How to use this Page

Being a creative at times can be hard, whether you love to scribble, paint, take a picture, shape clay and more all you know is you’re passionate about what you do. No one said it was going to be an easy path to follow when you start out, taking each day as it comes trying to direct your creativity in so many ways for opportunities to come your way.

Although there is that one bump in the road we all come across countless times called the “pennyless art believers”. Many of us have no doubt been there and got the t-shirt when we’re asked “What do you want to do as a career?”.

With a huge cheesy grin and sketchbook in hand we enthusiastically reply… “I want to be an illustrator” or fine artist , ceramic designer or any other type of creative professional. Its then that you suddenly see the person cringe with the assumption you’re going to struggle to make it as a creative. Yes its easy for others people to assume in the comfort of their everyday job that you’ll be a pennyless artist.

However if you’re wise about how you do things you can achieve great things , avoiding the assumption of being a pennyless artist drawing doodles for macaroons and a starbucks ( or is that just me?). If you encounter people with a negative view of your career path , don’t let that upset you and take this advice:

“Be around the right kind of people who will help your creativity grow and who believe in what you do. Believe in yourself and the right people will support you on your journey to do and achieve great things”.

Image is by Leah Bergman and you can find out more about her work here.

Post by Alice Palace

Aless has just set up her own studio label called ‘This is gold’. Based in London, she is available for freelance surface pattern, illustration and childrenswear graphics. I love her characters…

See her New Website

Just another day at the art desk I hear you say, starting your sunday with a chipper smile and creative heart filled with enthusiasm, you believe everything will be absolutely fine. That is however until you sit down to start working on that creative portfolio you aspire to make.Suddenly you’re faced with an extremely sweaty brow and a blank canvas that’s been sitting there for the best part of an hour.

You may start to hear a small voice quoting in the back of your head how you can do this! However this then propels into a downward swirl beating yourself up over your lack of progress, whilst creating a rather larger  pile of screwed up sketchbook pages behind you. In all you just don’t know where to start and have an idea of a project’s “end” with no “beginning”.

Generating ideas for portfolio pieces can be tough if you don’t plan and prepare in advance what you aim to create.  Every creative person I believe though has the potential to create some amazing self-initiated projects to really blow the socks off those creative directors.  If that’s what you wanna do then here’s a few ways to help reel back your line to the beginning , generate ideas and get started creating portfolio pieces that will help promote what you can do!

1.  Understand what kind of work you want to be doing : Think about the kind of work you want to produce whether children’s book illustration , portrait photography , commercial design and more. By knowing where you want to go creatively this will help you understand the type of work you need to create.

2. Generate project ideas around your chosen work: Now that you’ve chosen your type of work the next step is to generate your own project idea. For example this could be illustrating a page from your favourite children’s book if your aim is a children’s illustration. Create a pattern design collection if your aim is to work within commercial product, licensing and more.

3. Hone your skills and think outside the box : No doubt you’ll have your collection of favoured art materials that you turn to when you create a piece. However be sure to hone your skills will other materials , softwares and processes to as this will help show how versatile you can create pieces and how diverse they can be. Last but not least though think outside the box, take inspiration from other creative is one thing but then take a little inspiration from it and create something unique to you.

Image by Matt Adrian you can find out more about his work here.

As you’re all celebrating with friends and family this holiday season, I want to thank you for being a part of my life and reading the blog. It will be six years of writing on Kidlit.com for me this February. Wow! This year I have had a lot to be thankful for. I’ve doubled my editorial business and am working with some truly amazingly talented writers to help their dreams come true. Several writers have gotten agents this year, and one is on the way to a publishing deal, fingers crossed.

I’m looking for ways to grow and change in 2015 as a small business owner and freelance editor. We’ll see what new ideas I might have to provide even better services to my clients. I’m also going to be updating my pricing structure in January, so if you’ve been on the fence for a while about hiring me or your project is near completion, now is the time!

In fact, to help you get a jump on your 2015 resolutions, I’m extending an offer of 15% off all of my services on my freelance editorial website (marykole.com). Mention this blog post when you email me through January 5th (midnight Central time) and let’s get you on the calendar!

post by Heather Ryerson

Grace Helmer uses strong brush strokes to create her rich, ethereal oil illustrations. The expressive color progressions in her paintings give the work a delicate, transient presence; the viewer can’t help but be caught up in the joy and beauty of Helmer’s brief captured moments. Her style is used to especially great effect in her animated pieces. Constantly changing textures and shapes create a depth and dynamism that one might feel could easily be drunk from the canvas. Helmer graduated from the Camberwell College of Art in 2012 and is part of the illustration studio collective Day Job.

See portfolio | Watch an animaton

BY LIZ CRAIN

GIVEAWAY: Liz is excited to give away a free copy of the second edition of her just released book, Food Lover’s Guide to Portland, to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in the US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before.

The summers that I was 6 and 7 years old in early ’80s, I went to a day camp in the woods maybe 30 minutes or so from the suburbs of Cincinnati where I grew up. There were a lot of memorable things about that camp, as there tend to be, but without a doubt the most memorable was Mr. Brady—the camp nature guide whose office was the old barn across the way from the open-air dining hall—and his resident alligators. The seven or eight alligators ranging in age from a couple years to several years lived in a large, maybe 10-foot diameter, round metal trough topped with a piece of plywood.

One day, every summer, Mr. Brady would take the youngest, or maybe just the most docile, alligator out of the trough, put it in the bed of his old beat-up blue pick-up truck and drive it down the hill behind the barn to the creek, where 15 or so of us would be waiting with our counselor. What happened next is not a dream. I am still friends with one of the campers and can verify that Mr. Brady—longish white beard, rubber pants and suspenders, boots—would then spend the next 40 minutes or so of our nature session wrestling with the alligator in the murky creek. Our task: watch. And in the process scream, laugh and hug each other tightly.

I’m sure there were some teachable moments that I’m missing that occurred during the alligator wrestling. There might have been words about habitat and behavior in the wild and maybe even a little bit about how humans are not typically a part of the alligator diet. Of course, all I remember, and all I am sure that most campers remember, is an old man wrestling an alligator in the creek. By choice. He seemed to have no fear, and he seemed to genuinely love doing it.

Although I have changed the names and some identifying details of the alligators what follows is my own story of wrestling with alligators, except that the alligators are humans and the wrestling is being done with writing.

When I first started freelance food writing shortly after moving to Portland, Oregon, in my mid-20s, I said yes to just about anything work-wise that came my way, including waiting tables, nannying and working in a Montessori after-school program. I also covered a lot of writing territory. I wrote a corporate fitness manual without ever having worked in an office, smoking cigarettes and drinking most nights of the week and never setting foot in a gym. Clearly I was an expert. I also wrote website copy for a few hotel and hospitality companies, health and fitness articles for a smaller circulation magazine in Arizona and movie reviews for an online art and culture startup in New York.

Do you want to make money with your writing? Do you dream of having your byline in magazine columns? Then the Freelance Bundle is for you. This kit offers two ebooks by our some of our most popular authors: I.J Schecter and Naveed Saleh. Then, use your Writer’s Market subscription and get the contact information you need to send your work to the right people.

I tried my hand at a lot of different types of writing and, in doing so, did the opposite of what most writing manuals tell you to do—write what you know. Instead, apropos of an ambitious 20-something-year-old, I wrote more often what I did not know.

I always brought my limited life experience and subjectivity to the page, of course, and I researched and dug as deep as my usually too-fast-approaching deadline would allow, but let’s just say I was in all of these writing endeavors far from an expert. And that lack of expertise led directly to lack of confidence. That first year of freelancing I spent a lot of time researching and educating myself, but my primary motivator was a little off. I wanted to know the right things that, in my 20-something year old mind, translated to all of the things that would make me not sound stupid.

Nobody likes a snoop and that’s exactly what I was that first year of freelancing. My regular gig was ghostwriting food and drink pieces for AOL Online. For that, I’d visit restaurants, bars, clubs and markets in and around Portland and then write short profiles of each. I took copious amounts of notes about menus, inventory, décor and service in my tiny black refillable notebook, and if I ever caught whiff that someone was on to me I’d commit the remaining visit to memory as best I could sacrificing any more documentation to save face.

I would only ask one or two questions per visit, and then only if I thought I could get away with it without revealing anything personal. I’d avoid eye contact. My heart would race and my palms would sweat as I took ridiculous notes under the table about things such as the microgreens topping my scallops (“What are the little purpley-green spade-like micros? Mustard?”). If you kicked all that fear-built subterfuge down, I wasn’t being Ruth Reichl-like, in disguise in order to maintain journalistic integrity. I just didn’t want to have a real conversation with anyone that might reveal all that I did not know. Instead, I would go home after dinner and suffer through mind-numbing Google searches of  microgreens until I settled on the variety that looked the most similar before ultimately deciding not to use it in the profile anyway. No time wasted at all!

On those rare occasions when I did find myself face-to-face and engaged with folks who I was interviewing or meeting with for some sort of professional reason, I showcased what I knew as best I could and tried to hide what I didn’t know. In other words, I was a bit like 20-year-old Ira Glass in his early interviews with members of the cast of MASH, which he talks about on the “Cringe” episode of This American Life. The worst is when Glass asks Harry Morgan, who played Colonel Potter, a series of needling questions about why he’s never been the lead on any show. So painful.

This sort of bravado is inherently juvenile, but we’ve all done it. Here’s how I got rid of being scared of not knowing: I stopped using my tiny black notebook to take notes in in public and I got a big notebook. I stopped sneaking away to the bathroom to take notes—I’m sure that a few waiters had me pegged as incontinent—and started writing them openly. I stopped muzzling my curiosity and ended more sentences with question marks. I had more and more face-to-face interviews that I needed to conduct for seasonal food stories with weekly deadlines that I was writing—more projects in general. I no longer had time to digest the latest study just enough so that I’d sound smart, to make obscure references that were only tenuously related to the subject at hand (references I’d secretly hope no one would actually try to turn into a real conversation). All of these things that we do from time to time to puff our feathers when we feel intimidated or unconfident, and as a result, hide our truer selves.

After a year of freelancing, I was too busy with assignments to keep up appearances anymore. The real, vulnerable, curious and often ignorant me stepped out into plain view. It turns out that first year of freelancing I’d wasted a whole lot of time getting in my own way. I simply got out of my way and the decade since I’ve been more than willing to often be the fool or even, from time to time, when it seems helpful to the interview and subject at hand, play the fool.

In general, people love to be asked questions—personally and professionally. Ask away. Be brazenly curious. Be proud of not knowing. The less you know means the more you have to learn and that’s a big part of what’s most fulfilling, fun and interesting about writing—the learning. Don’t be a bore and always try to prove yourself and outwit others. No one is impressed and it’s tiresome. Show how ignorant you are—we all are!—and you’ll have a lot more fun and be a much better writer as a result. The best writers are the most curious risk-takers who want to burn and learn and live
life to the fullest. Stop being scared and be one of them. In other words, wrestle those alligators in the creek. By choice. See, I knew I could bring it back to the alligators.

*No alligators were harmed in the writing of this essay.

Liz Crain is a fiction writer as well as the author of Food Lover’s Guide to Portland and Toro Bravo: Stories. Recipes. No Bull. A longtime writer on Pacific Northwest food and drink, her writing has appeared in Cooking Light, Budget Travel, VIA Magazine, The Sun Magazine, The Progressive, The Guardian and The Oregonian. She is also editor and publicity director at Hawthorne Books as well as co-organizer of the annual Portland Fermentation Festival.

You can find more from Liz Crain on Twitter (@foodloverPDX) and her website, lizcrain.com.

Dear creative overthinker,

I know no doubt there have been times where you were sat at your desk deep in thought or maybe you were previously to reading this. With your pen , paintbrush, camera or graphics tablet in hand your mind begins to fizzle into a whirlwind of creative over thought causing you to over think your entire creative practice. As you do this the creative work that you do that was “fun” to begin with that filled you with inspiration , motivation and enthusiasm begins to feel more like ” hard work” and thus bringing the creativity inside you to a halt. Thoughts such as:

” What if I post my design and no one likes it ?”

” What if I post this set of cards, notebooks and prints and no one buys them?”

“What if I go to that design interview and I get turned down?”

“What if I email this client the price quote for a commission and they think I’m really overpriced?”

In a nut shell thoughts like this cause “you” to stop and your creativity will stop with it, all the “what if’s” in our head’s are sometimes enough to stop us doing what we love to do. So my dear creative over thinker try to stop thinking so much , live in the creative moment, make smart prompt decisions that may scare the pants off you and be brave.

Image by artist Tim Bontan you can find more of his work here .

We’re all guilty at some point of not managing our time as effectively as we could have done. Whether you’re running late for a university submission, deadline for a client is looming or just finding it hard to keep on top of your to do’s maybe creatively managing your time better is something you could improve. Now you don’t need to make major changes to your routine to manage your time better, simply by bringing just some of the tips I have here into your creative day you’ll be surprised just how well you can meet those deadlines on time stress free.

1 . Seperate your tasks into time chunks whether 30-45 minute chunks followed by a break to refresh your mind ready for the next task.

2. Set an alarm to ring when your time is up this will prompt you to move onto the next task and if unfinished come back to your current one later.

3.Use app’s or timers to track how much time you’ve already spent on your project.

4. Pop on a tv series or film is another way of managing your time if you don’t mind abit of background noise, once the show is over you’re prompted to finish what your doing ( just don’t get to distracted watching it if you’re a adventure time fan it might be best to stick to the gardening channel instead).

5. Use a calendar whether paper based or digital to track how much time you have from the start date to finish for your project. This way you can allocate set days and time to progress with your project.

Image by illustrator Kritsten Vasgaard you can find out more about their work here .

Here’s something fun. Due to popular demand and encouragement from a few early clients, I’m launching a one-on-one writing coaching service to my roster of freelance offerings. This article from Writer Unboxed really helped nudge me in this direction, and if you’re at all curious, it’s worth a read. Normally, writers have been contacting me with completed manuscripts to review. Or questions that fill up a 30-minute phone consultation. Writers ready to submit have requested query and synopsis edits, or my most popular service, the Submission Package Edit, which is a comprehensive look at what agents and editors want to see: the first ten pages, your query, and your synopsis.

Things have been going really well and I’ve gotten to know hundreds of writers from all around the world. Several have gotten agented, and there has even been a publishing deal for a project where I’ve edited a partial. It’s been a terrific almost-two-years! Except I’ve discovered that I’m leaving out a whole group of writers: those with an idea or those in the early drafting stages.

This is where coaching comes in. I’ve developed and tested two tracks, and I’m ready to get some clients in the pipeline!

One option is for writers who need help with deadlines and motivation: we check in over the phone, I read some of your materials and see where you’re getting stuck, we set some goals, and you check in with me up to several times a week to report on progress, rant about a place you’re getting stuck, and otherwise stay accountable to someone while you try to meet your deadlines. I try to suss out your style, whether you want a task master or understanding guide, and we stay in touch during your writing process. Lots of writers thrive with a source of external pressure (gentle, of course!), and it’s a comfort knowing there’s someone to turn to if you need help.

My second coaching option is to work with you at the earliest stages of idea and manuscript development. Is your concept worth putting a year of your life into? Does your story have legs and enough substance to make a compelling manuscript? I will ask you to create a long outline, chapter-by-chapter, and think about character and plot in as much detail as you can. This gives us a map. I do a developmental edit on this, working to suss out your theme, make sure you have enough cohesive elements, point out things that have potential to the story and market (and things that don’t), and otherwise pressure check your idea.

The worst thing someone can say upon reading your manuscript is, “And? So? So what?” This second type of coaching will help you think about your idea in a bigger way, and help you brainstorm things to add (or take away) before you really start the long, hard work of writing. There’s a lot of brainstorming and back-and-forth involved with me.

Both types of coaching include a 30-minute consultation to start, review of your query and synopsis, and a glimpse at any writing samples you have so that I can know what your strengths and opportunities for growth are. Then we dig into the project at hand. You can add editorial services of additional phone check-ins. Because I keep strange hours, most of our work will be email-based, or we can layer in more calls.

It all comes down to what you need. “Mary, I want a taskmaster.” “Mary, I want a cheerleader who’s realistic but kind.” “Mary, look at this and tell me if I’m crazy.” This is the sort of highly customized and deeply personal stuff that coaching is about.

Because it’s time-intensive, I can only take on a few clients per quarter (ideally, the back-and-forth part of the relationship will last for two or three months, especially in deadline-based coaching). The price will be $599 for the services outline above, with add-on or a custom quote available depending on the length and breadth of your project.

I’m just starting this service, so it may change or morph in the next few months. For the first five clients who are ready to dive in and be very pampered guinea pigs, I’ll offer 15% off for mentioning this post. I’ll do some initial coaching and see how my workload changes. The price may change in the future. Check out my website for a full description of coaching. Let me know what you think in an email or the comments!

This Art Crush entry has truly been a long time coming. I first came across Lisa Congdon by way of Meighan O’Toole’s former art blog and podcast, My Love For You (which is post-worthy in its own right–it was an enormous source of inspiration for me during my college years). While I definitely gravitated to Lisa’s work on a visual level, it was her personal story that drew me in. Freelance illustration had been her second career. She didn’t start painting or making art until she was 31, and here she was, participating in museum-level shows, working with clients like Chronicle Books, and just being a genuine, successful badass. Lisa is not only someone I look up to artistically–she’s also a prime example of a human being.

Lisa’s art career was secondary, after she accumulated over a decade of experience in the education and nonprofit industries. By pure chance, she stumbled into a painting class and began making art of all kinds from that day forward–fueled by pure joy instead of the desire to succeed quickly. Having always been an avid collector, her random ephemera would find their way into countless collages as well as a series of photos, drawings and paintings that would eventually make up her A Collection A Day project. As she continued to develop her craft and share it with the ever-expanding Internet, people began to catch on. Today, she is an accomplished and prolific working artist, blogger, illustrator, public speaker and writer. Some of her most notable clients to date include The Land of Nod, The Museum of Modern Art, Harper Collins, 826 Valencia and Martha Stewart Living Magazine.

Lisa unabashedly tackles the subjects she is most passionate about, and that fearlessness is expressed effortlessly in the execution of her work. She describes herself as a “visual junkie,” and is deeply inspired by patterns, travel, architecture and vintage packaging, just to name a few. A faithful blogger, Lisa writes about her own process in addition to other artists whom she admires, as well as her life “outside the studio,” which includes swimming, biking, sewing, and traveling. In other words, she’s just making all of us look bad! (I only kid.)

One of the reasons I relate to Lisa’s work is due to the versatility and ever-evolving nature of her aesthetic. Certain characteristics like neon hues and her penchant for all things Scandinavian are mainstays, but she continues to branch out and explore all kinds of mediums (block printing and calligraphy, to name a few). These explorations fuel her work and expand her direction, which is most recently geared towards abstract painting. She’s a wonderful example of why you don’t need to narrow yourself down to one specific style (something I often grapple with).

Lisa is quite a unique artist in that she is not only a creator, but a mentor as well. Breaking into freelance illustration can be a challenging and solitary undertaking, and she continues to give her generous time to those who wish to pursue and learn more about the field through classes, speaking engagements and conferences around the country. I first met Lisa at her first Freelance Illustration class at Makeshift Society back in December 2012, and it was one of my most pivotal learning experiences to date.

Lisa recently released her new book, “Art, Inc.: The Essential Guide for Building Your Career as an Artist,” which is a revolutionary and timely answer to the starving artist stereotype. It covers all areas of the freelance artist’s domain, such as photographing fine art, finding printing services, copyright, and diversifying income. It sits on the shelf above my working desk (I like to call it my “VIP” shelf) as I reference it constantly.

On that same note, I’m very excited to be taking Lisa’s “Become A Working Artist” class through CreativeLive next week! You can follow along with the class virtually by RSVPing here.

To listen to Meighan’s podcast with Lisa, click here. I also highly recommend her feature in The Great Discontent.

Follow along with Lisa below:

Website

Twitter

Blog

Instagram

Purchase Lisa’s books below:

Art, Inc.

Whatever You Are, Be A Good One

A Collection A Day

BY KELLY JAMES-ENGER

I’ve been writing about making money as a freelancer for well over a decade now. I have written five books, dozens of articles and hundreds of blog posts about the subject. I get many questions, and lately many of those have been about the field of ghostwriting. What is ghostwriting? How lucrative is it? How do I get started?

The fact is that any competent writer can ghostwrite as well—as long as you understand the additional responsibilities that come with ghosting. There’s a growing market for talented ghostwriters, so I encourage freelancers to consider whether their personality, background and experience make you a good fit for the field.

Your clients’ needs may vary, but I believe that successful ghostwriters must have the following attributes:

Confidence. Confidence is a key to ghostwriting success for several reasons. First, a confident ghost is more likely to get clients—when they trust in your abilities, they’re willing to hire you to write their book or blog post. Second, your confidence in yourself will make your job easier when it comes to creating a piece of writing that sprang not from your own ideas and brain, but from your client’s. Finally, you have to have enough confidence to recognize that you can write without a byline—and that any praise your piece, whether an article or book, receives will be directed to and accepted by your client—not you. If that idea makes you uncomfortable or resentful, ghosting isn’t for you.

Creativity. It’s a rare client who simply wants to dictate his thoughts and have me write them up for him. (And that’s not really ghostwriting, but transcribing.) A ghost does much more than that—she may be called on to conceptualize, organize, research, edit and rewrite. As a freelancer, you’ve no doubt come up with story ideas, organized articles or book chapters and come up with new approaches to subjects you’ve written about that before. You’ll use those same skills when you ghostwrite.

Flexibility. When you write your own piece, you do the research and writing. When you ghostwrite for a client, though, you may need information—whether written or in the form of phone, email, or in-person interviews—directly from that person. If he’s not available when you need him, you may have to push back a deadline or move forward on another part of the project that doesn’t require his immediate input. If you’re working per your client’s deadlines (and not, say, for a traditional publisher), then he may not feel the pressure to complete the project—which means you fall behind (and don’t get paid for your work). Understanding that when you ghost, you may at the whim of your client is key to ghosting.

Ability to organize. If you’re working on a short project, this is less important. But consider, for example, ghosting a book. That requires that you organize the information you receive from your client, research you perform on your own, different drafts of chapter, and other relevant information. I like to use manila folders for book projects, and set up a folder in Word to hold all of the various research and chapters; your methods may vary but the key is to manage information, drafts, and emails in a way that works for you.

Publishing knowledge. If you’re ghostwriting shorter pieces like articles and blog posts, this is not a great concern. However, if you’re going to ghostwrite books for clients, you should have some books under your belt already. If you have published your own books with traditional publishers, you have an understanding of the industry that will benefit your clients. And if you’ve self-published with a print-on-demand, or POD, company, that knowledge will help clients who choose the same option. Ghosts who have done both—traditionally published and self-published (whether in print, or with e-books, or both)—have a huge advantage over ghosts who are great writers but know little about publishing today. In my opinion, the more experience you have with books, the more valuable you are to a client, and the more potential you have as a ghostwriter.

Ask yourself honestly whether you have these five essential attributes. If the answer is yes, then consider adding ghosting to your freelance repertoire.

Kelly James-Enger is a longtime freelancer and the author of more than a dozen books including  Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks: Make Money Ghostwriting Books, Articles, Blogs and More, Second Edition; Six-Figure Freelancing: The Writer’s Guide to Making More Money, Second Edition; and Dollars and Deadlines: Make Money Writing Articles for Print and Online Markets.

You can find more from Kelly James-Enger on Twitter (@ImprovisePress), Facebook (Improvise Press), and her website, improvisepress.com.

Following the creative path to live a creative life isn’t always an easy instant road to success.  You’re going to put in the effort and hard work so you’ll no doubt get there but like any journey there will be challenges to face and obstacles to overcome to become who you want to be.  Whether you’re a current art student at college, just graduated from university or are bettering your creative practice in your own time with the aspiration of running your own business there’s one teeny tiny obstacle we all have niggling away inside called “expectations”.

Expectations can be anything from aims you set to accomplishments and standards you may put on yourself or those that people around you may have of you themselves but today I’m going to cover self expectations.  Having expectations in general isn’t a bad thing as they give you points to work on and creative insight into ways you’d like to grow.

However sometimes when we set such high aims to reach and aspiring results to follow, when we fall short it can really knock us down and sometimes make you second guess what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. You may find yourself questioning whether you did something right, whether your skills are at their best , if you met the brief you were set and whether you can be as good as the next guy the list goes on and you’re not alone in thinking so.

 However amongst all this expectation you also need to be your biggest motivator and you need to brush yourself off and tell yourself “Believe you can and you will achieve all you set out to”.  I believe you can achieve anything if you put the effort and the hard work into all that you do, although one thing you must truly believe in is yourself.  Remember these few things when you feel your inner expectations are clouding your creative motivation;

1. Your work is surely to be at its best when you are as well. 

2. Everyone’s story and journey is different don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.

3.  A success is to be perceived through your own eyes, however if you don’t try you’ll never know how far you could have gone. 

Featured image created by designer Stephanie Ryan and you can find out more about her and her beautiful designs “here” .

Though running your own creative business is an exciting venture finding a balance between life and what you love to do is pretty hard to find. Sometimes it too easy to become engrossed in putting loads of time into your creative venture to start building things up from your portfolio to your website , however in your pursuit for quicker results this can often lead to becoming frustrated with what you draw and feeling things just aren’t panning out right (believe me I’ve been there). This is why balancing out your creative life is important, working too hard or intensely on your creative practice can wear down your idea’s and prevent you from creating things you are happy to shout about and share with others. So here are 3 tips to a balancing out your own creative life;

1. Find time to do the other things you love

Finding time to do things you love that’s outside of the business is important, this can be anything from sport to other creative activities and though  I know how much you may love to design , stitch , doodle and paint taking the time for yourself  will just give you not only time to chill out but also gain new ideas and inspiration from other places.

2. Find time to do things to wind down the creative trail of thought

Repeat after me “I’m going to relax , slow down and put my feet up for a minute” , if like me you’re the biggest culprit for not relaxing then hopefully this tip will help quite a few of you .  If your mind and body are active all the times you can easily wear yourself out so things like yoga is a great activity to do to just really wind down your mind and body not to mention its good for your health , although if yoga’s not your thing there are other things you could try to chillax and wind down.

3.  Socialising with people you know

 Being creatives we love feeling cosy in our own personalised creative spaces, although there is one catch working from your home studio can be a little isolating unless of course you rent a studio space situated with other creatives . So it’s important to get a break away from your work even for a little while to share thoughts with other like minded people or  close friends  giving you food for thought or breathing space to recharge your batteries before getting back to work.

At the end of the day it’s important to remember that your creative business will only work at its best when you yourself are at your best aswell. The key thing is to just have fun with every project you do but also have fun outside of the business at the same time because finding your own personalised creative balance is sure to help it grow.

Image by designer Vicky riley you can find more of her work here .

by

E.C. Myers

—

When I discovered that two of my favorite childhood authors, Franklin W. Dixon (The Hardy Boys) and Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew), didn’t actually exist, my world turned upside down.

If this is a shocking revelation for you, I’ll give you a moment to take it all in.

Okay, still breathing? Good. Granted, the news may not be all that surprising considering that Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books are still being published today, around ninety years after the series first appeared in print. Not impossible, perhaps, but highly improbable that “Dixon” and “Keene” are still with us and churning out these adolescent adventures, though Frank, Joe, and Nancy haven’t aged much.

It turns out that the true creator of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and a host of other classic characters from Tom Swift to the Bobbsey Twins, were dreamed up by a man named Edward Stratemeyer. He pioneered the concept of “book packaging,” hiring freelance writers to pen books under pseudonyms, according to his plot outlines. The first to write books as Dixon and Keene was a man named Leslie McFarlane.

A writer “ghostwriting” as another author is one of many ways a novel can be written as a “work for hire.” Sweet Valley High fans, I have more bad news for you: Francine Pascal did not write all those books herself! If you’re skeptical whenever a celebrity “writes” a book, you have good reason to be.

But there are many other kinds of projects that are considered “work for hire,” some of which even allow the author to claim what glory they may, including your favorite media-tie-in novels. The authors behind those Star Trek novels are real people! In fact, some of them are friends of mine, and I vouch for their authenticity.

Et tu, Francine Pascal?

It gets a little trickier to know who the creator is when a publishing company develops a series in house and hires a freelance author to write the books, either under their own name or a new pseudonym. You might be surprised when you check the copyright page of a book you love: If the copyright is given to the publisher instead of the author, chances are it was a work-for-hire novel, and the author doesn’t own the rights to the plot or characters.

You might experience a moment of disillusion, but does it really matter? Probably not. The author did write the book after all, and hopefully well, and most writing is a collaborative process between authors and publishers, as well as with other writers, editors, and agents. The important thing is whether the book is any good — as with any book.

In some cases the freelance author might have been given a very detailed outline and set of characters and been tasked with connecting the dots; in other cases, she might get minimum direction and have to come up with a story and characters to fit the premise on her own. There are projects that fall somewhere in between. Moreover, most writers pay the bills by writing lots of things other than their own books — that’s simply called getting “work.” Blog posts, speeches, thank you letters, greeting cards, instruction manuals… Credit can’t always be given where it’s due, and sometimes the only place a writer needs his name to appear is on the “Pay to the Order of” line on a check.

If you’re a writer, you might be interested in getting a work for hire assignment of your own. So how does that happen? Typically a publisher will reach out to an author directly or through an agent, or you might get the opportunity through your network of contacts. If you are invited to audition for the project, you would need to submit a sample chapter or two, following guidelines from the publisher (which were developed internally by one or more people). This gives the publisher a sense of whether your approach and writing style are a good fit for their vision, and to compare what you can bring to the project versus other authors vying for the job. I’ve auditioned for a few of these, and I like to write a chapter from very early in the book and one from the middle, which is a chance to show some growth in the protagonist and introduce a variety of settings, characters, and relationships.

Not that kind of Ghostwriter!

If you’re given some freedom regarding the plotting of the book, you may also have to draft an outline on your own — not unlike what you would submit in a book proposal when writing on spec. This outline might include a high-level Synopsis of the whole story, descriptions of the Style and Theme you imagine for the book, a list of Characters, and finally a Detailed Outline telling the story. Later, you may need to develop a chapter-by-chapter outline as well.

Work-for-hire books generally have a tight turnaround time from first draft to publication — we’re talking months instead of years — which can be very appealing in terms of getting your books on shelves and money in your bank account. But it also means you have to write both quickly and well, so it might not be for everyone. On the other hand, for some it could be a dream come true. Once I found out that Franklin W. Dixon was actually a bunch of different authors, I wanted to be one of them. And hey, I’m pretty sure I have at least one great Star Trek novel in me…

What are your favorite work-for-hire books or authors? Have you written a work for hire, or would you like to?

—

E.C. Myers was assembled in the U.S. from Korean and German parts and raised by a single mother and a public library in Yonkers, New York. He is the author of the Andre Norton Award–winning young adult novel FAIR COIN and its sequel, QUANTUM COIN; his next YA novel, THE SILENCE OF SIX, will be published by Adaptive in November 2014. You can find traces of him all over the internet, but especially at his blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.

paulgarsonproductions.com

Originally posted in Writer Unboxed. See my other comics in Writer Unboxed.

If you are interested in corporate writing, read today’s tip of the day from 102 Ways To Earn Money Writing 1,500 Words or Less by I.J. Schecter. Before accepting any writing assignment, you should know what your rate is and have a freelance writing contract ready for each client/project.

Determining Your Freelance Writing Rate

When your work is accepted by newspapers, magazines, or literary journals, you’ll have little say about what you’re paid. Once you become established, you’ll earn a bit of wiggle room when it comes to negotiating rates upward, but only a bit. For the most part, rates are set. But when you write for the corporate market, it’s you alone who determines what to quote for a given assignment or project, and this will be based on the hourly rate you determine for yourself. Writer’s Market lists low, high, and average rates for every type of writing you can think of. Base your hourly rate on this data. When people ask what you charge, don’t be sheepish. Answer quickly and firmly. The more you sound like you believe in the value of your services, the more potential clients will believe it, too.

Refer to the What Do I Charge? chart in Writer’s Market and notice it talks in terms of hours, not dollars. This is because (a) every writer’s rate will be different, so it isn’t fair to assign a blanket dollar amount to a specific type of project, and (b) within the same type of project there will be different sizes of projects.

A presentation might be five slides long or fifty; a speech might be three minutes long or thirty. So when you quote on a project, do it based on a fair assessment of how many hours of your time you think it will require. Don’t approach a project thinking “How much money do I want to make off this?” because you’ll inevitably skew your own estimates according to a number of factors, including how much money you do or don’t have flowing in at a given point. That will lead to inconsistency in your quoting, which clients will come to recognize. But quote according to a true projection of the hours you’ll need to do the project and do it well, and clients will come back again and again.

Create a Standard Writing Contract

Develop your own standard freelance agreement so you’re never in danger of doing a project without having something in writing. (No pun intended.) Companies are often rushed to complete their projects, and the last thing the middle manager assigned to find a writer wants to do is go through the extra step of having to prepare a formal agreement just to allow you to edit his marketing brochure. Send him your own agreement instead, outlining clearly the nature of the project, the expectations on your part, the agreed fee and deadline, and the set number of rounds of revisions before extra time kicks in. This document doesn’t have to be long—mine is barely two pages. The important thing is that you get a signature. You may be reading this and thinking it’s a giant pain in the rear end to create a contract every time you get a corporate assignment.

Consider this scenario: The manager who’s contacted you to write a long marketing piece, along with Web site copy, for a total fee of $3,500 has bolted from his company for a position elsewhere. The marketing piece has been handed off to someone else, and this person doesn’t feel that the expense of a writer is worthwhile. If you had only a verbal agreement with the previous person, you’ve just lost $3,500. If you got it in writing, you’ve made $3,500.

That’s the more elaborate scenario. The much simpler, and more frequent one, involves your having to chase a client for payment. It would be nice if this never happened, but any veteran freelancer can tell you more stories than she’d like about delinquent clients. Without signed agreements, getting them to pay is like trying to précis Hemingway. Get all your corporate assignments in writing and you’ll never have to worry.

To learn more about writing for magazines, newspapers, literary outlets and everything else under the sun, get your own copy of this book today!

Buy now!

Are you new to writing and exploring what type of writing you want to do? This eBook excerpt, How Do I Start a Freelance Career?, from the Beginning Writer’s Answer Book, covers everything from freelance writing to technical writing and writing for niches – such as comic strips, book reviews, and more!

In this post, we’ve picked a couple of frequently asked questions about freelance writing and making money. Enjoy!

For many years, I’ve had a deep-seated desire to write, and I’d love to break in to the field and make enough money to support my family. How much money can I make freelancing?

A lot of money can be made by freelancing, but most writers receive fairly little income while they perfect their writing and marketing abilities. There are hundreds of full-time freelancers who make good livings but who started slow—freelancing on the side while holding down a day job. Your best bet is to begin with magazine articles, since the market is large and varied, and fodder for articles is everywhere.

What are the advantages and disadvantages I might face as a full-time freelance writer?

There are many advantages to being a full-time freelance writer. You are your own boss. You control your working hours and, in a sense, the amount of money you make. You practice as a profession the thing you enjoy most. You may have much more opportunity to be creative than if you worked as a staff writer. You choose what you want to write about, and get paid for learning something new through research. You can work at home, and if you’re a parent, you can save on childcare expenses. In addition, the research involved in writing can bring you into contact with interesting, stimulating people.

On the other hand, most writers face innumerable rejections (and no income) before making their first sale. To avoid losing faith in yourself and your career at this stage, it helps if you are thick-skinned, self-confident, and persistent. Unlike a job in a company, freelance work does not bring regular paychecks in regular amounts. Further, you are responsible for collecting your own payments. You receive no fringe benefits, such as the insurance and retirement benefits that company employees receive. Being self-employed, you must spend part of your working time on administrative tasks like bookkeeping and filing income tax and social security forms.

Writers usually work alone, and this can be a disadvantage (depending on your personality), especially after a number of days without contact with your colleagues. If you’re married, it’s best to have a spouse who approves of your career and all it entails, since your irregular working hours and irregular income will affect him or her.

Download this eBook excerpt today!

Living like Damn Hell Ass Kings!


What the 2012 update looks like.

luclatulippe:

Hey freelancers: have you been keeping track of your monthly expenses like I recommended 18 months ago? 

Well, because at heart I am The Illustrator Who Wanted To Be An Accountant™, and because my site stats claim this was a mighty popular post, here’s an update to our Monthly Revenue & Expense Worksheet as a PDF for you to download. (Also, here’s an Apple Numbers spreadsheet. If anyone can convert this to a prittay Excel version, that would be coooool!)

Here’s how we use it:

1. Print out a new sheet every month.
2. Use a sexy magnet (optional) to stick it on our fridge (or front door; somewhere where you’ll see it often each day). 
3. Jot down every miserable Expense you make during that month. (Round up and drop the cents to keep it simple.)
4. There’s also a teeny tiny box for Revenue, so jot down every job you get. (Or jot down every cheques you actually receive; whichever works best for you.)
5. Jot down business expenses too, like HST/GST, software, hardware, paper for your printer, etc… 
6. Add these up at the end of each month* and see what kind of hot mess your finances are in. FUN! (And if you’re like me, you’re going to want to double-check your calculations; our groceries were $960, not $850. FOR TWO PEOPLE. WTF?)

This is a rough worksheet rather than a typed-in-the-computer spreadsheet for tax purposes. It’s meant to encourage you to quickly jot things down so you can get a bird’s eye view of your “money in/money out” situation. It lets you see right away if you are in the red or in the black, and if you have any money left at the end of the year to put away and invest.

• Where are you over-spending? Restaurants? Clothes? 
• Are you not bringing in enough money? 
• Did you bring in more than usual last month? Good job!
• Do you have some left over each month you could be putting into tax-free savings account, or a retirement fund? (Are you even doing this?)

Yes, you can use an app (there are literally hundreds out there, and you may be able more easily to track them as they happen), but for me good ol’ paper-and-pencil works best. 

When you’re done, you can type all the totals into a proper spreadsheet and have a

* I round up a little each time, because I know there are small items I forget here and there.

Freelancers, young and old: How do you keep track of your expenses? Paper or App? How accurate/disciplined are you about it? You run a business after all, so if you’re not doing this somehow or other, you’re only cheating yourself in the long run. Hop to it! :)

Whether your goal is to launch a new career for yourself as a copywriter or to improve your writing skills, a new course from Writers Digest University may be what you need. When you enroll in Breaking into Copywriting, you’ll not only learn copywriting techniques and terminology, but also gain writing experience.

What is Copywriting?

It’s important to know what copywriting is, especially if you are considering becoming a copywriter. Copywriting can be defined as the act of writing that influences a reader or listener to take action, such as the purchase of a product. Therefore, a copywriter is the person who writes copy (also known as creative) for the purpose of advertising or marketing a product, business, person, opinion or idea.

Break into Copywriting: What You’ll Learn

Now that you know what copywriting is, you’re probably wondering what exactly this four-week online copywriting course is about and what you’ll learn. The course is broken down by week. Each week, you’ll explore questions such as, Where is Copywriting Used?, What Makes a Good Copywriter?, and Where Does a Copywriter Work?.

In addition to reading weekly lectures, you’ll also complete weekly assignments and receive individual feedback from your instructor. By the end of the course you’ll know how to:

• Create an Ad
• Generate a Creative Brief
• Write Headlines and Taglines
• Craft different types of copy
• Understand when and how to use a Call to Action
• Use techniques to persuade an audience
• Find work as a copywriter, either full-time or freelance

Improve Your Copywriting Skills

Are you ready to acquire skills that help you write a better query letter, market yourself online, or