Is fear ever a good thing?
Absolutely. Fear can help you move off dead center and take positive action. And if used in the right way, it can save you and your business from going belly up. Fear is natural, and it’s there for a reason. But when that natural instinct is overdeveloped, it becomes an issue—especially if you remain stuck in the problem and don’t move toward a solution.

In my book, inaction is the biggest thing to fear about fear.
The other day, I talked about taking action to face your freelance fears—those things that you tend to put off or …read more

What’s the one thing that you’re afraid to do as a freelancer?
Are you afraid to send off a query to a new-to-you editor or publication? Are you afraid to get more assertive with a client about collecting late payment? Are you afraid to fire a deadbeat or slow-paying client? Are you afraid to delve into social media or learn a new skill? What is the one area where you feel stuck?

If you don’t have any active freelance fears (that you’re aware of anyway), congratulations. And please tell the rest of us how you managed to accomplish that. But if you’re …read more

You probably have editor’s brain if you’re always writing five words and deleting four, if you automatically critique every word choice (and everyone else’s), and you can pick up a newspaper or read a book and automatically spot the one error on a page.
Editing skills are great to have—in fact, they have helped me earn a steady income for several years now. But the editing process has a time and place. And if the editor brain is too dominant or is always activated, it can really get in the way of the writing process.
I suspect that most writers have a …read more

Few things frustrate me more than having to wait on someone if I’ve set up a meeting, interview, or appointment for a specific time. Worse, if I never get a courtesy call letting me know they’re running behind schedule.
So I was pretty torqued today when I left work early so that I could get to a doctor’s appointment on time (to allow for bad road conditions). And then after all my troubles, I arrived only to find out that the doctor was running an hour and a half behind. Of course, the office staff never bothered to call and tell …read more

If you want to run a marathon, you have to work up to the kind of physical and mental conditioning that makes running that 26 miles possible.
I don’t run marathons (yet anyway), but I have trained for a 10-mile walk for the past two years. And what I’ve learned is that consistency matters more than mileage on most days. In other words, I might be able to walk 10 miles on one Saturday. But there is more of a long-term training benefit if I get up every morning before work and walk or run for three miles. Because over the …read more

Is it possible to have enough brainpower left over for freelance work after a full day at the office?
That depends. As some of you may recall, I started working a full-time job a couple weeks ago and am now freelancing part time. Under “normal” conditions, starting a new job can be mentally tiring—at least until you get into a routine. But add some freelance work into the mix, and well … sometimes the brain is just plain mush by the end of the day.
So how am I still juggling both?
Here are a few suggestions that are working for me:
1) Work …read more

Are you putting yourself out of business?
During my interview with longtime freelancer Robert McGarvey yesterday, he passed along a lot of great advice from his 30 years in the business. But one thing that really struck a chord with me was this observation: “Right now, in this economy, it is very easy to be so hungry that the hunger devours good sense.”
Like all freelancers, I certainly understand the pull that any kind of work has right now. But I also think there’s something to be said for exercising discernment and common sense when you’re accepting assignments, negotiating pay, and signing …read more

Are you a paraskevidekatriaphobic?
A what? Someone who has paraskevidekatriaphobia has an irrational fear of Friday the 13th (no, I’m not making this up—you can read all about it here).
I do know some people who have a fear of Friday the 13th, and I think it’s a little silly myself. There may be some freelancers who are thinking: Gee, maybe I shouldn’t send this query today. It’s Friday the 13th after all … Maybe I’ll just wait until Monday. Or perhaps there will be the temptation to delay signing contracts or conducting other freelance business until the day on the calendar …read more

When I first started freelancing full time, it was just me, my 14-year-old cat, the ticking clock, and the occasional phone interview during the day. In other words, very little human interaction and some very welcome silence.
And for a while, that was just fine with me. I’ve always been a bit of a lone wolf. And having grown up as an only child, I’ve never minded my alone time. In fact, sometimes my family and my closest friends argue that I seem to enjoy my alone time a little too much. So for the first few months of freelancing, I …read more

When was the last time you had ink-stained fingers after reading an article?
It’s been a while for me. As someone who grew up around newspapers, I am almost ashamed to say this: I can’t remember the last time I picked up and read an actual newspaper. These days, I read all my news online.
But sometimes (days like yesterday, in fact), I do miss that tactile sensation of picking up and reading a “real” newspaper.
I had a welcome interruption during my workday yesterday when an old friend of mine called me out of the blue. It was a business-related phone call …read more