I had a lovely birthday that included lunch out with my family, a movie with my husband and I believe there’s to be cake after dinner. I like a low-key birthday so this was just my speed. But next year? When I turn forty? I’m throwing myself a big old party, you betcha!

I decided to answer some of the freelance questions to give me a break from the adoption ones and also because my birthday is yet another reason to assess my world.

Spring (and if you’re interested in fabulous writing or in adoption particularly older child adoption you should be reading her) asked:

Since you asked…what’s your number one tip for making more money as a freelance writer? I seem stuck in the low-to-mid level magazines and would like to move up to higher paying magazines in order to be more profitable. Perhaps there’s a flaw in my logic, because so far, this has not been successful.

Spring, what magazines? I’m just curious — no need to answer if you don’t want to! I’m no big magazine writer (truly) but from friends who have bylines in lots of ‘em and from what little experience I have, I’d say the answer is the same as getting into the low-to-mid level ones: Pitch ‘em, pitch ‘em, pitch ‘em. If you have what it takes to be where you are now then you have what it takes to publishe bigger (and I think you’re writing is lovely so there’s no doubt in my mind that this is true)!

Then Spring said:

Actually, if you wanted to do 10 Top Tips for improving your freelance career in 2009, I’d be very interested.

I’m game.

1. Get focused. Decide what you really want be it money or better bylines or a combination of the two or whatever else you want. But really figure out what you want in your dream of dreams.
2. Get specific. Figure out a path to get from where you are now to where you want to be. If you need to study the industry to understand what success looks like, do that. It’s important to understand the minds of the folks you’re trying to get to hire you/buy your work.
3. Get general. Don’t be hemmed in thinking there’s only one way to do it — there’s not. There’s usually a general direction but the specific steps are different for different people. Understand that industry but bring what you know to it.
4. Resist distraction. I don’t know about you but I struggle sometimes when an opportunity presents itself and I feel like I need to take it even if it’s not something I actually want to do. But if it doesn’t fit into my larger plan, it’s going to end up taking away from my goals so I’ve learned to say no when I have to.
5. Be open to possibilities. You never know where your next great job/assignment/connection is going to come from so don’t dismiss things out of hand; give yourself the opportunity to consider them first..
6. Be flexible. Don’t stick yourself with rigid timetables or unreasonable expectations. Sometimes you don’t know how things are going to work out until they work out.
7. Trust your greater plan. I know that there were lots of times this past year when I felt like I was spinning my wheels but if you’re focused on your goals and saying yes to what fits and no to what doesn’t, you will see forward movement. I promise. Just put your head down and keep doing the work. (I’m still seeing pay-offs from things I did last year — momentum is a beautiful thing.)
8. Give yourself time to stop and assess. See if what you’re doing is working. Note your successes and forgive and learn from your failures.
9. Get some mentors and a sounding board. Find people who do what you wish you were doing and listen to them. Don’t take their words as gospel but appreciate their wisdom and experience. You’ll still need to make your own way but having other people around as support makes a world of difference.
10. Don’t let fear do you in. Whether it’s fear of failure or fear of success, hang in there. If it all seems like too much, put your head back down and ignore what might be coming and focus on what’s going on right now.

Wow, I sound so much more new age-y than I mean to but that’s my touchie-feelie guide to freelance success. The number one thing I think anyone should do? NETWORK. People can’t hire you if they don’t know you (and/or your work). Work begets work. Assignmetns beget assignments.

And because this post seems to warrant it, from my mentor Julia:

If you could choose to repeat the last year or two career wise, would you try the freelance/Brett home thing again? – knowing what you know now.

Oh hell yeah! Only I’d do it smarter so we could have kept him here longer. Now that I’m out of the emotional pit I dug for myself, I feel even more positive about it. Listen, two years ago I wasn’t doing any marcom and now I’ve got a portfolio full. I’ve honed my talents and my interests, met a zillion new terrific people, discovered a whole new career path and side to myself and I’m not done yet! Brett may not be home anymore, but I’m still working and billing out more than I have since my heady ePregnancy days. (I still am not billing as much as I did then but I have high hopes!) I couldn’t have done that part-time — I needed to jump in with both feet and start swimming.

I’m really proud of all we accomplished over the last eighteen months and I feel like we’ve set ourselves on a new course. I feel more confident, less shy about marketing myself and my work and I have a greater belief in my ability to do what I set my mind to. Yes, there are things I would do differently (mainly around our budgeting) and it would have been nice if I figured out how to make networking work for me earlier in the game but ultimately? I think I’ve been really successful so far and I think I have it in me to be more successful as I go. And Julia? There is no way in hell I could have done any of it without you and I am so so grateful for all you’ve done for me!!!!!!!!!!!!! I only hope I can pay you back in some way (more than fixing your dang blog — I mean REALLY pay you back)!!

I woke up and my email box was overflowing and overdemanding. The onslaught slowed down but I haven’t yet and feel like I’m about to run into a wall because my feet keep on running. (Momentum — what would I do without you? Oh yeah, nap.)

I made a twitter landing page over at my clips site. I thought I’d write about it some in case any of y’all are interested (I think it’s a good tool for anyone who’s marketing themselves/their work and is also on twitter).

So a landing page (if you haven’t been immersed in web 2.0 marketing and really, if you haven’t then consider yourself lucky) is the page on which you land from some other place. So, for example, on a blog lots of people don’t come in to the front page — they come in to individual entries (because someone linked to that entry or they’re clicking through their feedreader to comment or they’re coming in on a search term). Each page of your blog is potentially a landing page. (This also gets into the value of having different sidebars for different parts of your site but I digress. That might be worth talking about another time because lately I’ve been all about building individual sidebar pages for my clients — so useful!!)

Twitter lets you have one “about me” link and I was using my regular old dawnfriedman.com site. Problem is, that site gives them a decent picture of my freelance writing but a lousy picture of my marketing communications work and my social media strategizing. I used to try juggling two twitter accounts to keep my personas separate but then 1) couldn’t keep up; and 2) realized it was impossible to keep ‘em separate any old way. So I built a page in the WordPress install powering my clips site and then hid it via this pagemash plugin so it wouldn’t show up on my navigation menu (because that would look sloppy to me). Now my twitter account link helps people understand the various things I do because twitter is a great networking tool.

If you’re on twitter and you’re using it in part to get the word out about you and your work, you might find a twitter landing page is a good idea. Likewise you can build landing pages for other accounts like your email sig or what-have-you. It can be kind of useful.

(By the way, on twitter I’m thiswomanswork if you want to follow.)

Thanks to all who weighed in (on blog and off) about grad school. It’s kind of a moot point since I’m not in a position to go for a fellowship right now (because I still need to make money) and I wouldn’t go to grad school if I had to pay for it. But it’s a maybe someday kind of thing. Hearing that I may not need that degree to do what I want was encouraging. I know that if my book sells that this will go a long way to building my career, which is one reason I want to write it. I want to get to the next stage in my life as a writer and I feel like having a book is the next stage. I’m not thinking much beyond this proposal (because I want to revel in the experience of having one out) but I am thinking about what I can be doing to support that proposal (and my interest in adoption) and help me grow into other projects if that book doesn’t sell.

Here’s some stuff in my head right now:

1. Brett’s doing the taxes and I made more than I thought last year. Although I was technically full-time freelance, I was really working part-time and I made a very nice income for a part-time worker. That made me feel much better about things. What hurt us was that when I went full-time in 2007, I wasn’t making enough at all and we ran through the cushion we’d built to support us while I got things up and running. Then when clients paid out late in 2008, we had no cushion and went into debt and I didn’t make enough to pay ourselves and pay back that debt so Brett had to go to work. But I was short by much less than I thought — we are not as bad off as I feared.
2. I had coffee with Alicia who had encouragement and good advice about doing workshops. She knows whereof she speaks since she gave me my first workshop gig. I left our meeting more excited!
3. In my continuing critique of the past year, I realized that all of my jobs came via networking. ALL OF THEM. None came from marketing/cold calling/warm calling. So I’m going to work on developing my connections and let word-of-mouth bring me work. In other words, I’m going to fret less and trust more (having Brett at work to pay the regular bills gives me the freedom to do this). And with the cushion that is Brett, I won’t take work that I don’t want this year.
4. Some of last year’s mistakes were necessary so that I could figure out what I was doing, like joining too many networking groups because I bought into the “it’s a numbers game” message even though I don’t like networking. I’m good at relationships and I’ve done better by focusing on relationships and easing up on the glad-handing strangers. Lesson learned. Of course I had to spend a lot of money and time to find it out and because I’d invested so much money and time, it took me longer than it should. (I kept trying to make it work, going to lunches and brunches and coffees and spending a lot of money on business cards that I gave away and that only got me on other people’s pitch lists.)

I have not, by any stretch, closed shop. I’m still here slugging away but having Brett bring home a paycheck is giving me room to put to work what I learned in the past year.

I am very grateful to Brett. (I should probably tell him that.)

Now that 2008 is over, I will say cautiously that it was a good year, even the terrible last quarter. Because sometimes a person has to fall flat on her face to look back and see what was tripping her up.

I am feeling very hopeful.

(Seriously — having that number there in black and white and knowing that I earned it on my own, flying free has gone a long way to making me feel better about it all.)

Yesterday we homeschoolers headed out to a Wexner Center school program for the Frog Bride. Afterwards the performers had a Q&A session and the kids asked lots of great questions (Noah wondered why there was only one actor in the show). Me, I wanted to know how in the hell those guys make a living and if it’s a real living or one where they still need to borrow money from their parents.

When I did that talk at the GCAC, I told the artists that they need to become their own patrons. The way I see it, people who get to live purely creative lives are few and far between and PARENTS (particularly mothers) who get to live them are even fewer. But many of us can live partially creative lives if we play our cards right. I mean, I’d rather sit around all day and think deep thoughts and write those deep thoughts down then stare at my page and sigh and go daydream for awhile and then come back and edit before I go back to staring into the middle distance. Unfortunately I have to make a living and I also have to wipe tushies, buy groceries, yell at people who leave their soccer shoes in the middle of the kitchen floor, discuss the merits of High School Musical II vs. High School Musical I and otherwise live my life outside of my head most of the time.

I have been itching lately to write but life has conspired against me. Having lots of work is a blessing even if it’s a creative curse and in this economy I’m grateful for my over-scheduled calendar even if it means I’m feeling a little run ragged. So it goes.

I’ll admit that I was feeling jealous of that guy hopping around the stage like a Frog Bride and jealous of the musicians accompanying him but I was also feeling inspired.

What I told the GCAC crowd is that creatives are good at finding creative solutions, right? We can find inspiration in odd places (like catalog copy or writing up a brochure) and we can also build skills when we stretch our corporate muscles. Plus we’re driven enough that we manage to squeeze the good stuff in around the mundane details of actual in real life living.

At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m cursing my calendar but blessing my billing. There’s time for everything if I’m willing to work in fits and starts. (And neglect the children some — they don’t mind. It means more television for them!)

But this freelancing I’ve been doing, I’ve learned a lot that’s benefitted my creative career not the least is to find opportunity and (important part) be willing to reach out and grab it. I’ve also learned a lot about marketing, a lot about networking and reminded myself of how much I enjoy public speaking and direct service with clients. To grow myself professionally I’ve had to stretch myself personally and since a creative career is a career (meaning I’ve never wanted to be Emily Dickinson) what I’m getting out of this less creative one has so far served me well in other ways.

Anyway. This is a buck myself up post because I’m itching to write this one essay and just haven’t had the time AT ALL and am looking at more work coming down the pike.

Recently a writer pitched herself for a project I’m heading up for a client. Off I went to check out her clips site and get an idea of her skills and expertise. What’s the first thing I see? ADS.

What’s worse is that this person was using google adwords, which pulls keywords from your site to create ads specifically targeted to your audience. So she was asking me to check out her skills while hosting five ads that compete with what she’s offering.

So what first impressions did I get from a quick glance through her site?

• That she’s likely not all that savvy about marketing, which is a pretty big issue for a marketing job.
• That she’s not detail-oriented.
• That she doesn’t understand how the internet works.
• That she’s an amateur.

Would she put a bumpersticker on the front of the clips file she’s sliding across the desk to the HR person? Or stop a job interview to try to sell Tupperware? Then why does she think it’s a good idea to have ads on her “please hire me” site???

Argh. Now I gotta decide if I should say something to her. I mean, I’m not going to offer her work (I’ve already got people lined up) only sometimes when someone seems sincere but misguided I do try to tell ‘em WHY I’m saying no but other times I just don’t have the energy.