Better Writing Through Stress

My friends, I could advocate stress-free productivity like all the other bloggers, but when it comes to personal improvement, I’m a Maverick. Productivity isn’t for wimps. Here’s some ways to whip your way back into stress-filled achievement.

Make a Long List

Buy a set of 100 3 x5 cards. On each line of each card (both sides) list an item that you want to accomplish. Do not leave any blank space. No task should be considered to large or too small to list. If done properly, you should have approximately 2000 tasks that you need to accomplish. That should tide you over for the first month. Every time you feel yourself starting to relax, pick up one of the cards and do not rest until you have completed every task on the card.

Don’t Clean

A clean environment is a relaxing environment. Stress needs chaos to survive. Clutter your desk. Add a new junk drawer. Pile your dishes. All of these messes will make it almost impossible for you to relax, which will make for dynamite productivity.  Remember, a messy desk is a productive desk.

Avoid limits

Setting limits on your time just encourages you to become protective of your needs. Being protective of your needs means taking the occasional break. Breaks are for losers and orthopedic surgeons, and you sure don’t look like an orthopedic surgeon. Spend too much time on your email. Edit that paragraph another seven times. Common sense says that you need to move on, but common sense if for common people, not achievers.

Move faster

Walk fast. Drive fast. Eat fast. Read fast. Motion equals progress. If you stop to think, you may think of a reason to stop, so speed through tasks as quickly as possible. The more important a task is, the faster you should do it.

Multitude-task

Most people think that they have to multi-task in order to succeed. Those people are fools. Multi-tasking doesn’t come close to describing what you need to do. Multitude-tasking is far better. If you aren’t working on 20 tasks simultaneously, consider yourself to be a slacker. Up the ante. You never know how many things you can accomplish at once until you accomplish something.

Sleep as little as possible

Sleeping is not a productive use of your time. Try to avoid it.

Surviving as a Writer in a Bad Economy

Life as a career writer, or really as any employee in a down economy, is a difficult one. If you are out of work, your situation is bad, but your goals and direction are clear. You want to do whatever it takes to bring in an income again. If you are employed, you have the benefit of a job, but your need to walk a tightrope. You want to be in the best possible position to find another job (or at least an income) if you need it but you don’t want to alienate your current employer by appearing to be putting yourself on the market. I have already written an article about How to Find Publishing Industry Jobs.  If you are out of work, you should read that article immediately. It has the process you need to follow in any job search, whether the economy is good or bad. The advice below is aimed at both promoting and protecting yourself so that you can minimize the risks of losing your job and put yourself in the best position to find work if you do lose your job.

Put Your Money Aside

A bad economy is not a good time to be spending money on non-essentials. I know the current philosophy is that you can spend your way out of a recession, but let the rest of the people do that for you.  Put aside as much money as possible. I know how difficult it can be, but do whatever you can do because any cushion you have will help keep you afloat if you lose your job.

Do Your Job Really Well

A down economy is not a good time to be a bad employee. Don’t give your company an excuse to let you go. Get your projects done on time or early if at all possible. Double-check your work to be sure everything was done properly. Be willing to help out another employee if they need it. Do what you can to promote as positive a reputation at work as you can muster. If the stress is getting to you, look for healthy ways to let off steam after work such as exercising or getting back to a hobby you enjoy.

Know Your Market

At least once a week, take the time to do a general online job search for writing positions in your area. Your goal is to get a sense of where the market is and what your options are. I recommend Indeed for this search because they aggregate multiple job sites and they allow you to include salary levels as a filter so that you can see where you stand when it comes to pay. If a job sounds interesting, you can apply, but the main goal is to stay informed.

Perfect Your Resume

Make sure your resume is complete and flexible. Create a single-page version for basic job search needs, and a longer, detailed version that discusses all of your past writing experiences in depth. The second resume is more of a reminder of what you have done in the past at each job so that you are ready to discuss those things if they come up. The in-depth resume should come complete with exact work dates and company addresses. This will come in handy if you find yourself filling out a job application.

You might also want to create some tailored single-page resumes. If you are capable of working in multiple fields (copywriting, technical writing, editing, proofreading, public relations, etc.) create a resume for each type of job. In a down economy, you may need to take a position you would otherwise not be interested in. It is best to be prepared for those openings before times get desperate.

Putting your resume online with a service such as Monster, Dice or Career Builder is a judgment call. If you are worried about your employer finding your resume, than either make it private/anonymous or fill out the resume but leave it inactive so that you can activate it the moment you know your job is in peril.

Update Your Portfolio

Often, when you are laid off, the notice comes quickly and there is no time to assemble current samples of your work. If you want to be ready, work on your portfolio before there is a crisis. Keep it updated. If you need to use unpublished company materials that may contain protected information, working on this in advance gives you the time to remove or rewrite any sensitive information that your company may object to your distributing.  Much like your resume, you will want to tailor your portfolio to different career paths. Samples of your copywriting work are not appropriate when applying for a technical writing job.

Increase Your Visibility

While a company may object to you sending out your resume, there are plenty of other ways to increase your visibility. You may want to start your own professional blog. Some companies do object to employee blogs, so make sure you aren’t in violation of any policies. If you cannot run your own blog, you can always write guest articles for other blogs or industry publications. Work on your networking. Join organizations in your career field and attend events such as conferences and seminars. Try to meet as many people as you can at these events and be sure to bring business cards. You can also join business networking sites such as LinkedIn or Xing. If you do join, try to be as active as possible. The more you interact, the more options you will have if you ever need to put your network into play.

Diversify Your Income

If you can develop a secondary income source, it will help lessen the blow of losing your primary income. You can take a second job, freelance or set up a small business such as an income producing blog. You know your own strengths so I can’t tell you which one will work best for you, but find a way to keep all your eggs from being in the same basket.

That’s it for my advice. I welcome advice from others. What do you recommend for a down economy?

Will The Recession Hurt Your Writing Career?

The recession is starting to get painful

I know that there are some people out there who don’t think that we’re in a recession. Some of those same people believe that a 700 billion dollar bailout of the financial caretakers who made bad bets with our money is a good idea. What I know is that my 401k is down 18% over the past year and it wasn’t due to me taking a whole bunch of chances. I chose the most conservative portfolio my company offered. I know that my company’s stock value, despite the company making its financial projections, is down by half. There haven’t been any layoffs in the past year, but hiring at the company has become anemic. They aren’t replacing the people who leave unless the absolutely have to.

As a person who posts job openings across the writing industry on my site, I know that it is getting harder for me to find good jobs to post.  I know that at least one writing career path, newspaper reporting, is experiencing a record number of layoffs. Take all that together and we’ve got trouble. If you don’t want to call it a recession, or a “slowdown”, feel free to call it “that lack of jobs thing” or something else that makes you comfortable.

Whatever the case, it is time to look at where the jobs are and where they aren’t, at least from what I have observed so far. Let me clarify that I base my opinion on three things: articles I am reading, trends I have observed as someone who posts jobs, and conversations I have had with other writers. This is not a newspaper report, it is my view of the situation. Call me a pundit, if you will.

Newspapers are doing badly

Newspapers, of course, are the hardest hit employers of writers. Their industry-wide payrolls were declining even before the general economy went into the tank. Newspaper circulations have been down for years. People don’t read the newspapers as much as they used to, and when they do, they generally read them online where revenue is tough to come by. Poor circulation reduces both newsstand income and advertising revenue. Now that the economy is bad, advertising income is dropping even more sharply as companies cut their advertising budgets. In the United States, the election season is helping offset some of those losses, but after the first weekend in November, that income will dry up. This is a terrible time to be looking for a newspaper job, there’s no way around that. Other media outlets such as television and radio stations are also feeling the pinch, but to a lesser extent. Their markets aren’t on the ropes the way the newspaper market is, but they are experiencing the same downturn in advertising as the newspaper industry is.

Copywriting isn’t too strong either

The copywriting industry is experiencing the slowdown as well. When companies cut their advertising budgets, it hits the people who create the advertising. There are some layoffs and a significant reduction in hiring. I’ve noticed a definite drop in the number of positions being advertised in this field. The only area that seems unaffected so far is direct mail, which still seems to advertise for writers at about the same clip as they have for the past three or four years.

Technical writing is still holding up

Technical writing and information development positions have stayed relatively stable so far. While there are technology companies that have had to cut their budgets over the past year, I am still seeing plenty of new positions opening up and no reports of layoffs. If the recession gets worse, which I suspect it will, then you can expect that this field will dry up too. Most companies view documentation as a “nice to have” rather than a “must have”, so if the cuts start to get severe, you’ll see this job market go down as well. For now though, it is healthy.

Proofreaders and editors have their own problems

Proofreaders and editors are facing hiring slowdowns as well. Magazines have been failing frequently over the past year, due in equal parts to reductions in advertising and increases in both paper costs and mailing costs. On the plus side, many of them are converting to web publications, but that generally means lower paying jobs for writer, proofreaders and editors alike. Medical and legal proofreaders are still getting steady work because neither of these areas has been hit by the recession yet and there is no major expectation that they will be hit.

There are some bright spots

If you are looking for some bright spots, resume writing is always a good place to find work during a recession. More and more people need good resumes as they look for work and if you know how to write resumes, you can be very helpful either as a freelancer or working for an employment agency.

In general, because it is such a low-paying industry, finding work writing for web sites isn’t difficult if you know what you are doing, it just doesn’t pay very well. Freelance copywriting is also still providing steady work as companies look to bypass agencies or internal writers and find lower-priced options for their copywriting needs. In general, freelancers tend to do well during a recession because many companies need things done but don’t want to hire someone permanently or go through a high-priced agency. The down side is that as people lose their jobs, more and more of them turn to freelancing so you competition increases.

Bad but not terrible, yet

So far, most of the writing fields are feeling the slowdown, but only newspaper writers are at a crisis point. The next year may lead to more widespread problems. The economy isn’t going to magically turn around any time soon. Next time, I’ll discuss some strategies for surviving as a writer in a down economy.

The Entire 30 Poems in 30 Days Series — 2008

Here is the whole 30 Poems in 30 Days series in order.

• PD30 Day 1: I Believe in Poetry
• PD30 Day 2: Generally Be Specific
• PD30 Day 3: A Review of Meter
• PD30 Day 4: Poetry — the Writer’s Bridge to Music
• PD30 Day 5: Poetry and Pain
• PD30 Day 6: Poets and Parables
• PD30 Day 7: Embrace The Person You Are
• PD30 Day 8: The Occasional Poem
• PD30 Day 9: How to Write in Meter If You Have Two Left Feet
• PD30 Day 10: The Mighty Mighty Pantoum
• PD30 Day 11: Poets as Storytellers
• PD30 Day 12: The Poetry Journal, From Notebooks to Blackberries
• PD30 Day 13: Writing a Tanka
• PD30 Day 14: Poetry Under Pressure
• PD30 Day 15: Found Poetry
• PD30 Day 16: Editing Your Poetry
• PD30 Day 17: Capturing the Quiet
• PD30 Day 18: Fun with Hyponymy
• PD30 Day 19: A Glossary of Rhyme
• PD30 Day 20: Rhyme, Sound and Repetition
• PD 30 Day 21: Moving Beyond Imitation
• PD30 Day 22: Travelogues
• PD30 Day 23: Ways to find Inspiration
• PD30 Day 24: Improving Your Imagery
• PD30 Day 25: Poets are Liars
• PD30 Day 26: Events and Emotion
• PD30 Day 27: Poetry and Prizes
• PD30 Day 28: The Basics of Poetry Submissions
• PD30 Day 29: Creating Your Own Chapbook
• PD30 Day 30: My Final Say
• PD30 Wrap Up And Other Thoughts

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