through rewrites, especially if collaborators are busy with other work, or it’s the only way to get multiple people to agree on what works. I try to send the latest version to reviewers in advance so they can read it and think about what they want changed – the day before is good, but even 30 or 60 minutes prior to a call can help. 

Set a deadline.

If a project’s not urgent or the reviewers are slammed, a deadline of a week is not unreasonable. If it is urgent, it could be by the end of the hour, day, or in 24 to 48 hours.

When all else fails, I use the okay-by-default option – if requests for rewrites aren’t in by the deadline, I assume the content is okay as is. I don’t recommend issuing such an ultimatum without getting the project point person’s go ahead, so you’ve got back up should someone ask for changes after the deadline.

Build rewrites into your fee.

Most of my ghostwriting is billed by the hour, which IMHO is the best way to account for the unforeseen circumstances that can arise in this type of work. But not all clients work that way. If you’re billing by the word or at a project rate, negotiate the number of rewrites that your fee covers, and what you’d charge for anything over and above it.

Set a time limit. There’s nothing like thinking you’ve finished a project only to be contacted three months later with comments from a senior executive who’s just getting around to reviewing it and wants a redo. Been there, done that, won’t ever do it again because my contract now states that I’ll do two rounds of revisions and all feedback must be received within two weeks of receipt of the near-final draft.

The post All writers are rewriters – here’s how to get better at it appeared first on Michelle Rafter.

The annual Pulitzer Prizes will be announced later today, celebrating the best of the best in journalism. You can see this year’s winners here after 3 pm ET. 

It’s become a tradition for me to honor the day and the importance of local papers and the reporters who work for them by running this story about an editor and publisher of a small-town weekly in Montana who became the first journalist in the state to win a Pulitzer. I hope you find it as inspiring as I do. I’ve deactivated comments on new posts but I kept them open for this – be sure to read them. — Michelle

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Mel Ruder was just of the U.S. Navy when he moved to the Flathead Valley area of Montana, near Glacier National Park, to start a weekly newspaper. He promised to fill it with photographs of “babies, beasts, and beauties,” and lots of positive news, according to Pictures, a Park and a Pulitzer, a 2000 photo book showcasing his work.

Ruder worked long hours, and according to the book, eventually assembled a small staff of full-time and part-time reporters and editors. At some point, he moved the paper’s office to a log cabin on the corner of Hwy 2, just outside of Columbia Falls, where it still stood when I visited the area in 2012. That’s the office in the picture at the top of the post.

In June 1964, when heavy rains flooded the valley, Ruder was all over the story. “He went out on the floodwaters in a boat, and when the road was washed out he drove his car down the railroad tracks to photograph flood scenes,” the New York Times wrote in his 2000 obituary. “He worked day and night for nearly a week, feeding news steadily to The Associated Press and radio stations in the area.”

Hiring a Plane for a Better View

Ruder even hitched rides on small planes to get an aerial view of the damage, according to Pictures, a Park and a Pulitzer.

To keep local readers up with the events, he printed as many as 12,550 copies of the Hungry Horse News a day, compared with normal circulation of 3,900 a week.

Ruder was proud of the work he and his staff did covering the flood, and asked a journalist friend in Missoula to submit a nomination to the Pulitzer committee on their behalf.

The following April, Ruder was at work, photographing a local school event, when he got a call. For their coverage of the flood, the Hungry Horse News had received the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished General Local Reporting, making them the first journalists in the state to be so honored.

When asked how he felt about receiving such as prestigious award, he said – on more than one occasion, according to the book – “I guess I can die now.”

Instead, Ruder continued to work at the newspaper until he sold it and retired in 1978.

Pictures, a Park and a Pulitzer

Before my first visit to Montana, I’d never heard of Ruder or the Hungry Horse News, named after a small town that’s not much more than a gas station, grocery store and a handful of shops where tourists on their way to Glacier National Park can buy huckleberry jam, pie or just about anything else made with huckleberries.

While staying in the area, I saw Pictures, a Park and a Pulitzer a couple different places and was intrigued enough that I asked to borrow a copy to read more.

I can imagine there are many modern day Mel Ruders writing local news and hoping that one day, if they were lucky, they’ll be called upon to cover a natural disaster, strike, pandemic or another story significant enough that it could make their career and even win an award.

But given the realities of today’s news business, it’d be tough. For every Malheur Enterprise or Flathead Beacon telling important stories and keeping government agencies accountable to the public, there are hundreds of papers that have downsized or folded, creating news deserts in many parts of the country.

Ruder was lucky. He called his own shots. He didn’t have to check in with the head of digital content in New York for permission to spend extra on hiring or other expenses.

Ruder’s Pulitzer story is worth remembering not only as a reminder that local news did and does still matter. It also serves as a reminder that when it comes to community journalism, the bar doesn’t have to be set artificially low.

The post The Pulitzer Prize and the Hungry Horse News appeared first on Michelle Rafter.

It’s not the best time to expound on Twitter’s benefits for writers. The hot takes on journalists’ ill-informed initial tweets about the Covington Catholic video are still sizzling. The day I wrote this, New York Times technology reporter turned opinion writer Farhad Manjoo wrote that Twitter: “prizes image over substance and cheap dunks over reasoned debate, all the while severely abridging the temporal scope of the press.”

And yet. There’s a lot writers can do on Twitter without wading into controversy or having it become a giant time suck. December was my 10-year anniversary on the platform. Here are the top five ways I use it:

1. People.

Track down people you already know who are on Twitter and follow them to see what they’re saying and sharing. Follow Twitter users who share an area of interest – find them by doing a search (see instructions below). Follow sources. Follow editors you work with and those you’d like to work with. Follow news outlets or magazines to track what they publish – I do this and it’s turned my Twitter feed into a headline news service. This is the fun part, the part where you can decide what you want Twitter to be for you.

2. Lists.

You can use apps like TweetDeck to lump the accounts you follow into specific categories (sources, editors, cities, etc.) and to manage multiple accounts. I prefer Lists, a function built into Twitter that does pretty much the same thing. Lists can be public (everyone can see them) or private. If you don’t want to go to the trouble of creating your own, you can subscribe to lists made by other people – like me. I’ve got 22 lists, including lists for apps for writers, freelance marketplaces, writers, and Portland.

3. Chats.

Twitter chats are hosted conversations on a pre-determined topic at a designated date and time. Some happen every week or month. Others are related to an event, like an NFL football game or SCOTUS decision. Use the chat hashtag (#CHATNAME) to keep track of the conversation. A chat moderator announces when it starts, sets rules, poses questions, and troubleshoots. I recommend the weekly #FreelanceChat run by @MichelleGarrett, which covers freelancers of all kinds. Here’s a 2017 list of more chats for writers.

4. Search.

When I need a specific type of source, I prefer Twitter to Google. Use the Search function to look up names and phrases. Add a hashtag to find a thread on a specific topic, ongoing conversation or conversations in an older chat. For man-on-the-street sources, add “you” or “I” to a search phrase, as those words often show up in tweets that people share about things they’ve experienced. For example: to find furloughed federal workers, use search terms “I” and “furloughed federal employee.” See? BTW, you can save searches, which is handy if you search on the same terms a lot.

5. DMs.

Use the direct message (DM) function instead of email or SMS to send a private message. You can DM anyone who follows you. From the main nav bar, click on Messages > New Message > and type the name of the person you want to communicate with in the message window. I’ve used DMs to introduce myself to sources, set up and conduct interviews, chat with editors, and catch up with friends.

Want more? I wrote these a few years ago so some info might be dated, but the basics should be the same:

• A writer’s guide to getting the most out of Twitter
• 3 ways to use Twitter to follow an event
• Dear WordCount: How do I join a Twitter chat?

Photo originally posted to Flickr by Jamiesrabbits.

The post Twitter’s a Dumpster Fire, But I Can’t Not Use It appeared first on Michelle Rafter.

In June, I earned 25% more than expected, not by taking on new work, but by renegotiating fees for projects I was already doing.

Asking for more when you’ve earned it is the easiest way to get paid more for your work.

How’d it happen?

One client wanted more info and research than they originally requested for a business report assignment. It bumped up the word count, so I asked for and got a 50% hike in the fee.

Another client asked if I was available for a case study assignment. The hitch: they needed it in 3 week. That’s a rush job for me, so I asked for and got a slightly higher fee to account for the fast turnaround time.

Work on a content program for a third client proved to be more complicated than expected and ended up taking 50% more time than the original assignment called for. I negotiated with the agency that hired me for the job to cover the overage, minus a chunk I wrote off as goodwill because they hire me for projects on a regular basis, and I want to work with them again.

In all, the extra income is enough to pay a cross country plane ticket, hotel and ticket to a conference like BinderCon or ASJA, after taxes.

I also bid on a couple assignments I didn’t get because my rates were too high. But that goes with the territory.

I’ve said here before, I’ll say it again: Ask. Negotiate. Put yourself out there.

If you don’t, you’ll never know.

If you ask, they could say no.

Or you could end up with extra money in the bank.

[Image by Michelle V. Rafter, © Copyright 2015]

The post The No. 1 easiest way to get paid more appeared first on Michelle Rafter.

For the first time in eight years, I’m not blogging every day for a month as part of the FreelanceSuccess/WordCount blogathon challenge. I’m cheering from the sidelines and you can too, by folllowing the blogathon Facebook page. Throughout the next 30 days, I’ll be running favorite posts from previous blogathons to inspire everyone who’s participating and anyone else who wants to blog or write more often. — Michelle

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Think you can blog every day? It’s not as tough as it sounds – if you have a plan.

If you’re doing a blogging challenge, a plan could be the difference between having a great time and feeling like you’ve got an albatross around your neck, like that poor guy in the picture.

Even if you aren’t part of a challenge to post every day, having a plan can bring more discipline to your blogging endeavors.

Here are 25 ideas for daily blog posts:

Stick to a Schedule

1. Set up an editorial calendar. StressLimit makes a plug in called the WordPress Editorial Calendar you can use to schedule posts months in advance.

2. Pick a theme. I know bloggers who’ve devoted an entire month to writing about inspiration, investments, adventure, even chocolate.

3. Pick a theme day of the week. If you don’t want to devote a month to a theme, pick one day a week. On Fridays, share a list of things you saw, read or heard during the week. On Sunday, run a photo that you took around town or on a vacation. Make it simple, short and snappy.

4. Start a series. Write about a topic on a regular basis. The silver lining: do it long enough and you’ll collect enough posts to write an e-book.

5. Be spontaneous. Next time you see something on Facebook or Twitter, instead of commenting there, blog about it.

Think Like a Reporter

6. Write about news of the day that’s related to your blog topic.

7. Curate. Pick an event or topic that’s been in the news. Find the best stories or blog posts about it and compile them, adding an intro with your own spin on the subject.

8. Go to a conference. If you can’t go in person, watch a webinar or listen in on a teleconference, then share what you learned.

9. Do a Q & A. Find a leader in the field you cover and ask them for an interview. If you’re pressed for time, conduct an email interview.

10. Run guest posts. Trade with someone who blogs about the same thing. Or find someone who writes about something completely different but whose writing or perspective you admire.

11. Re-run popular posts. If readers loved something the first time, they’ll probably love it a second time too. Update as needed. This post is a good example of a re-run. I originally ran it in 2011, updated it in 2012, and updated it again for the 2014 Blogathon by removing older dates and outdated material.

12. Bundle related posts. Create a list of posts you and other bloggers have done on the same topic.

13. Run “Best of…” posts. Create a list of the best posts you’ve ever done on a specific topic.

Interact with Readers

14. Write posts that answer readers’ questions. I started getting so many questions from writers about the freelance business I turned my responses into a series called Dear WordCount.

15. Post a podcast interview. Next time you do an interview, record it.

16. Post a video. Set up your own YouTube channel, and point from it to your blog and vice versa.

17. Post a slideshow or photo gallery. If a picture is worth a thousand words, let your photos do the talking.

18. Run a poll. Readers love polls and you can use the results to get ideas for future posts.

19. Run a contest. Readers love giveaways even more than polls. Ask readers for comments or some other form of content so you can…

20. Post contest results. Contests are two-fers – announce it in one post and results or comments in a second.

21. Run a list (like this one). Another crowd favorite.

22. Break up one long post into a series. Instead of writing a 1,000 word treatise on a subject, divide it into Parts 1, 2 and 3 – just as much information, three times as many posts.

Go Social

23. Start a Twitter chat. The hour-long virtual meetup I hosted to wrap up the 2010 blogathon went so well and I created the WordCount Last Wednesday monthly Twitter chat. Chats are good for two posts each: one to announce it and another to recap the highlights.

24. Participate in an online event. If I didn’t host the blogathon, I’d consider joining a blog tour or NaNoWriMo.

25. Run a graphic. In journalism circles, infographics are hot. Infographics use visuals to depict some kind of statistics. Here’s a sample from HubSpot, on the secrets to writing an attention-grabbing blog post.

[Illustration from William Strang, in “The Ancient Mariner,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge]

The post 25 ideas for daily blog posts appeared first on Michelle Rafter.

For the first time in eight years, I’m not blogging every day for a month as part of the FreelanceSuccess/WordCount blogathon challenge. In 2008 when I started the challenge, I’d been back in the freelance game a short time, was new to blogging and was looking for a quick way to turbocharge my efforts. It worked. Today I’ve got all the writing, editing and content strategy work I can handle, so much I couldn’t do the blogathon and keep my editors and content clients happy. This year, I’m cheering from the sidelines and you can too, by folllowing the blogathon Facebook page.

Throughout the next 30 days, I’ll be re-running favorite posts from previous blogathons to inspire everyone who’s participating as well as anyone else who wants to blog or write more often. — Michelle

* *

A writer I know was considering starting a blog and asked how I squeeze writing posts into my regular writing work day. Good question, and one that’s relevant to anyone who works full time but wants to market themselves or a business by blogging and promoting posts on social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Bottom line: blogging takes time, especially for it to make the most impact. But there are a handful of things you can do to ease the burden.

Here are my suggestions for juggling blogging on top of regular work, regardless of what you do:

1. Commit to posting on a regular basis.

Pick a schedule that works for you. Some bloggers post once a day, Monday through Friday. Some post once or twice a week or month.

Set aside 20 to 60 minutes a day depending on how much you want or need to say about the topic you’re writing about. Some days I write an original post. Other days I run guest posts, an advice column or a list of links to interesting posts I’ve read elsewhere. I also re-run posts with a lot of page views, comments, social shares or all three. Creating a post from scratch takes the longest — especially if I’m writing a how-to piece, or analysis of a trend. Sometimes I’m inspired and the writing goes quickly.

2. Commit to writing the same time every day.

I’m an early riser and like to write posts before doing anything else on that day’s to-do list. I think of it as a writing prompt for whatever else I have to write that day.

Still, some weeks I’m more into it than others. Weeks when I have  major deadlines, blogging gets minimal attention. Those weeks, I may spend Sunday afternoon writing a couple posts so I don’t have to think about the website again until Wednesday. When I’m busy, I’m also more likely to update and re-run an older post, or skip a day.

3. Commit to an editorial calendar.

Using a calendar is a great way to organize a blog. I don’t know about you, but when I can write about anything, I can’t find anything to write about. But when I set strict parameters for myself — original post Monday, guest post Tuesday, advice column Thursday — ideas start to fly.

Using an editorial calendar is a huge help. When inspiration strikes, I open the WordPress editorial calendar, pick a day, start a new post in Draft mode, and type in a title and whatever is in my head. It doesn’t even matter what the day is — with the editorial calendar you can drag and drop posts from one day to another. I use the editorial calendar to schedule guest posts too. When I make arrangements with someone to write a guest post, I copy our correspondence into a draft post and put it on the calendar as a placeholder until the post is in.

4. Share – but don’t overshare – on social networks.

My family jokes that I live on Facebook and Twitter. It’s true. I use social media to promote this blog, but also to do research, find sources, keep tabs on trends, and publicize stories once they’re out. I share links to every blog post I write. But I don’t share links to every post on every social network. When I do share links, what I say on Twitter is different from what I say on LinkedIn or Facebook. When it’s time to get down to other business, I use a Chrome extension called StayFocusd to block Facebook and other social networks I like to goof off on after a pre-set number of minutes a day to make sure I focus on work.

5. The Tim Ferriss Way

For Tim Ferriss, less is more. The blogger and author of the best seller The 4-Hour Work Week, advocates in this post, The top 5 uncommon timesavers for bloggers for blogging only a couple times a week so posts have time to percolate and shared by other bloggers – definitely food for thought.

[Flickr photo by Tomi Tapio]

The post How to squeeze blogging into your work day appeared first on Michelle Rafter.

If you’re looking for a job, you might think that you learned everything you need to know in the classroom. Not true.

When I was in school, I did a lot of things outside of classes that helped my career. Looking back, I did a lot of things that were dumb at the time, but ended up helping my journalism and freelance careers.

Here are the dumb things I did in college that turned out to be good for my career:

1. Work for free.

I walked into the office of Loyola Marymount University’s weekly student newspaper, the Los Angeles Loyolan, my first month on campus. I wasn’t looking for a job as much as an extracurricular activity. My first story was a how-to piece on opening a checking account. My editor made me rewrite at least three times. I did it and everything else I wrote that year for free. I didn’t care, it was fun. It took me another year or two to realize I’d discovered what I wanted to do for life.

What I learned: Find your passion, work hard enough and the money comes. By the time I was a sophomore, I was getting work-study money for the hours I spent at the paper. When I became editor my senior year my tuition was 100 percent paid for through a stipend the school paid to the paper’s editor in chief.

2. Write with a hangover.

Freshman year I decided to hit an all-day St. Patrick’s Day party for a few hours before heading to the newspaper office to file a story that was due. Bad idea. The party was a blast but by mid-afternoon when I got to the office and started writing about the campus ROTC program all I wanted to do take a nap.

What I learned: Hemingway and Fitzgerald may have been able to write inebriated. I can’t. Work first and party when the work is done.

3. Give away free stuff.

I started schools as a film major, so sophomore year when the editor asked me to run the paper’s entertainment section I was thrilled. Being the entertainment editor meant attending free screenings of new movies so I could write about them. I got free tickets and albums too. But there was no way I could go to or listen to everything. So I gave away most of what came in to other reviewers.

What I learned: Share the wealth, it’ll help win friends, or in the case of student newspapers and other publications with small budgets, writers. And favors can lead to loyalty. Though I still wish I’d kept “The Wall” for myself.

4. Fake it.

Being entertainment editor was all I ever aspired to. But when junior year rolled around the paper needed a news editor. Would I do it? I said yes. I inherited a handful of reporters, some on work-study, some not, some good writers, some not, some whose entire college experience revolved around the newspaper office, some who’d go missing for weeks at a time. I’d been one of those reporters not long before. What did I know about motivating a mostly volunteer staff? I showed up, worked long hours, and did the best I could to muddle through.

What I learned: Nobody needs to know you don’t know what you’re doing. It helped that someone in a position of authority thought I was capable of managing other people, even if I couldn’t see it in myself. It was the first time I experienced what it means to “Fake it ’til you make it,” but not the last. Halfway through junior year I got tapped to be the paper’s editor in chief and again found myself in a job I wasn’t prepared for. It’s happened many other times over the years. Knowing I’ve done it before has helped me every time.

5. Pull an all nighter.

I never pulled an all nighter to write a paper or study for an exam. But I did work through the night more than once to get the paper ready for the printer (this was before everything went digital). We distributed the Loyolan Monday afternoons, which meant the printer needed pages Monday morning. Once or twice we were so short-staffed over the weekend the few of us who were there worked all Saturday, Sunday and Sunday night to finish editing and typesetting articles and laying out pages. Another time I went to a concert on Sunday night before we were done and paid the price by having to go back into the office after to finish up.

What I learned: Plan ahead, and make sure you’ve got help so when things need to get done you don’t have to all the work yourself. But be prepared to put in the hard work if all your careful planning falls apart.

6. Publish X-rated material.

While I was editor we were so flush with ad money we put out a few special issues close to twice the size of the usual weekly paper. One was a fiction issue with short stories, including a rather graphic piece with a lot of profanity. Our advisor either signed off on it or didn’t see it, but when the issue came out, all hell broke lose. The paper’s senior staff was called before the school’s editorial review board and I almost lost my job.

What I learned: Not everyone will like what you write, and sometimes you have to compromise. In front of the school’s editorial review board, we backed the artistic merits of the piece and explained our reasons for publishing it. I didn’t lose my job, but the school started examining what we did more closely. They also closed the separate checking account we’d used to stash advertising income, another way to rein in some of our independence. Their actions might rankle some, but they were compromises I could live with.

7. Back a nobody.

A lot of students came through the newspaper office looking for an opportunity to contribute, not just writers but aspiring photographers, graphic designers and editorial cartoonists. Many were so-so. Some were just plain bad. When I was editor, a freshman came in who liked cartooning. His technique left a lot to be desired but he had a good sense of humor and was tapped into what was happening on campus. Despite the reservations of some of the editors I worked with, I used him on a regular basis.

What I learned: Take chances on people. That freshman was Mike Smith, who went on to become an award-winning editorial cartoonist at the Las Vegas Sun. Other writers I worked with became daily newspaper reporters, editors and authors.

8. Drop out of school.

When I was getting ready to graduate, the economy was bad. Instead of looking for a job, I stayed in school. I hadn’t graduated with a journalism degree and figured I needed one if I wanted to work in the field. I got a scholarship to a graduate school of journalism. I lasted a year. I was tired of being in school, tired of being a starving student and ready to put the journalism skills I’d been developing to use in a real job.

What I learned: If you’ve got the basics, the degree doesn’t matter as much as the drive. The summer after that first year of grad school I parlayed an internship with a magazine publisher into a full-time job, and never looked back. Years later I went back to grad school – as an adjunct professor.

The post 8 dumb things I did in college that helped my writing career appeared first on Michelle Rafter.

Whatever the reason, you’re behind and close to hitting the panic button.

That was me not long ago. An assignment took more time than I expected, and non-work obligations chewed into my available work time. On top of it all, I had committed to traveling to a conference out of town.

The confluence of circumstances created a time crunch that had me sweating how I was going to meet all my deadlines.

Over the years I’ve known freelance writers, publicists and other self-employed creatives who live in a constant state of crisis. I’m not one of them. I’m already a worrier, and there’s too much else in work and life to be concerned with – like where the next assignment is coming from – to make myself freak out over things that I can control.

So here how I avoid panic mode – it’s short and sweet, in case you’re reading it on borrowed time:

1. Cut out anything that isn’t absolutely necessary.

Random web browsing and hourly updates of my status on Twitter – ain’t gonna happen when I’m under the gun. To make sure I don’t cheat, I use StayFocusd, a Chrome extension that blocks my access to sites like Facebook and YouTube during hours of my chosing. Other freelancers use productivity apps like Freedom (Mac) or Anti-Social.

2. Make a to-do list.

Dump everything you need to do out of your head and onto Evernote, Microsoft Outlook Task manager, whiteboard, paper to-do list, or whatever you use to keep track of work. Break big projects into discreet steps – set up interviews, conduct interviews, create outline, write story, bill – and then cross them off as you finish each part. It feels great, gives you an idea of how much you’ve accomplished and what you still need to do.

3. Do one thing at a time.

Rather than work on each project a little bit at a time, plow through one, get it done and move onto the next.

4. Eat the frog.

That’s code for tackling the hardest thing on that day’s to-do list first – everything else will feel easier by comparison.

5. Write fast.

Set a timer and don’t let yourself be distracted until you hear the buzzer. If you can, create a story outline before your research and interviews are finished to help you zero in on what you need to ask. Write during your “up” time of day to maximize productivity. Here are some other tips on how to write fast.

6. Work in time blocks.

A very successful freelance writer friend breaks her work day into time blocks and then slots tasks accordingly. One way to copy this method would be to use a daily calendar and then slot out tasks in 15-minute increments:

• 9 to 9:45 a.m., Conduct phone interviews
• 9:45 to 10 a.m. Catch up on email
• 10 to noon Write story
• Noon to 12:30 a.m. Lunch
• 12:30 p.m. to 1 p.m. Conference call with prospective client
• 1 to 1:15 p.m. Send prospective client proposed statement of work
• 1:15 to 1:30 p.m. Check Facebook, etc.

7. Work more hours. 

Set your clock for 5 a.m., or work after dinner. It’s only for a few days (or weeks). You can always catch up on sleep and everything else once you’re off deadline.

8. Save marketing for next week.

This goes against advice that other freelance bloggers share about the need to do some type of marketing every week, if not every day, no matter what. But honestly, it can wait. If editors don’t see your stories when they’re due, they aren’t going to want to read your pitches.

9. Ask for help.

Need to turn in file art for story? Email the PR department at the company, agency or government office you’re interviewing and ask if they can send something directly to your editor. Use Twitter, LinkedIn or HARO to round up sources.

If you really don’t think you’ll make your deadline, email or call your editor and ask for an extra day or two – just don’t make it a habit.

10. Keep a can-do mindset.

There’s a fine line between feeling overwhelmed and feeling on top of things. Sometimes the mere act of telling yourself you’re in control of the situation can make a difference. Stay positive.

What’s your secret for not hitting the panic button?

The post Too many deadlines? Here’s how to avoid panic mode appeared first on Michelle Rafter.