Freelance Writer

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Quips & Tips for Freelance Writers.

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3 rules for writing

Thanks for coming over! To read this post, please visit me at my new and improved site:

Quips & Tips for Freelance Writers.

Hope to see you there, fellow scribes….

Mentoring for writers

Writer Julia Cameron realizes the importance of mentoring relationships for artists. To keep inspired and motivated, Cameron urges artists to find a biography or autobiography that details an artist’s life. Here’s what she advises regarding mentoring.

Writing quotation: “You are on the look out for experience, strength, and hope. You want to hear from the horse’s mouth exactly how disappointments have been survived,” she says. “It helps to know that the greats have had hard times too and that your own hard times merely make you part of the club.”

Writing tip: Julia Cameron doesn’t just look for mentors who are alive and able to converse with her. She’s also into mentors in non-fiction books (autobiographies or biographies) who offer guidance when she’s sitting quietly and listening. “Very often you will find that there is a wisdom available to you that does not seem to be your own,” she says.

"In writing musicals, I look to books about Rodgers and Hammerstein. Their success is laudable but very hard won. Rodgers once faced such discouragement that he almost quit the music business to become a lingerie salesman." (From Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance by Julia Cameron).

To learn more about the benefits of mentoring relationships, read 8 Ways to Find a Mentor.

Inspiration for freelance writers

I tell you, I’m actually getting used to sending out 147,258 queries for every article I sell. It’s just part of the job – but what keeps me going is tracking my long-term success. This week, I’ve got articles due for Woman’s Day and Reader’s Digest. In a couple weeks, I have a deadline for Flare.

So even though I get rejected all the time, I am hitting it every now and then. And, boy, is it sweet! That's what keeps me going.

Writing quotation: “Is freelancing hard work? Sure – damned hard. But it’s not harder than any other profession. Like every job, it requires a combination of skill, thoroughness and dependability,” says I.J. Schecter in the 2008 version of Writer’s Market. “The difference is you don’t have anyone defining the parameters of the job for you or providing incentives to succeed.”

Writing tip: You have to define your own parameters when you’re freelancing. That means setting your goals, staying disciplined, and taking risks. Above all, it means NOT waiting until you feel creative before you get to work. Freelance writing means NOT waiting for inspiration to strike.

Instead, you have to hunt inspiration like the beast it is.

a writing quotation about “keeping going”

Do you ever feel empty of writing ideas or motivation? I’m sure you do – I’m sure even Stephen King or Margaret Atwood sometimes feels empty. At least I hope they do, because then I wouldn’t feel so bad.

Today, I need a writing quotation about keeping going despite all these rejections and silences from editors and publishers. Today, I’m discouraged (but the day isn’t over! I have this thin streak of hope and expectation that Today, I Could Get an Assignment). But how do writers keep going after so many rejections?

Writing quotation: “The fact is that blank pages inspire me with terror,” says Margaret Atwood. “What will I put on them? Will it be good enough? Will I have to throw it out?”

Writing tip: Well, that’s not really lack of writing motivation. That’s fear of failure, or fear of revision. It’s a good writing quotation, but it’s not what I’m looking for.

Let’s try again.

Writing quotation: “I got so discouraged, I almost stopped writing. It was my 12-year-old son who changed my mind when he said to me, “Mother, you’ve been very cross and edgy with us and we notice you haven’t been writing. We wish you’d go back to the typewriter,” said Madeleine L’Engle. “That did a lot of good for my false guilts about spending so much time writing. At that point, I acknowledged that I am a writer and even if I were never published again, that’s what I am.”

Writing tip: Take Madeleine L’Engle’s writing advice and let go of your publishing expectations. Instead, just be a writer. (That doesn’t really work for me because my goal is to be able to support myself with my writing. For me, what helps is to keep focused on my ideas and plans despite fear of rejection and failure. I get discouraged when I’m bopping from one idea to another, one project to another – I can get too scattered and that makes me feel discouraged. So, I need to focus on one goal for the next hour: sending out 3 queries. Fine.)

One last writing quotation: Gloria Steinem said, “I do not like to write. I like to have written.”

The only way to enjoy having written is to…write.

writing quotations about why you write

It's time to figure out why you want to write and why you're not writing. Then, you can clarify your writing dreams. Here's why the great writers Anne Tyler, Maurice Sendak and E.B. White write.
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Writing quotation: “For me, writing something down was the only road out…I hated childhood, and spent it sitting behind a book waiting for adulthood to arrive,” says Anne Tyler. “When I ran out of books I made up my own. At night, when I couldn’t sleep, I made up stories in the dark.”

Maurice Sendak said, “You write or paint because you have to. THERE IS NO CHOICE.”

“I haven’t told why I wrote the book [Charlotte’s Web], but I haven’t told why I sneeze either. A book is a sneeze,” says E.B. White.

Writing tip: Maybe you write to escape, or because you have no choice, or because it’s a natural part of who you are. But even a natural inclination to write can be smothered by the inanities of everyday life (chores, tv, self-grooming, paid employment). Read Annie Dillard’s writing quotation about not letting stuff distract you from your writing goals.

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Figuring out why you write will increase your writing motivation. Me, I write because I...now that I think about it, I don't really know why I write. It just feels right, and I can't stop. Why do you write? Even more important, why AREN'T you writing?
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These writing quotations came from Shoptalk: Learning to Write With Writers by Donald Murray.

a writing quotation about emotions

Do you write out of your emotions, such as passion, fear, hatred, or grief? Millions of poets and authors find writing motivation in acts of love and betrayal.

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Writing quotation: “The best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread,” said Susan Sontag. “The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of it because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood.”

Does this work the same way for nonfiction, which is my specialty? I don’t think so. I write service articles that show people how to do things, or feel better about themselves, or be more authentic in the world. Writing out of anger, fear or dread may work sometimes, but…curiosity and aha! and revelation work too.

But curiosity, aha!, and revelation aren’t emotions, are they?

Writing tip: Write out of whatever emotion motivates you. If it’s not an emotion – such as me writing out of curiosity – it doesn’t matter. Find your writing inspiration, and use it.

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This writing quotation came from an article on Suite101: Writing Quotations That Inspire .