Anyway, now I'm home and ready to plant my butt in The Chair and start making some writing waves in 2009. The difficulty is trying to figure out how. There is a dizzying amount of information in the writing world about how to succeed at freelancing, but my God, you can't possibly do everything that's suggested. Well, I guess some people do but I don't know how. How do you maintain a blog or two, a website, read and comment on other people's blogs, Twitter, churn out multiple, well-researched queries a week (with expert quotes), and complete the writing assignments given to you? The pressure to do it all is overwhelming. But what to do if you only have a few hours a day to write? (And sometimes not even that!)
The answer, in my case, is to not attempt to do it all. I just can't. So, for the past few days I've been thinking long and hard about what I really wanted to accomplish this year. In the end, it boiled down to this: 1) be published in/get acceptances for national magazines, and 2) make as much money as possible. I also wanted to finish a book I'd started, begin a website on intercultural weddings, and develop a personal website, but I guess if I have any resolution for 2009 it is to Realize that I Can't Do Everything. It is my habit to take on way, way too much and then get really stressed because I can only accomplish a fraction of what I wanted to do. But not this year. Nope.
So, in support of my primary goals, here are my secondary ones. In attempting to achieve my first goal, I plan to:
- choose 10 target magazines;
- thoroughly analyze the past three issues (or more) for each one;
- check editoral calendars for each;
- come up with 3-5 potential articles for each;
- throughly research each idea, including getting expert or "real person" quotes for my query;
- send out one query a week beginning after I have analyzed at least two magazines.
For my second goal, I plan to:
- check everyday on sites such as http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com/, http://writersweekly.com/, http://www.problogger.net/, http://www.freelancewriting.com/, and Craigslist for potential regular writing gigs.
- cultivate relationships with editors that I have worked with before by sending more queries;
- develop and promote my International Mama blog - about my adventures in raising an African-American/German child in France.
- develop and promote a new blog on things to do with kids in France;
- query trade magazines
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