Diary of a Freelancer

Depending on the phase of the moon, it takes varying amounts of motivation to get me started on a project. Once up and raring to go, I hit the other extreme and take on too much. The most annoying thing about myself is that I rarely see any of these things through to completion, but that's all about to change. In fact, I've already started this turn around mindset with my 30 Things which handily includes projects I desperately want to FINISH.

I love everything about magazines - the colours, the art work, the clever headlines and bylines, the mostly excellent writing, the glossiness, the fact they are jam packed with information just waiting to be absorbed... So now I want to be a part of all that. I have had some modest unpaid success - and looking back through those little gems was part 1 of the inspiration on this particularly relaxed Sunday afternoon. Part 2 came in the form of Roy Stevenson's article in Writers Forum where he divulges his secret formula for getting a 90% success rate when submitting ideas to Editors. Nothing that I didn't already know, but the key in the article was to give each link in the chain the same amount of undivided attention and not to neglect any of the stages. For example: Don't spend all your time on your query letter / email without properly researching some great facts and figures to whet the Editor's appetite.

I've been documenting my publishing journey where I blog about the highs and lows of my experiences and I'm desperate to attempt paid article writing (yes, one of the coveted 30 Things). So to kick off, yesterday I re-worked an article I wrote for Real Travel magazine 2-ish years ago on Responsible Tourism that got the "OK" from my Writers Bureau tutor. It was never acknowledged because said travel magazine went into financial difficulty shortly afterwards, but I hate to waste good material (and we are always encouraged to recycle as writers) so I cut the thing in half, updated the content and submitted as a column to National Geographic Traveller. I must point out here that you shouldn't wait as long as I have to resubmit to an alternative magazine, but, like I said, I go in fits and starts! Anyhoo, let's see what happens. In the meantime, it's high time I started Assignment 3 of my course (another 30 Things - to make some decent progress - considering I've been "studying" for far too long) which happens to be an open assignment where you can submit multiple offerings for review from your tutor.

I already have a great idea... must capitalise on it whilst it lasts.

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