Posts filed under 'Book'
Bart Motes writes: I am not a woman. Can I still benefit from your book? Why should work advice be gendered anyway? Also, don’t tell people to go to law school. It sucks. (Former law review editor here.)
I answer: Bart, I would never tell people to go to law school. (Okay, maybe I sort of would, but only if they really wanted to become a lawyer.)
As for your great questions, no, of course you don’t have to be a woman. There are about two out of 225 pages in My So-Called Freelance Life that speak directly to women (pep talk for getting paid what you’re worth and not feeling “guilty” for asking for it). But men can benefit from that message too.
The reason the book is gendered is because my publisher’s niche is “books for women.” But I wrote My So-Called Freelance Life for everyone because I think it’s silly to cut out half the audience, especially when the advice is the same for all. Lots of men read The Anti 9-to-5 Guide and said it was really helpful to them.
September 12th, 2008
Join me in Distractionland: My So-Called Freelance Life on Facebook!
September 8th, 2008
Seems like only yesterday I was writing the epilogue of this puppy. And now it’s almost ready to head out into the world. My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire, published by Seal Press, is due in stores at the beginning of October. (!) But if you don’t want to wait that long to get 220 pages of freelancing tips by yours truly, you can pre-order your copy now.
If you’d like to help me celebrate, ask me a question in the flesh, or just say hello, here are some Seattle dates to add to your calendar (more events TBD):
Book launch party – October 16
When: 6 to 10 pm on a Thursday
What: Reading and Q&A at 7 pm; schmoozing/boozing before and after
Where: Office Nomads, 1617 Boylston Ave, Second Floor, Seattle [map]
Co-sponsors: Office Nomads and University Book Store
Reading and book signing – October 25
When: 2 pm on a Saturday
What: Me, you, podium, chairs, questions, answers, handshakes, hugs, signed copies of the book
Where: Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 South Main Street, Seattle
Write on the Sound Conference – October 4
When: 9:15 am on a Saturday
What: “Pitching Nonfiction Articles that Sell,” 75-minute workshop at weekend writers’ conference
Where: 700 Main Street, Edmonds, WA
Registration: Write on the Sound; $69 Sat or Sun, $109 both days
If you join me at any of these events, don’t be shy — be sure to say hello! And if you’d like me to talk to your creative, freelance, or professional group, send me an email. If I can’t come in person, maybe we can arrange a group phone or web chat.
August 29th, 2008
I told myself I wasn’t going to post the cover of my new book on the site until I’d put the sucker to bed. The manuscript’s not even due till next week. But then Kristen Fischer kindly did this infomercial about me Q&A with me on Freelance Switch, which means the 22,000+ people who subscribe to the mother of all freelancing blogs now have the link to my new book (not that I mind). So I thought it was high time I let the cat out of the bag here too. In addition, I’d like to mention five things you probably didn’t know about my new book:
1. It’s called My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire, and it’s due out this fall from Seal Press.
2. I interviewed several of the working class heroes I mentioned yesterday for it.
3. Kate Basart, the fab designer who’s responsible for The Anti 9-to-5 Guide’s good looks, did my new cover too. (Clicking the image at the top of this post will make it bigger, in case you were wondering.) Note the recurring post-it motif! Also, note that those are not my feet, though I do own a pair of pink flip-flops.
4. Just a hunch, but I suspect publishers like to announce their books on Amazon as early as possible so their authors can’t weasel out of their deadlines.
5. The book is available for pre-order on Amazon. I’m just saying…
March 24th, 2008
And while I’m on the subject of this new book I’m working on (for some reason, I’m too superstitious to even put the title here, but you can probably Google it somewhere), I have a question for you:
What do you want to know about freelancing as a creative professional more than anything else? In other words, what topic do you absolutely positively want to see covered in this book? How to make a webfolio? How to negotiate your rate like nobody’s business? How to stop procrastinating? Email me specifics and generalities alike.
Because I’m being all secretive-like, I’d rather you email me your suggestions than put them in the comments. But you’re of course welcome to tell me to get back to work in the comments. Thanks again.
February 21st, 2008
You may have caught me alluding to the new book I’m working on last week. It’s essentially a follow-up to The Anti 9-to-5 Guide, on what to do once you’ve fled the cube for freelance pastures. It covers things like how to hustle, haggle, and basically have enough money to eat. Seal Press will be publishing it at the end of the year, and I’m currently putting the finishing touches on it.
Since my deadline’s looming fast and I really need to focus (read: catch up) during the next few weeks, you’re going to see less posts from me until early April. More like two a week. In fact, if you see me posting, say, four times a week between now and April, you have my permission to type in all caps, “Michelle, WTF are you doing blogging again? You still have chapters to finish!”
Yeah, just like that. Only in ALL CAPS. Thanks.
February 21st, 2008
Last week I talked about swallowing my own medicine by creating a detailed spreadsheet to help me wrap my brain around a big fat deadline. Somewhere between the holiday turkey and stuffing this past weekend I realized that when it came to getting reacquainted with working toward a beefy, long-range project deadline while sitting home in my union suit, I still had miles to go before I could consider myself a lean, mean well-oiled machine.
Suddenly the expanse of time I now enjoyed each workday seemed more like a curse than a blessing. The ABC daytime lineup beckoned, as did the half-dozen half-read memoirs on my nightstand. The dirty dishes in the sink taunted me, and the disorganized bedroom closet became an irresistable siren song. I realized I needed to add some structure to my writing day — and quick — or come deadline day, all I’d have would be (1) a Jeopardy-like command of General Hospital trivia, (2) a scarily impressive Goodreads page, and (3) an uncharacteristically immaculate house.
So I once again sought the counsel of The Anti 9-to-5 Guide and quickly honed in on page 104, where I found this tidbit:
“If you’re self-employed, setting ‘office hours’ will help you stay on top of your workload and better compartmentalize when you’re off duty — something that’s infinitely harder to do when your office is ten feet down the hall. Without set hours, it’s far too easy to fall prey to the ‘I’ll just take the afternoon off and then work late into the evening or get up before dawn to finish’ line of thinking. Half the time you’re too tired to do the work justice after dinner, let alone drag your sorry, procrastinating ass to your desk. And setting your clock for 4 AM to finish the work you blew off yesterday is a surefire recipe for oversleeping.”
Ahem, and amen.
Since I’m a fan of lists, I created this one, which I promptly hung on my fridge:
Structure, dammit!
8 AM wake
8:15 journal and morning dance*
9 eat
9:15 walk Buddy
10ish to 4ish write at least 1,000 words for bigass project**
4ish to 5ish catch up on email and errands
5ish walk Buddy
6ish make/eat dinner
8 to 10ish evening activity: playing, slacking, reading, blogging, marketing***, editing day’s work, and/or writing something else****
*Journaling about my project’s progress helps me clear my creative throat each morning. And rocking out to some 70s jam band or other helps get my blood pumping and gives me a morning ritual to signal that the workday’s about to begin.
**Obviously I break for lunch in here. Works best if there are leftovers from the night before that I can heat up in a flash. Also, I discovered in 2006 that (a) everyone strives for 1,000 words/day when working on a bigass writing project, and I can crank out this amount in 3 to 6 hours (or so), polished, depending on how much reporting is involved.
***The other day someone asked for my bio and clips for a potential ongoing career advice gig. Sending them the requested material and following up on other similar opportunities is what I mean by marketing.
*****The something elses I am writing are a couple of non-fiction essayish stories on topics I’ve been wanting to tackle for quite some time. In all likelihood, I will have to put myself on a writing schedule for these too. But first I need to get my hands around the beefier project’s schedule.
Because it’s officially permanently gray in Seattle, with a whopping six hours of daylight available, I discovered I have to set my alarm — yes, even to rise at 8 AM. Otherwise, I’ll sleep clear till lunchtime. So far I have yet to ace this schedule, but I think I’ll have it somewhat close to licked this week. If not, I’ve resigned myself to showering and working in a cafe next week. For some reason, I am resistant to doing that. I like to choose my own background noise/music and visual distractions, I suppose.
How about you? What scheduling tips have worked for you when you’ve seemingly got all week long to chip away at a far off deadline?
November 27th, 2007
My life has changed a lot since the month began. From July to November, I was burning the candle at both ends, jugging a contract gig with freelance writing deadlines, which I realize is ironic for someone who wrote a book with a hefty work/life balance theme. But sometimes you need to bring home a little extra bacon, so I bit the bullet and toiled a little more than I should. And now I am free. FREE.
First thing I did to decompress was go here, then here. Then I read this, and this, and even took in a bit of this. Along the way, I taught a class, applied for a grant, and turned in a couple short articles. But it still felt like a vacation.
After two weeks of this luxuriating, I realized it was time to face the music. What I haven’t told you is that I have a Very Large Writing Project due in a few months, and while that’s quite exciting, the time management aspect of it is a little scary to me, especially since I’m essentially home in my jammies with zero structure whatsoever for the first time in many months. So I decided to crack open The Anti 9-to-5 Guide and take some of my own medicine. In particular, this tidbit from page 59:
“Use a wall calendar, notebook, or spreadsheet to measure your progress: how much time you spent on your project each session and what you accomplished. This will help you see the bigger picture come into focus.”
I suspected that making a list of all the components of this Very Large Writing Project and their deadlines, target word count, state of done-ness, and final word count would be freeing. So I cribbed a spreadsheet template that my friend Ariel, who completed this Very Large Writing Project a while back, used to help her feel calm about the whole thing. (Thanks, lady!)
I’m excited to move the project management aspect of this beast from my head to my laptop. Not only do I feel more organized, I already feel less stressed about the whole thing. Rather than having to wonder where I am in the project, if I am on schedule, if I’m over or under the desired word count, and how much writing/editing I have left to go, I can just crack open my spreadsheet and feast my eyes upon the data. Of course, I have yet to add in the deadlines as that would move me from a state of denial to one of reality, but I plan to force myself to go there today. Good luck to me.
November 20th, 2007
Contrary to what you may have heard, first-time authors usually do not sip champagne from Fluevogs or travel by Learjet. I set the record straight on the business of bookselling in this dishy Mediabistro Q&A, written by the fabulous Rachel Kramer Bussel. See why I chose Seal Press as my publisher, what kind of money we’re talking about when we talk indie press book advances, and how the heck I financed writing a book in the first place. (Subscription required.)
May 25th, 2007
Any UK residents (or North American expats in the UK) reading and using The Anti 9-to-5 Guide? I’ve been contacted by a journalist who’s looking for guinea pigs — I mean, people who’ve read the book and found it helpful. If so, email me. Thanks so much.
April 16th, 2007
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