Whatever its scale or ambition, a grant proposal aims to do two things: to show that a particular project needs to be supported by a funder and to show why some individual, group or organization is the right one—the best one—to carry out the project. Showing the "need" is largely an exercise in argumentative writing. It’s argumentative not in the hostile, red-faced, fist-shaking sense but in the classical sense of establishing a claim
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I recently read an issue of The Writer Magazine at the library, and one of the articles caught my attention. The main point of the article was that you should spend most of your writing time on what you write for money like magazine articles, business newsletters, blog posts, or whatever writing income stream you have found. According to the article, about 80% of your writing time should be spent on pieces that will make you “instant” money, instead of royalties later on down the road.
The other 20% should be reserved for your creative side—that poem you’ve been thinking about since you went for a walk in your old neighborhood, the novel you’re rewriting, or a short story to send to a contest.
This “theory” makes perfect sense until I try to put it into practice. One of my main problems is that I want the pieces I write during my 20% “creative time” to be my main income stream, but I don’t feel like I spend enough time on them. How will these stories and novels ever be successful if I’m only spending 20% of my time on them? The real problem is that this creative time is probably more like 3 to 5 percent of my writing time, instead of 20, when I figure in e-mail, marketing, and networking, too.
So, as writers do, I decided to make a list, full of tips and tricks to make sense of balancing my writing income work with my creative, hopefully-someday-income-gathering, writing. I hope that some of these tips and tricks can help you if you face this same dilemma, and together we can become more balanced writers.
Plan With Your Daily Calendar
If I sit down at the computer without a plan, I waste a lot of time. So, this year, I invested in a calendar with large spaces for each day where I can clearly write what I want to work on. The calendar has two days on every page, so a two-page spread shows four days of the week. This calendar’s organization really helps me see if I’m planning to write for money and creativity in the same four-day spread.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy writing, any writing. So, I’m not saying this 80% "business writing" is not fun and enjoyable--it’s just a different type of writing. If you write fiction and poetry AND you write non-fiction articles, you know what I’m talking about. I just love writing!
On each day of my four-day calendar spread, I make a note to work on some sort of creative, currently non-income writing, such as writing a chapter of my YA novel or revising and sending out a picture book manuscript. This is my 20%. Now, I haven’t mathematically figured out if m
Last week, I wrote about considering business writing as part of your freelance career--especially with the number of magazines and newspapers folding. I talked about external and internal opportunities and about contacting businesses and letting them know about your services. But Craigslist (www.craigslist.org) is also full of business writing opportunities. The hope is that you find one, get your resume in quickly before the other one hundred writers, do a great job, and the business hires you again. I have applied for Craigslist jobs before--some have worked out; some have not. Once, I received a phone call from a business owner who was looking for writers who could write on a variety of subjects for his event planning business. While he quickly interviewed me and I translated his heavy New York accent, he told me he received over one hundred resumes for that job. So, the competition is tough, and you have to be quick on Craigslist. Let’s talk about some tips on using Craigslist, so you don’t get lost in the shuffle.• Many of the large cities that you first see listed on the Craigslist home page have the most job openings for writers—even telecommunicating jobs. Use the local angle, though, to make yourself more desirable to an employer. For example, if you live near Chicago, search for jobs there first and mention your location in your first response to the job ad. • Click on your state and find your city on the list. I live in Missouri; so when I click on my state, I am taken to a page that lists several medium- and large-sized cities. I look at the jobs in those cities first and again mention that I am a local writer or editor. If I am familiar with the business, I will also mention that in my first e-mail. • Don’t answer ads that are general and don’t give much information about the business. These are often ads for sites that want you to subscribe to them to view jobs or make a very small amount of money for a very large amount of work. • On Craigslist, if it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true. It won’t hurt you to answer ads like this if you are not sure if they are legit or not (and everyone has different goals for their careers), but don’t waste a lot of time on them. With Craigslist, I usually put a couple sentences about myself, attach my resume WITHOUT my address (just my phone number and website), and send it. If the company is legit, then they will get back to you. With Craigslist, it is a good idea to set aside one or two hours once a week to look through ads and respond to them. Start with your state, and then move on to bigger cities such as New York and Los Angeles. Look for ads from businesses, so you can develop a relationship with them and
With the economy in a tailspin, we all know that freelance writing gigs can be tough to get. Some magazines and newspapers have closed their doors; others are only working with staff writers to keep costs down. So, to pick up some freelance work and put some of that green stuff back in your pocketbook, you might consider business writing. You’ve probably heard the old pros mention that they do quite a bit of business writing, and it’s often more lucrative and easier to find than magazine and newspaper work. But what does this term business writing mean exactly? External CommunicationOne of the most common types of business writing is when a company hires a freelance writer to create materials for public viewing. The writer’s job is part writing and part public relations as she produces materials that communicate with potential and current customers. Small- to medium-sized businesses are more likely to hire freelancers for these jobs because they don’t have the budget to pay a staff writer (or provide benefits like health insurance), or they don’t have enough regular work to keep a writer busy forty hours a week.If a company hires you to work on external communication projects, you could be writing:• Newsletters• Letters• Brochures• Press Releases• Blogs• Website copy• Ads• E-mails• Presentations• Reports• Social Networking ProfilesFor example, I’m currently working with a psychologist who is creating a parenting brochure for her clients. I’m taking her technical jargon and making it more parent-friendly, as well as adding practical examples that parents can relate to. Many businesses today create newsletters or brochures full of helpful tips, projects, recipes, community information, and more to create a relationship with their customers. A hardware store could hire you to create a bi-monthly newsletter full of do-it-yourself projects and highlighting ways the store is helping in the community. A photographer might want to create a newsletter or brochure around the holi
Con your way out of Negative Thinking with a Pros & Cons List
“I’m not good enough to be a writer.” “Why would anyone publish my work?” “This is such crap!” Every writer goes through this at various points of his or her writing career. Negative thinking has a way of creeping up slowly until it all piles up on top of you and keeps you from your writing goals. How do I know this? Because I’m going through it right now.
I barely write anything these days because of various life stressors (single parenting, work, finances, etc). Not to mention that the stress of my day job has been keeping me up at night with crazy dreams. All of these stressors get me thinking negatively about myself, my abilities, and my writing. I doubt myself in all sorts of ways, which is the trick to negative thinking. It starts with one mistake on your part and can snowball out of control with negative thoughts coming at you on all sides.
A trick I’ve come up with to combat negative thinking is a pros and cons list. Most of the time my list is a tool to help me make informed decisions. In the case of reducing negative thinking, the list can be used to find out what your strengths and weaknesses are.
Take one sheet of paper and write “Pros” at the top. Then take another sheet and write “Cons” at the top.
Start with the Cons list first. Yes, put all those nasty, ugly downright dirty thoughts about why you shouldn’t be a writer. These should be easy for you to come up with if you have trouble with negative thinking.
By writing down all of the negative thoughts, you get the junk out of your brain and onto a piece of paper. Then the negativity doesn’t seem quite so big and you can truly evaluate everything that has been keeping you from writing.
After getting on paper every single thing you think is wrong with your writing down on paper, make a list of all of the pros. If you’re not sure of the reasons why you should be a writer, look up old papers, emails or anything else that compliments your writing.
It could have been from your high school English teacher or your co-worker (the one who gets excited when you tell him/her that you’ve written something) or even your own child who says that you write the best stories. Start with these and then add your own pros to the list. Pretty soon you’ll find that you have more reason to write than not to.
And if that doesn’t work, take the cons list and rip it to shreds. As a therapeutic way of getting rid of the negative junk in our own minds, ripping something up connects us to the act of shedding the negativity. And if your cons list keeps bugging you, write it again and burn it in a glass/metal bowl. You’ll be sending the message to yourself that you should be a writer AND get rid of all those negative thoughts! Happy Writing!
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Very interesting. I don't write for a living, but this is great information if that ever changes for me. Thanks for posting.
Thanks, Savannah. :)
i'll be buying a new daily calendar "with large spaces" this week. thank for the tip *-*
-a
Thank you for the tips, Margo. I don't currently write for money, but I still relate to the dilemma of balancing “creative time" with the rest of the day's responsibilities. I really like the idea of recording time spent on each task. As a former paralegal, I used to track all of my time in 6 minute increments, might have to start applying that tool to my every day life! J.C.
In the interest of accountability to actually write every day, and to measure where I'm spending my time I created a spreadsheet. Each month is a page, the days are numbered down the side. On each day, I put, in minutes, how much time I spent and, in the next column, on what. I've even started color coding it.
I was surprised to find it's very easy to open it up when I sit down to write, look at the clock, and just log the work in when I'm done or change to a different task.
Hello Margo, seems we all struggle with the same thing, time management and funding essentials such as, oh, eating (for the kids I mean).
I need to at least stop sucking finances out of the family income to fund my writing, so I have begun writing for $$. I enter competitions that give $ prizes, post on blogs that pay, accept assignments (for pennies reward on dollars of my time btw). Even being published (not self published) costs, you have to have funds to advertise your masterpiece. Smashwords has not been the money maker others say it is for them. So, I chisel away at the mountain of hope, while I pick up crumbs from the sand to fund that chiselling. Not your every day success story, but I suspect it is an every day reality for many.
Very helpful post, Margo. Thanks for sharing your tips. I basically write for money because I need to but I have been longing to set some quality time with my creative side without having to think of deadlines and finances. I've started a personal blog a few years ago but I've never really given much attention to it because I wasn't earning from it.
But this is reality. I just hope someday I can find more time to explore my creativity. Right now, it's 95/5 for me. With enough discipline and determination, I should make it at 80/20 :)
Great post! Love your site!
Thanks for all the comments, everyone, and for the tips that you guys included. I love the color coded spreadsheet, Lori. :) Gael, keep plugging away--it takes a while to build a successful writing business, that's for sure! Shyxter--some days it's like 99/1 for me--but I try the 80/20 equation when I can. :)