Docu Wire

Making it as a freelance is not easy, especially if you haven’t been published before. However, with a bit of persistence you can be successful. Here are a few tips to get you started.

As a minimum, you should know how to structure a news story or feature article. With news, you’ll need to include the who, what, where, why, when and how of the story. With features, you’ll need to flesh the story out a bit and tell it in an interesting way - and in the way that’s most appropriate for the readers you’re trying to reach. After all, you’d write very different stories for the New York Times and the Surfing Times, wouldn’t you?

Freelancing is not an excuse to have lots of snack breaks or sit in the garden. Treat it like a job. Set some time aside each day to look at newspapers and magazines, look at job sites and, most importantly, do some writing. Keep copies of your articles, of correspondence (whether email or snail mail) and of all relevant bills so you can claim any tax relief or expenses due to you.

Make sure you have the right equipment: telephone and mobile phone; PC or laptop; a dictaphone or other recorder; a printer and a scanner.

Ideas are your bread and butter: keep having them. Have you got any interests, hobbies or obsessions? Has anything unusual happened to your friends or members of your family? These are all good starting points for articles. Look for work in new magazines that don’t have established links with freelancers. They are more likely to give new writers a chance.

So how do you get an editor to give you a try? Read the magazine or paper to see what kinds of articles they publish and suggest material that you think might be appropriate. Look in the archives to make sure your idea hasn’t been published before and then send a query to the editor (by email or snail mail depending on his or her preference). Do a bit of legwork (by phone) and find out the editor’s name so you can address your query to the right person.

Your query should lead the editor into your story. My advice is to write the lead and then say how you would develop the story. Remember to include any information about specialist sources you may have access to or areas of expertise. This will help to convince the editor that you are serious. However, don’t give away so much of your material that the editor can commission someone else to do it. Think of the extras you can provide - sending photos and material for sidebars will make the editor’s life easier.

Once you’ve got that commission, be professional and deliver on time. If you let an editor down once, you won’t be hired again.

Finally, if you want to get paid on time, find out who’s responsible for paying you (it may be an accounting department rather than the editor) so you can send your invoice in as soon as the work is delivered. Try to get the details of the commission in writing. If the editor won’t send you a letter, then you send one confirming the agreement you’ve made. That way, you’ll have some comeback if there’s a query later.

If you do all this, there’s a good chance that an editor will give you a try. A final word of advice, though; if your article is good enough to go in the magazine, it’s good enough for an editor to pay you. Don’t work for nothing unless it’s absolutely unavoidable.

Good luck!

Sharon Hurley Hall is a freelance writer, ghostwriter and editor. Sharon worked in publishing for 18 years, writing articles and editing and designing books and magazines. She has also lectured on journalism. For more information or to contact Sharon, visit doublehdesign.com. Sharon also publishes freelance writing advice

I submitted the best story I’ve ever written to a contest,
but it didn’t even win an honorable mention! I guess I’m not as
good a writer as I thought I was, I might as well quit right
now.

The hurt of rejection goes deep into the heart of any writer,
but new, inexperienced writers don’t know how to get up, grab a
new pen and keep writing. It doesn’t help to encourage them by
saying simply, “Keep writing!”, or “It happens to everyone.” It
just doesn’t work that way. They will have to cry and go through
a time of mourning their self-confidence. It’s almost a
requirement - a rite of passage on the journey to
publish-dom.

They don’t know that this hurt will eventually come out through
strong, intense drama and a better knowledge of showing real
emotion.

They don’t know this low point will eventually prop them up and
make them more determined to write, if for no other reason than
to prove they can.

They don’t know this hurt could be the catalyst to success.

They don’t know it will cause them to become a better writer.

But it will.

Losing a contest or being rejected by a publisher, doesn’t
necessarily mean your writing is weak. It means the judges saw
something special in the winning piece. It may have simply been
the tone or the topic - or the mood of the judge. Or the cover
letter, or the full moon, etc. etc. etc. Who knows why one wins
over another?

Read the winning entries and try to see what the judges saw in
them. If your work is honestly as good as the winning entries,
submit it again somewhere else and hope for a judge with the
smarts to recognize good writing! Remember though, there are
lots of good writers competing for the top spots and the final
decision will depend on that ’special something’ one write has
over another. Be sure your piece has breath and is singing!
Bring it to life!

Take advantage of your distressed state by continuing to write.
Your mood will affect the emotion, and the new story you write,
if drawn from your soul, will be powerful. Your mood will show
in the characters actions and reactions, and in their dialogue.
Later, when you feel better, you’ll look back on this particular
story and wonder how you ever attained that strong voice. Then,
you’ll remember and wish it didn’t have to hurt so much to
become successful.

In today’s world of mass communications and widespread online shopping, it is relatively easy and simple to purchase everything you would like to buy online - from hundred years old antique books up to the last week’s bestsellers, from magazines of your local community up to the periodicals of other countries, clothes and apparels, sport equipment and electronics - everything is sold on the internet.

But online shopping as any other modern development has two sides - one is an easy and convenient service, another is the service where your security and privacy should be guarded. And, unlike shopping at the supermarket you might never receive what you have paid for.
This is especially true in essay-writing online business. Many of so - called “American essay writing companies” are really located in developing countries and lure their gullible clients by blatant false, untruthful promises.

So when you buy the essay, dissertation or term paper on-line how can you make this process more safely and secure your financial information as well as your privacy? What steps should be taken?!

When you buy the term paper online, you should make sure that you are buying it from reputable and well-known essay writing service. One should always make some preliminary checks - first you should find out whether the company has valid address and the telephone number. As was mentioned earlier many of these companies are located in developing countries and if there is no vital telephone number or address than this is a strong indication that this company is not an American one.

Second, investigate the reputation of the company. Try to find out whether other people have had some problems with this company in the past.

When buying term paper, try to avoid the companies that intend to notify you about some new products in the future. Remember, that in this way your email address and other information might be shared either with other companies or other persons. If however you are requested to provide some personal information such as your security number or the number of your bank account, then you should exercise extreme caution. You should never disclose this information to any company; if the company demands it and claims that this information is a prerequisite for your purchase, then it might be advisable to buy your term paper at another site.

One should not give any additional information that deems private, and one should always remembers that it is a legitimate right of the customer to demand the guarantee that the data or any other information provided for verification purposes is not used besides the purposes mentioned. As a customer you should study privacy statement of the company very thoroughly to make sure that your privacy as well as your data is kept confidential. Sometimes, privacy statements of the company can be found under the headings “Terms and conditions” as well as “Terms of use”.

Despite the fact that responsibility lies on the company, it lies on your caution and attentiveness as well. You should only purchase over secure computer and server. Make sure that your browser supports 128bit encryption, In order to check out whether your server is secure one should pay attention to several details:

- The address https - is a clear indication that this site is secure.
- The presence of small locked padlock in the right part of the screen.
- And certainly, you should create a secure and long password, so it will not be possible to break it. Learn more about it here: buy term paper .

Custom Term Paper Writing Service - buy term paper.

If you dread the thought of writing, if you fear your desk, and if you hate your computer, then you are trying too hard.

If the thought of writing makes you feel guilty, makes your heartbeat quicker, and makes you sweat, then you are trying too hard. Your writing has become a burden that inhibits your creativity, your thinking, and your production. This, of course, leads to writer’s block, the scourge of all writers.

If you avoid your deskor table, or any other place that you writeyou are building up your torture rather and ameliorating it, which is another indication that you are trying too hard.

If you hate your computer or your typewriter (if you are still using one), it becomes and evil entity that overpowers you and renders you useless as a writer. You are trying too hard.

You are trying too hard when you become obsessed with your inability to produce. When the current project becomes an ordeal, you are trying too hard. Then it is time to set that undertaking aside and start another. No, it is not time to take a rest, to procrastinate, and to stop writing; it is time to read, to plan a new undertakinga new poem, a new story, a new article, etc.to give your mind a rest from the overwhelming present piece, to enjoy a new perspective, and to relax your stifled creativity, but do not quit writing.

Charles O. Goulet has a BA in history and BEd in English literature. He has several historical novels published that are available through Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Barnes and Noble, and other bookstores

Charles O. Goulet
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Evansburg, AB
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go1c@telusplanet.net