This blog has moved!

6. April 2009 by Jennifer Dunn Saunders.

After getting married in September, I am finally, here in April, getting around to changing my name and my website. To read this blog, please set your Readers and/or browers to: http://blog.jennescalona.comThanks! 

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

FreelanceWriterville.com

12. March 2009 by Jennifer Dunn Saunders.

Freelance Writers, Pack up, it’s time to move. FreelanceWriterville isaccepting citizens and all you really need is a snarky sense of humor and afreelancing career at any stage.  FLWV has no-nonsense blog posts everyweek day, and a forum full of candid freelancers who aren’t afraid to share thereal tips and tricks of the trade. That’s right - they even talk money.Come on, here’s the U-Haul now. But wait, what’s that? You’ll missme? Wrong! You won’t have to, I have recently become a regular contributor atthe site so you’ll probably read more of me over there than you do here. Heck,I hang around over there so much that I’ve even won an award! So come on. Pack up. Go, go, go to FreelanceWriterville forsome freelance writing advice from the trenches.   

Posted in Reviews, Freelance Writing | Print | No Comments »

Ink or Swim: An Introduction to Freelance Writing from Lynne Beach

5. March 2009 by Jennifer Dunn Saunders.

I just spent the last five beautiful, glorious and hectic days in an unusually cold and gray Miami, Florida, so today I am catching up on work and keeping my nose pressed down hard to that bumpy grindstone. So, instead of offering my own blog post, I’m going to introduce a guest and one of my dear friends and fellow freelance writers, Lynne Beach.  Take it, Lynne!

---

 

Prologue:   Jennifer and I met during an on-line writing course. We’ve met in person also, but our first encounter was on the Net.  I can’t tell you the name of the course we took.  Not because of any proprietary limitations, but because it’s embarrassing as hell and I really don’t want anyone to know I squandered $150 on such an obvious joke. 

 The circus clown instructor had rules about what you could and could not write.   They weren’t helpful rules on style or composition, but veiled content censorship.  We were not allowed to write “anything violent,” or “too dark.”

Anyone familiar with Jennifer’s fiction realizes that Sunshine Mary the teacher may as well have duct-taped Jenn’s laptop shut with that edict. But our Jennifer is not a fan of “rules,” (Jennifer’s Note: Only dumb rules) and posted what she damn well wanted to. 

Frilly apron-wearing hack the instructor also imposed rules about posting personal information in the class forum.   I was forced to leave some pretty cryptic messages in an effort to give Jenn my e-mail address, as it was excruciatingly clear she was the only other enrollee with a lick of sense.

Fast forward a couple of years and here we are.  She has asked me to appear as a guest on her blog site, to share my (in)experience in trying to establish myself as a freelance writer.

Ink or Swim

Somewhere in mid-January, I decided to believe in my own writing.  Until then, I always felt amateurish and untalented.  There were other people I knew that labeled themselves writers, and I thought they dealt with an underlying torment that I did not.  I write because I can.  They write because they have to.  I felt “unworthy” of declaring myself a writer, because I didn’t have the soul-twisting obsession that I thought “real” writers have. 

I’ve always had the support of family and friends, but I never trusted it.  You expect friends and family to pat you on the back and say “good job,” even if you suck.  It wasn’t until I started getting feedback from less well-known acquaintances and strangers that I began to believe, and started thinking about freelance work.

I knew nothing.  I wanted to swim, but I didn’t even know where to find the pool.  So I did what I always do when I don’t know anything—I Googled.  I read every article I could find on breaking into freelance.  Then I did the other thing I do when I don’t know anything—I asked someone who does.  Enter Jenn.  She gave me the links to the best community sites, the feeds for the best newsletters, some great advice, and the thing I needed most.  Encouragement.

I reviewed the information she gave me, and felt impossibly overwhelmed.  What if I bid on a job and they PICKED me?!?  What would I do?!?  It seems pretty elementary as to what one would do, but I was terrified of being exposed as the fraud I believed myself to be.  I could see the others splashing around, but I was still watching from behind the gate.

Shortly after that, my sister came to visit and we talked about my new venture.  She is a magazine editor, and, although we share DNA, she has never held punches when critiquing my work.  I confessed my fear, and she said, “Look at me.” I did.

“You can write.”

“But…”

“You can write.”

“And what if…”

“You can write.”

“But I’m not…”

“YOU. CAN. WRITE.  Now go do it.”

And so, I walked up to the shallow end and stuck my toe in the water.  I developed a LinkedIn profile and set up an eLance account (though I’ve yet to take that preposterous test). Under the “occupation” heading, I typed, “p-h-a-r-m-a-c-i-s-t.”  Then I erased it and brazenly proclaimed, “freelance writer.” 

I began submitting queries and bids for jobs that captured my interest.  Most of them are medical/science gigs, since that is an area of comfort and confidence for me.  A few have just been for generic “writer wanted,” for this or that web article, and even a few have been “dream-print” opportunities such as short-fiction or narratives.  The shallow-end is peaceful, and I let the water lap at my knees.

So far, I’ve gotten one from LinkedIn but it was writing for scientific journals.  Which, on my list of ass-drag writing assignments, is number two.  (Number one is pets.)  Other than that, I’ve received ZERO inquiries.

My internal naysayer shouts Get out! Get out of the water!  She’s a real pain in the ass, that one. You’re just going to sink. Give up.  Not supportive at all.  You don’t belong.  Look at the diving board.  You’ll never stand up there.  My God, she’s loud.  But I’m learning to tune her out. 

Because I can write.

And I’m not going to sink.  Nobody sinks in knee-deep water.   I’m just going to move forward, my feet sliding across the slick liner inches at a time until my toes curl on the sloped edge of the deep. 

And one day, when my chocolate falls into the right jar of peanut butter, I’ll be swimming in offers.

For now, I’m getting some great practice just holding my breath.

---

To find out more about Lynne, read her delightful blog “I Have Measured Out My Life in MP3’s.” What’s not to love about a woman who loves To Kill a Mockingbird and T.S. Eliot? Not much, that’s what.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 2 Comments »

Are you a Writer or an Editor? (Or an Alligator!?)

23. February 2009 by Jennifer Dunn Saunders.

I am swamped with work. Literally swamped. So swamped I’m sure there must be an alligator in here some place.  Not to mention I also have a presentation due in my Grant Writing class tonight, and I’m nervous as, well… a writer who probably has an alligator lurking somewhere in her apartment. All gators aside, though, the presentation due in a few hours really is giving me the shakes. There’s a reason I’m a writer and not a politician.

So, due to my obsessive need to practice my presentation in the mirror, instead of giving you a witty blog post extolling the virtues or lamenting the travails of freelance writing, I will instead link to a post by another fabulous freelancer, Jenny Cromie, who writes the Golden Pencil blog.

Her post today, “Do You Have a Writer’s Brain or an Editor’s Brain?” asks us to consider whether we are over-editing our first drafts and provides us with a few exercises we can do to shut up our inner editor and get to writing. I confess I’m guilty of the editor’s brain. I’ve already edited this blog post five times, actually. So don’t be like me – let Jenny straighten you out posthaste. 

(Edit: I sure hope the alligator isn’t hiding murklins!) 

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

Advice for Freelancers: Read Ads Carefully

20. February 2009 by Jennifer Dunn Saunders.

In my post The Freelance Writer’s Guide to Writing Proposal Letters, I blithely advised to read all ads carefully before applying. I guess it’s time I took my own advice, huh? I misread an ad earlier this week that almost led to quite a bit of wasted time on my part.

I read that a freelancing job in my city advertised, “We can offer an array of services and compensation.”  Now, the wording of the whole ad was a little clunky, but hey, I was very qualified, it was in my city, and I don’t expect my clients to be professional writers. That’s why they’re hiring me, right?

But when the client immediately emailed me back and said there would be a group meeting for all applicants at a certain address. This struck me as a little odd so I asked for more about the position. As it turns out, the ad had read “we can offer an array of services as compensation.”

The compensation I would have received included hair styling (which of course I could use, have you seen this mop?), and black hair products (for which, unfortunately, I don’t have a use .)  I almost drove across the city at rush hour for a job that doesn’t actually pay in cash. And while I’m all for barter (it’s environmentally friendly!), that isn’t the direction I’m taking my business at the moment. And one little word caused all that.

So yes, do as I say, not as I occasionally do. Read the ads carefully. 

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

PaperbackSwap.com: A Sustainable Solution for the Avid Reader

17. February 2009 by Jennifer Dunn Saunders.

Have you ever wondered what to do with all those old books piling up on your shelves? You know you’ll probably never read them again, but maybe you heard from former library aides like me that most donated books get recycled instead of entered into general circulation, and you don’t want Trixie Belden’s 50’s-era adventures to end up as some poor office schlub’s TPS report.  Good news for you then that my new favorite site Paperbackswap.com is here to help.

PaperbackSwap allows you to upload your old paperbacks in exchange for credits. (Hardbacks are welcome, too, but I suppose hardbackswap.com sounds like a different type of site entirely.)  If memory serves, you get two credits for signing up, and then one more credit for every book you send out to another PaperbackSwap member. It costs a little over $2 to ship a book, and you can even pay postage through Paypal and print a shipping label right from your computer, meaning no need to stand in line at the post office. Then, armed with your handy dandy credits, you are able to search for all those books you’ve been meaning to read among the 3 million available on the site.  Basically, for less than the price of a used book, you can have books shipped directly to your mailbox. Becoming a reclusive shut-in has never been easier!

The site also allows users to post book reviews and ratings, and communicate with one another through message boards, PMs and all the usual Web 2.0 suspects.  By far my favorite side feature is the “wish” system where you tag books that aren’t available yet and the site emails you immediately when another user posts them on the site.

Does it work? Well, let’s just say that the postman at my new place knocked on my door the other day to tell me how busy I’ve been keeping him. So far I’ve shed old textbooks, well-intentioned Christmas gifts, and books that I love but know in my heart I’ll never read again.  In return, I’ve received half of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s bibliography, my favorite book as a child, and a really cool book about serial killer profilers, among many, many others. Now I just have to make time to read them all.

 One of the author’s many overflowing bookshelves. Yes, I made it deliberately small to obscure any embarrassing titles. 

(And before I forget: murklins, murklins, murklins!) 

Posted in Reviews | Print | No Comments »

Don’t Stay Murklins, Save a Word Today

5. February 2009 by Jennifer Dunn Saunders.

As freelance writers, or one might even go so far as to claim, a wordsmiths, I think it’s important to have many words to work with, don’t you? But what you might not know is that many of our beloved words are in danger! Yes, it’s true.  Every year lexicographers analyze the English language and decide which words have fallen out of usage, then summarily kick them straight out of the dictionary.

So this means we are in danger of losing words like cloakitively (adj. superficial) or succisive (ajd. of spare or extra time.)  Now, regardless of your opinion on language and how they all evolve, you have to agree that antipelargy (n. reciprocal or mutual kindness) is a pretty darn cool word and it would be a shame if it had seen its last printing in ol’ Webster’s.  Too bad there’s nothing anyone can do…

But wait! You can help. Visit Save the Words and adopt a word of your very own. Pledge to use it in conversation and keep it alive through, as the site suggests, bestowing it as a name on your pet or even hiring a sky writer to well… raise awareness. Or better yet, know any lexicographers? Send them a text message and casually throw in the word senticious (adj. prickly or thorny)

I adopted “murklins,” an adverb meaning “in the dark.” I can’t wait to get started saving it with the likes of, “I got dressed murklins this morning.” 

 Happy word saving!

(Bonus: If, like me, you happen to be married to someone who speaks English as a second language, this also has the added effect of driving that person CRAZY.)

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 4 Comments »

Contest for Freelancers over at FreelanceWriterville.com

21. January 2009 by Jennifer Dunn Saunders.

I wanted to point you all over to the Frustration Contest at one of my favorite sites, FreelanceWriterville.com.   Now, this contest doesn’t offer fame and glory (unless you count at $10 Amazon Gift Card), but it’s free to enter, has a 300 word limit, and deals with something we all know a great deal about — frustrating episodes in our freelance writing careers. So go let your frustrations out and maybe earn a little something extra for your trouble!

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

Super Crunchers

20. January 2009 by Jennifer Dunn Saunders.

After my last post about the Flesch-Kincaid Test and how it quantifies writing to a worrying degree, my online book club weekly selection just happened to be Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres.

The way the book club works (a few pages per day), I’ve only read about 5 pages of it so far, but the premise of the book is that mathematical forumlas has come so far that it can quantify just about anything, and it cites web applications like eHarmony and the recommendation systems of Netflix and Amazon as examples.  I’m waiting with interest for tomorrow’s bit to see if Ayres can convince me. (Not that I know enough about math to ever come to an informed conclusion.)

While I’m on the subject, I  really should rave about my book club. I’ve been a member for years and haven’t done it justice by recommending it far and wide. I’ll get on that soon. Until then, Happy Inauguration Day! 

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

Aspiring to the 9th Grade Level, or, How Simple Language Will Reclaim Our Knowledge

15. January 2009 by Jennifer Dunn Saunders.

In last week’s New Yorker, Jill Lepore had an article called “The Speech.”  While the article was mostly about how the majority of inaugural addresses suck aren’t very memorable, she touched on something called the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test.  You may have seen this sucker floating around on the ‘net at one time or another, but to sum it up, the Flesch calculator is intended to calculate at what grade level a text reads. (And no I’m not giving you a link so you can test your stuff until the bottom of the post. I know you. Keep reading!)  The Flesch takes factors like average number of words in a sentence, sentence length, syllables in words, etc. and, for us writers, supposedly tells us what grade level our work is meant for.

And it drives me crazy. 

Who died and said that writing a bazillion word sentence with supercalifragilisticexpialidocious shoehorned in three times makes your writing more worthwhile than someone who writes in a clear, concise, readable style?

Let’s consider this excerpt from anthropology. I won’t say I hate most anthropology writing, only that I’m horribly disappointed in it. (Oh, who am I kidding? I despise most anthropology writing like a bride despises the husband she caught cheating on their wedding night. Clearly, this stems from a semester of graduate study toward an anthropology degree.) But I digress. The below text is taken from an abstract of an anthropology paper. No, not the paper itself. The summary.

“The author begins by locating the thesis in the corpus of anthropological literature which acknowledges human suffering and refuses to adopt a position of cultural relativism. The complex and elusive phenomenon of structural violence is unpacked, followed by a description of the setting and the author’s methodology. Clinical observations are presented as contextualised narratives located around three themes: alcohol misuse; gendered violence; and inter-generational violence.” (Roberts, Anthropology & Medicine, 2009.)

This bad boy scores a 21 on the Flesch scale. As high school grads would read on a 12^th grade level, and people with Bachelor’s degrees on a 16^th grade level, I can only assume that this is meant for someone in the eleventybajillionth grade. (Darn, even with that awesomely long word, this paragraph only reads on a 9^th grade level.)

My point is that just because a document is long and full of fifty cent words it isn’t automatically worth more than say, a joke, or a slogan, or a song lyric that gets to the heart of a matter in a few words.  Regular people deserve to understand inaugural addresses, mortgages, and diagnoses. And the subjects of anthropological study damn sure deserve to understand what is being written about them by outsiders. At the risk of sounding like a raging populist, I find it disingenuous (50 cent word alert!) that certain writers try to preserve knowledge for themselves by holding it hostage with polysyllabic shackles.

I want to end with a couple of Flesch grade level scores:

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.” – T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  (1^st grade)

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” (Kindergarten)

And here’s the link to the Flesch calculator I was using. Try not to tear your hair out. (This post? 8^th grade.)

Posted in Writing Craft, Ethics | Print | 14 Comments »