Freelance work is inherently cyclical. Colleagues in corporate jobs often ask if the cycles make me crazy. The answer is no, but that answer has come with time and experience. Rather than fight the cycles and worry about when they will start or end, I’ve learned to relax and ride it out.
January is a mad [...]
Clarifying Complex Ideas
Tag Archive: clients
All or Nothing
Managing Growth
This year, something extraordinary and quite unexpected happened to me, something that all conventional wisdom said was impossible: My 2009 earnings will equal 2008.
The recession came with all sorts of dire predictions about failure, how businesses like mine wouldn’t be able to survive this downturn. I’ll admit that even I had my doubts. Four clients [...]
Summer Doldrums
It doesn’t matter if you work on-staff or if you work as a freelancer, summer is the slow time. Just try to find all four people that need to review and approve your project once their kids are out of school for the summer. Things languish in review for weeks, if not months, [...]
How Do You Edit?
“How do you edit?” he asked.
Lately, prospective clients have been asking some interesting questions, often questions that I’ve never really thought of answers for. This was one I had to ponder.
Aside from my eye catching the usual typos and punctuation errors, there’s something strange that happens when I sit down [...]
Knowing When to Shut Up and Listen
At a recent lunch, a client asked me what, aside from my talent for writing, was my most important skill. I answered without hesitation: listening.
I’m a freelance writer. The best part about it is that I know something about almost everything. The worst part about it is that I’m no longer an [...]
Agile Writing
In a recent conversation with a friend, I realized that there’s a name for the way I work: agile writing. Quite unintentionally, I’ve developed a writing style that mirrors agile software development: create a preliminary draft and get feedback early and often for quick delivery of a quality product that meets customer goals.
Clients often [...]
