Demand Studios is NOT Evil

Do you know what I’m sick of reading? I’m sick of reading articles about how freelancers are underpaid. I’m especially sick of reading articles that point a finger at a particular company or website and accuse them of causing the problem. No one caused this. If you want to point a finger at anyone or anything, point it straight at the Internet. The Internet made it possible for anyone who can put a sentence together (and plenty who can’t) to be a writer. Some created their own blogs (like me). Others became freelance writers.

Everyone is a writer

Writing isn’t like engineering or chemistry. Most people know how to write. There are people who write especially well, either because of training or talent, but there are millions of people who can write a basic article or blog post that is good enough for the Internet. Some of those people aren’t out to make a living as a writer. Their day job pays well enough or they have other means of support. They just want to get published. Others realize that they need to become better writers if they want to make a living. They take less money so that they can develop their skills as well as their portfolios. You can complain about these people all you want. It doesn’t matter. They aren’t going anywhere.

Companies are in business to make money — Shocking!

On the flip side there are companies that cater to these writers. Demand Studios is one of those companies. Demand Studios has clients who want articles written for them. Some of those companies are major players, others are small businesses and a few are fly-by-night dreamers. The client tells Demand Studios what kind of article they want written and Demand Studios then finds writers to write the articles. The pay is not high, but it is far from the worst in the industry. One of the key complaints against Demand Studios is that their editors are strict. Writers are frequently told to make rewrites and edits. For some reason, these rewrites are viewed as onerous. The prevailing complaint is that they pay far too little to expect so much. Because of this, many writers refuse to do the rewrites. This is viewed as a fault of the company rather than the writer. The company is too demanding. They should settle for less or they should pay more. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

The bottom is where people start

For most writers, especially the inexperienced beginners who are attracted to low-paying assignments, a strict editor is the best thing they can possibly hope for. They need to have someone guiding them. Having a good editor is like having a free writing instructor. The editor isn’t just fixing your article. The editor is teaching to become a better writer. Not all editors are great. Strict doesn’t always mean good. Some Demand Studios editors may suck. The wonderful thing about freelancing is that you don’t have to work for someone you don’t want to work for. If you don’t like writing for someone, stop writing for them.

You choose who you write for

As I said earlier, Demand Studios has many clients, both large and small. They have those clients because they provide quality articles for low prices. If the prices were higher, they might lose clients. If their articles were of lower quality, they might lose clients. This is their business model. I don’t write for Demand Studios. I don’t write for them because I have clients who are willing to pay me substantially more money. I have a high paying specialty (software documentation), fifteen years of experience, a graduate degree and some really terrific contacts in the industry. I don’t need what Demand Studios offers (although I often need a good editor). On the flip side, when I was twenty-two years old and trying to establish myself as a writer, I would have jumped at the chance to write for a company like Demand Studios. I wanted then what they offer now: experience, guidance and money. Unfortunately, that was twenty years ago, and the closest thing I had to the Internet was AOL on a 2400 baud modem.

More skills and experience equals more money

Don’t get me wrong. I would like Demand Studios to pay higher rates. A higher rate would attract (I hope) a higher caliber of writer and help create a better product. I also know that you can go on Elance or Odesk and find plenty of people who pay less than Demand Studios and expect more. That is the nature of the freelance writing world in 2009. The low end is far lower than it used to be, and there is more competition for even those jobs. The good news is that you don’t have to write for anybody you don’t want to write for. You can start your own blog and market yourself from there. I did.

I now have no trouble finding clients who are willing to pay me a substantial rate to write. It isn’t luck that got me there. I struggled for years. I made mistakes. I learned. I now have skills that most of my competitors don’t have. I have a strong resume that gets me interviews and offers. I’ve even gotten smart enough, over the years, to turn down offers when they aren’t right for me.

Move on, move up

If Demand Studios doesn’t feel right for you, don’t write for them. All I ask is that you give up on complaining about them or the people who write for them. Focus your energy on something productive. Go write something.

The Relaxation Integration Project

On November 11^th, my mind and body relaxed for the first time in a long, long time. I had forgotten what it felt like to be relaxed. I had forgotten what it was like to have the tension leave my body, not just for a moment, but for long stretches, so that tension was the exception rather than the rule. It was almost like being a different person.

It is easy to mistake feeling relaxed for feeling sleepy. When the body is near the point of exhaustion, it must relax, so I associate that loose-limbed feeling with exhaustion rather than relaxation. I have been so used to feeling tense that feeling relaxed was unnatural. I yawned a lot. I slept and slept, thinking I needed more rest, but the feeling didn’t go away. I was relaxed, but I didn’t know how to be relaxed.

I’m happy to have left the tension behind me, and I want it to stay there. Relaxation is not without its own problems though. For one thing, my productivity has dropped. It turns out that stress is a motivator. It is not a healthy motivator, but it is a motivator. When you are relaxed, you let things go. I used to think fondly about the idea of relaxation, but I had too many things I wanted to accomplish. Now I am relaxed. The drive to accomplish is still there, but it has gone from a drum beat thundering in my ears to a piano melody playing softly in the background. It is more easily ignored, especially when the task is unpleasant or doesn’t have a clear benefit.

The problem is that there is a limit to the number of things you can let slide without there being some consequences. My boss, for example, still seems to think that I should show up every day and do my job. He’s funny that way, but he’s a nice guy so I don’t want to disappoint him. My wife has a few things she likes me to get done as well. She’s also nice, so I don’t want to disappoint her.

My wife and my boss are both adjusting to the new, relaxed me, but I also wanted to let you folks who read my blog know that things are a little different now. I like writing the blog, but there are parts of it I don’t enjoy as much anymore. I’m going to work on increasing the number of things I enjoy doing and decreasing the number of things I don’t enjoy doing. Thank you for bearing with me as I figure out what those things are.

Oh, and if you get the chance, relax.

Writing Lessons from the Side of the Road

Last Friday, I had a flat tire on the way to work. If I lived and worked in the same city, this might not have been such a big deal, but my job is a 65-mile drive down a lightly populated but heavily trafficked freeway. I was stuck on the side of the road at least five miles from anywhere that I could get any help. I’m not a mechanic. I wouldn’t even call myself handy. When we buy a piece of furniture that needs to be assembled, my wife generally puts it together. That said, I have changed a tire once or twice in my life, so I had a general idea of what to do. Still I was a little panicked.

For a moment, I wasn’t even sure if I had the equipment to change a tire. I used to have a road kit in my car, but somewhere along the line it had gone missing. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I had a spare tire. I was driving a minivan, and had never actually seen a spare. I knew it wasn’t in the back of the van, so I took a look under the van and sure enough, there sat the temporary tire. I slid as far under the car as I could. I’m a big man, so sliding under cars is not my strong suit. I tried to unscrew the tire, but it was locked into place. After a few fruitless efforts, I went back to the cab of my car and sat there. I was frustrated and picked up my Blackberry, trying to find a nearby garage. I even made a call, but they didn’t provide towing service or mobile tire repair, so they were of no use.

I went around to the back of the van and opened the hatch. Looking around, I found a panel that opened up. Inside the panel was a jack and a short lug wrench (I had to look up that name later) but no instructions. I tried to use the jack to bang on what I thought was the screw holding up the tire, but it did nothing. I got out from under the car again and sat there for a while, watching the tractor trailers and other vehicles whiz by me so fast that the van rocked. It was about then I noticed that I was sitting next to a small cap in the floor of the van. I lifted the cap up and saw a large nut being held in place by a cotter pin (I actually knew what a cotter pin was). I took the lug wrench and tested to see if it fit the nut. It did.

For the first time that day, I began to think I might have a handle on the situation, but I wasn’t about to unscrew a nut without a little more to go on. It was time to ask for advice. I called my father and asked him if he knew how to get the wheel out from under a minivan. I told him about the nut, and asked what he thought. My father wasn’t sure either, but he put me on with my nephew, who agreed that the nut would probably lower the wheel. That was enough for me, so I got back to work on it.

Sure enough, by untightening the nut (righty tighty, lefty loosie) I began to crank down the tire. It turns out that the part that I thought was the screw holding it in was just a big bar to hold it tight. It was far bigger than the hole it covered though, so I still didn’t know how to get the tire off of the bar. It probably took another minute of evaluation for me to realize I just needed to turn it sideways.

Now that I had the tire out, the real fun could begin. The flat tire was on the rear driver’s side of the car, so I had to stand/squat with my back to the traffic passing about a foot or two away from me, and change the tire. First I had to break loose the nuts before I could jack up the van (even I know that you don’t want to try this once the wheel is in the air). Then I found find a good spot to attach the jack. I wasn’t very confident in the spot because it was under the outer body rather than further beneath the car, but there was a T-joint there so I told myself it had to be solid. I jacked up the car and removed the tire. As I was doing that, a truck driver chose to blast his horn at me. I nearly jumped out of my skin, but I got the tire off.

I tried to put the temporary tire on, but the van wasn’t high enough, so I had to jack it up further. I kept waiting for the jack to slip or the body to bend, but everything held up and I got the replacement tire on. Finally, I was able to pack up my stuff and get back on the road. I headed back to my house to relax for a few minutes. Once my hands stopped shaking I headed to a garage to get my flat fixed. After it was finished I treated myself to lunch at a good restaurant and had my car washed, then I went to get an emergency kit and a beginner’s book about car repair.

What does this have to do with writing? Maybe a little and maybe a lot, but here is some advice you might take from this.

1. Trouble can strike quickly and unexpectedly
2. Knowledge and preparation can save you frustration down the road
3. Sometimes you need to stop and evaluate your situation
4. There’s a difference between a temporary fix and a real solution
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice
6. When you get through a difficult situation, take a moment to celebrate
7. Try to be more prepared the next time trouble strikes

Building a Sustainable Writing Career: Hardiness

What is Hardiness?

Hardiness is the ability to deal with stress in a healthy way rather than an unhealthy way. It is the ability to maintain a positive outlook and respond constructively when problems arise. There are always problems to be dealt with in life. How we respond to those problems is what determines both our short term and out long term success. When a hardy person encounters a problem, they tend to see the problem as a challenge rather than a disaster. They believe in their own ability to correct the problem or at least respond appropriately to the change.

Hardiness is one of the keys to a sustainable writing career. The ability to adapt positively to change can mean the difference between success and failure. There will always be problems that you have to deal with as a professional writer – economic problems, work challenges and personal issues. Over the course of a long writing career, you will have both daily frustrations and major career changing events. If you are hardy, you will be able to overcome and adapt to these problems. Hardy people usually respond to problems with what are known as the three Cs: Challenge, Commitment, and Control.

Challenge

Hardy people not only accept that life is filled with change, they look forward to change. They believe that change will educate and stimulate them. They look at change as opportunity. Because of this, they thrive in adverse or difficult situations. Hardy people will often take on difficult challenges precisely because they are difficult.

Commitment

Hardy people are rarely bored. They like the things they do and they have the determination to see whatever task they are doing through to the end. When new obstacles present themselves, they tend to increase their commitment to success rather than give in to negativity and defeatism. Whatever they are doing, they are committed to seeing it through to the end.

Control

Hardy people believe in their own ability to influence the events around them. When problems occur, they believe that they can either fix the problem or at least adapt to the problem. They have a strong sense of initiative, and look for ways to turn potentially negative situations into positive ones.

Don’t Be Intimidated

Don’t feel bad if the three Cs haven’t come naturally to you so far in life. While the three Cs may be automatic for some people, for most of us this is something we need to learn, and keep learning. I’ll be honest. I haven’t felt particularly hardy lately, which is one of the reasons I am writing about this. I wanted to remind myself of what the best ways to deal with problems are. Next time, we will look at some of the strategies for increasing your hardiness.

Building a Financially Sustainable Writing Career: Marketing

Most freelancers already know that they need to market themselves. Bloggers usually know this too, although they sometimes focus on their blog as their only marketing tool. Marketing is for all writers though, and in fact for anyone who wants to have a sustainable professional career. A fully employed technical writer or business writer might not see the need for marketing themselves, but even a “permanent” job can suddenly end, and the more well-known and respected you are, the easier it will be to find the next job.

If you are out of work, you need marketing even more. Sending out your resume in response to a job advertisement is just one way to get a job, and it is the way that ensures you have the most competition. Building a solid public reputation opens many doors and helps bring people to your door instead of you having to hunt for them. The best job search is the one that is already being done before you need the job.

Create a Portfolio

The first, most basic step that every writer should take is to create a personal portfolio. Collect samples of your best work and have them ready to send out at a moment’s notice. Be ready for print or electronic distribution. The more professional your portfolio looks the more professional and qualified you look. Don’t forget to add a business card, a well-designed resume and a professional biography.

Build a Web Site

It should come as no surprise that I recommend every writer have a web site. Even if you don’t want to be a blogger or web publisher, having a small, attractive site that has samples of your work makes you much easier to find. That is the key to marketing, making sure that when people are thinking of a writer with your skills, they can find you. The site isn’t just for prospective employers. It should be media friendly as well. Make sure it has a contact form or at least your email address so that it is easy to get in touch with you.

Be Social

One of the best ways to get your qualifications out there is to join social groups, both online and in person. Almost ever writing field has an organization that caters to it, from the Society for Technical Communication to the Public Relations Society of America to the Direct-Mail/Marketing Association. Beyond those groups, there are general groups of business people such as The Toastmasters, The Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce. Online, of course, you have services such as LinkedIn and Xing, which allow you to exchange resumes and professional contacts all over the world.

Advertise

When I needed freelance work to get me by while I was getting my Master’s Degree, I put an ad in the local newspaper. It has a professional services section and no other writer has a listing, so I put one in and I almost immediately got work. The ad paid for itself and more within two weeks. I also advertised on my web site, and generated some business that way. This was passive recruitment. I didn’t have to call a single person or send them my resume/portfolio. They came to me. It is amazing how many people are looking for your skills but just don’t know where to find them. Advertising in print publications is generally cheap. Advertising on a relevant web site can be an even bigger bargain. Sometimes you’ll want to do this even when you don’t need the work right away, just to make sure people remember you.

Pick Up the Phone

Do you know why cold calling works? It works for four reasons:

• It is quick
• It is direct
• It can be done from anywhere
• Most people don’t have the guts to do it

You can spend all day telling me why you can’t call people. Yes, it is hard to do. The only reason to do something that personal and risk individual rejection is that it works. You can get rejected a hundred times in a day. Getting rejected takes almost no time at all. The sale you make is what matters, especially when you absolutely have to put food on the table.

Get Your Name Out

There are literally hundreds of marketing strategies. I highly recommend reading a book or two on marketing so that you understand the general concepts. There are also companies (and writers) who specialize in doing this for you. The important thing about marketing, especially if you aren’t the type to cold call a company, is to be working on it while you have work so that opportunities are easier to find when you need them.

A key to sustainability is to avoid having limited resources. When it comes to a career, your resources are personal and professional contacts, advertising, marketing materials, marketing knowledge and a high profile. Having all of these instead of just a few will help you sustain a long-term marketing career.

Writing and Sustainability

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to sustainability. Sustainability is most often associated with environmentalism and over consumption. Fossil fuel, for example, is a finite resource and therefore unsustainable. There is only so much oil and coal to be had. Whether there is enough to last the world twenty more years or three hundred more years, at some point the resource will run out. An energy policy based on the primary consumption of fossil fuel is unsustainable.

It isn’t just the Environment

This is not an article about environmentalism. While that is one of the most common arenas in which sustainability is discussed, sustainability can be applied to any situation in which a resource (fuel, money, time, food, etc.) must be relied upon. When you consume more than you add, you reduce the number of resources that you have. This is true for a society, a family or even an individual. If I make $70,000 a year, but I spend $75,000 a year, I am maintaining an unsustainable lifestyle. At some point, unless a change is made, I will either run out of reserves. I will spend any money I have saved and I will use up any money that people are willing to loan. If I do not change on my own, change will be forced upon me. The situation will grow worse and worse until it either fixed or disaster strikes.

Some Things Cannot Last

Life itself, at least on an individual basis, is unsustainable. Your body is a finite resource. Each day on earth, you use a little bit of it up. Even a healthy lifestyle is unsustainable. A well-cared for body still comes with an expiration date. If you’re lucky, you have a hundred years. Most of us have somewhat less. Sometimes, when we think about sustainability, we have to be realistic. Just because a resource, such as your body, is finite, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. It just means that you have to use it wisely and well, with the knowledge that it won’t be around forever.

Writers and Resources

When you are dealing with a finite or variable resource, you need to plan for that. This is especially important for writers. A writer frequently has to deal with limited resources. Money, of course, is the ultimate limited resource. When you are out of money, it is hard to do much of anything. Time is a limited resource, especially when you have lots of work or a deadline to face. Interest and enthusiasm are variable resources. You can only do work you don’t enjoy for so long before it starts to take a toll.

Be Smart

Sustainability is all about smart planning and having the strength to limit your use of things that either need to be replenished or cannot be replenished. In the coming days I plan to discuss some of the steps writers can take to build a sustainable career. For now, think about all of the things that go into keeping your career afloat, and which of those resources are sustainable and which are not.

What to Do Once the Crisis is Settled

Is this the End?

Every story has to end. The most important thing that has to happen before a story ends is that the central conflict of the story has to be settled. The protagonist wins. The protagonist loses. The protagonist realizes that she has both won and lost. Whatever the case, the crisis is settled. What then?

Say a Little or Say a Lot?

In movies, you frequently see them end the story at the moment, the very moment, when the central conflict has been settled. Sports movies are famous for this. The Karate Kid ends just after Daniel has defeated his nemesis Johnny to win the karate championship. He is literally still standing there with his arms in the air as his instructor Miyagi looks on with pride. There is no denouement whatsoever. It ends at the moment of triumph.

On the other end of the scale you have the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (both the books and the movies). It can be argued that half the final book (and movie) are denouement. We see how the conflict has changed each of the central characters and we follow them as they return to their former lives or find that they cannot return to their former lives. The World According to Garp (the book, I never saw the movie) actually takes the time to follow each of their characters all the way to their various eventual deaths. It tells you how their lives played out in the aftermath of the central crisis.

All of these choices are valid, but there are definitely consequences to each choice. A brief, or nonexistent, denouement runs the risk of the reader not really feeling that the central conflict had a significant effect on the characters. They may end up feeling as if their time has been wasted or feel that the characters haven’t really changed. An especially long denouement, by contrast, runs the risk of leaving the reader bored. Once the tension of the crisis has been released, the reader knows that the conclusion is coming. The longer you take with the denouement, the longer you will have to keep the reader’s attention without having the tension of the conflict to keep them invested.

Be Fair to your Readers

One of the most controversial denouements is the end of the Harry Potter series of books. Because the series lasted seven books, the readers were invested in many, many characters. People wanted to know how all of these characters turned out. What readers got was a twenty page denouement, set years later, that answered very few of the lingering questions. This upset most readers — quite understandably. When you spend several thousand pages discussing the lives of a set of characters, you should expect that the readers will be invested in the outcomes for each of these characters that they have grown to love over the years.

My simple advice is that a denouement should last long enough for the reader to feel satisfied, but no so long that the reader gets bored. Make sure that the central themes of your novel get at least a moment of reflection in the denouement and that your readers are clear about how the novel has changed your characters.

How to Write a 50,000 Word Novel in a Month

Nanowrimo is a project that requires speed. There are certainly slow and deliberate ways to write a novel but they won’t help you if you need to produce one in a month. Writing 50,000 words in a thirty-day month is no easy task, and it is made even harder by the difficulties of a novel, which has pitfalls such as writing yourself into a corner or deciding along the way that a plot point or character trait was a mistake. Here are some tips for speeding up the process and getting through the month.

Explore Your Idea

Explore your story idea before the start of the month. If you have a general idea of what you want to write, take the time to examine it. Write out the plot points, create some background for the characters, think about the settings, and decide on what point-of-view you want the narrative to use. The more of this you have settled before the first day, the easier it will be to start producing from day one.

Set a Daily Goal

Set a 2000 word a day goal. In order to finish the project on time, you technically have to average 1667 words a day. Setting a 2000 word a day goal allows you to build up some cushion in case you have days in which you aren’t able to write or aren’t able to produce as many words.

Stick to a Schedule

Schedule time every day to write. You need to look at your own writing speed to make determination of how many hours you are going to need. If you are comfortable that you can write 1000 words an hour, then two hours a day will be sufficient. If you feel as if 500 words an hour is the most you can handle, then you need to schedule four hours a day. If you expect your speed to be lower than that, you need to adjust accordingly.
Remember that you are writing a first draft. A first draft does not have to be perfect.

Don’t Expect Perfection

Accept that what you write on the first try only needs to be good enough for a first draft. Try to avoid going backwards and rewriting what you have already created. Instead, if you know something needs to be changed, go back to that point and make a note in the text, then move on.

Stay in Motion

If you get stuck, find a way to get unstuck quickly. If you know that a scene needs to happen, but you aren’t ready to write it yet, make a note in the story describing the basic events, then jump to the part that you are ready to write and get going. If you need to choose between two different directions for the plot, choose one of them and don’t look back. Your focus should always be on forward momentum.

Write What You Know

Pick characters, locations and themes that you are comfortable writing about. It can be difficult to write quickly about places you don’t know or characters that are radically different from your experience. Look for a story that can leverage the things you know about and are comfortable writing about quickly. If you do think you will need additional information, try to assemble as much of that information as possible before you start the project.

Swim With a Buddy

Find a way to hold yourself accountable. Nanowrimo has groups in most major cities that you can hook up with to compare notes and keep the pressure on you. You can also find a partner who is working on it so that you can regularly keep each other focused and enthusiastic. A little friendly competition doesn’t hurt. I intend to track my progress on my blog, so that people can see where I am at.

Have Fun

Enjoy yourself. Nanowrimo should be a fun challenge. It is a way to make you better as a writer, but it shouldn’t be something to make yourself miserable over. Just relax and no matter what obstacles get in your way, keep writing, even if you don’t think you are going to make it. The only way to have a chance is to keep at it.

There is no Right Way to Write a Novel

November is National Write a Novel Month, also known as Nanowrimo. The goal is to write the first draft of a novel, producing at least 50,000 words. This will be my second year as a participant. Over the next couple of weeks I will be providing tips for those who want to participate.

The first, best, and most important thing to learn about writing a novel is that there is no one way to do it. Novels have been written in a thousand different ways. One person’s style and approach can be radically different than another person’s and yet still produce a good novel. There are people who plot out every detail before they start writing. Some novelists start with an outline that can stretch for several pages. One writer might write down each possible scene on an index card. Another writer might spend all of his preparation time creating elaborate backgrounds for the characters. Another writer might just start writing, with no idea in advance of where the novel is going and how it will get there. None of these writers would be wrong. Each approach can result in an excellent novel.

Some writers fret over every single word of the first draft. Their choices are so careful and exact that second and third drafts look almost exactly the same as the first. Some writers just tear through their first draft as quickly as possible, unconcerned with the possible messes they have created and sure that they will fix every problem when they start editing. The end result of this process may look almost nothing like the original. Again, neither writer is correct or incorrect. Different styles work. Different approaches work for different people.

If you are looking at writing for Nanowrimo, however, there are some approaches that may be more advantageous. For example, because you must create your first draft in a single month, sweating over every single word of the first draft is probably not a good idea. That approach may work well when you have six months or longer to produce a draft, but it is virtually impossible to be that exacting and produce a 50,000 word or longer draft in a single month.

Writing off the top of your head also has its pitfalls. If you attempt this, at the hurried pace of Nanowrimo, and you could find yourself unable to generate sufficient action or creating character arcs or plots that go nowhere. It can lead to a lot of frustration down the line. While the rules of the process are that you need to write the draft during the month of November, there is no reason why you can’t prepare as thoroughly as possible before you reach the start date. You can create a detailed outline, an in-depth character study, research any subjects you plan to write about and create descriptions of the real or imagined places that will be the settings for the action.

You can prepare as thoroughly or as lightly for the process as you want, but I for one want to take advantage of the advance time so that I can be as ready to write come 12:01 November first as possible. I’ll be spending the next several days providing my tips for how to get started and how to make the most of this process.