Too many pots on the stove leads to burnt food.  Or in my case, a neglected blog.  I just haven’t had a plan for this blog and regular blog posts.  Between writing for:

• Contentrix.com,
• InternetBasedMoms.com,
• Allcustomcontent.com
• Freelancewritingbusiness.com
• and MakeaLivingWritingRomance.com

Not to mention client projects and a fiction work in progress, it’s a wonder I don’t have blisters on the tips of my fingers from speed typing.

If you find yourself in the same position, too many projects and no real plan for some of them, the cure is simple.

Eliminate the project or make a plan.

Sounds harsh but if you’re going to do something, you need to do it well.  Half assing anything just doesn’t do you or your readers credit, and yes I’m going to take my own advice here and actually plan regular blog posts for this site.  Nothing outrageous, one a month is the goal.  However, this blog also needs a focus, something it’s been lacking up until now.

So what’s the focus?

Reports and ebooks

• hiring ghostwriters to write them
• marketing with them
• repurposing them and so on.
• I’m also looking into building my sales copy experience and will probably blog on that transition and offer advice for marketing your books and reports.

So that’s the plan.

What’s yours?

2008 was a delightful year!

I bought a content business, AllCustomContent.com, from a client and had the experience of managing a fantastic group of writers, editors, and transcriptionists and working with fabulous clients.  This new adventure meant pulling my attention away from my original writing business which focused on writing ebooks and reports for business owners.

It took some time but I’ve managed to outsource the majority of tasks, leaving me time to write. Focus on your strenghts, right?!

In addition to again working on building my AMB-Creative client base, I’ve decided to narrow my focus to self improvement topics – specifically spirituality topics and fitness.

To really make this an important part of my new year I posted an intention – I intend to use my writing skills and knowledge to help others improve their lives.  I intend to gain new clients whose business is based on these same concepts – to help others improve their lives.

Upon posting this intention, I received three new clients who focus on personal training and spiritual growth.  I can’t wait to begin working with them and am looking forward to strong relationships and feeling good about the content I put out into the world.

Happy New Year!

It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.
-Gerald Brenan

We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.

- Anne Lamott

Have you always dreamed of writing from home?  Do you KNOW that you can writer better than most of the journalists and writers you read but you just don’t know where to start?  Perhaps you are concerned about the economy and not comfortable leaving your 9-5 for a pie in the sky dream.

Well now’s your chance!

Ask those burning questions.

Over the next couple of weeks, longer if necessary, I will answer questions about what it takes to start and run a profitable freelance writing business.

Just post your question here or if you’d rather – feel free to email me at info at info@freelancewritingbusiness.com

I look forward to your questions!

Until then,

Happy Writing

Once upon a time Annette entered a writing contest.  She submitted the first three chapters of a book which had received RAVE reviews in her creative writing class – so much so that the professor encouraged her to get an agent ASAP. She carefully prepared her manuscript, dropped her most prized work to date in the mailbox and waited.

and waited….and waited….

Finally the envelope arrived.  Now don’t get me wrong, I had no expectations of winning or even receiving honorable mention, however what I did expect was solid, constructive feedback and maybe just maybe I’d catch the eye of an editor or agent.

That’s not what I received.

Instead I received bland praise from two judges (a whole lotta nothing) and from another judge I received an ignorant rant on the fact that soybeans don’t grow in Illinois.  I’m not even going to justify that with a comment here – if you’re curious Google it.  Now my book wasn’t about soybeans and the tasty little buggers were mentioned once in a scene where a plane crashes in…yep you guessed it, a soybean field. Needless to say, I did not enter another writing contest – despite her critique partner’s amazing success with them which eventually led to selling not one but 4 manuscripts.

Ten years later….I’m surfing the net and come across the Golden Heart – along with the RITA it is the Romance Writer’s Association’s big annual contest.  On a whim, I enter not one but two manuscripts into this contest however my expectations are different this time around.

This time I’m using the contests as inspired action, as motivation.

You see…one of the manuscripts entered has been sitting on my metaphorical desk getting dusty and the other wasn’t finished.  Nothing like a pending deadline to kick a butt into gear.

So I did it.  I finished the manuscript and got it into the proper hands, barely.  What are my expectations?  None.  I expect nothing.  I expect that I will get my manuscripts back at some point and that the judges will have made comments.  I expect that I will probably read the comments, though maybe not.

So why did I enter them?  Because nothing happens if you don’t take action and quite frankly I want to publish a novel.  I’ve published short stories.  I’ve ghostwritten non-fiction, but my intention is to publish many many novels and I know deep down in my gut that manuscripts which are allowed to get dusty don’t get published.

You have to take action!

You have to push yourself.  You have to get uncomfortable and do things you may not feel quite brave enough to do.  You have to enter contests, read comments from ignorant people and grin and bear bland praise.  However, above all you have to take inspire action.  I didn’t plan on entering the contest – I was inspired to do it and that my dear writing friends is when miracles happen – when you follow your inspiration, even if you don’t like what it’s telling you.

So…do you enter contests?  Why or why not?  What has been your experience with them?  What inspired action have you taken lately?

I’m so excited to announce the launch of my new website – Freelance Writing Business.

I’ve been so blessed to have such a tremendous career.  I get to work when it suits me, I’ve met and continue to meet some amazing people.  I have built my business to the point where I work on the projects which excite me and with the clients who I appreciate and adore.

Almost every day someone I know stops me and asks me how I’ve done it and how they can do it to – they too want to create a freelance writing business.  Maybe they have skills and knowledge in technology, maybe they used to be a social worker or a counselor.  Maybe they have substantial knowledge about religion and theology and many of them simply would like to create additional income or a new career working from home – what they all have in common is a desire to write.

That’s why I created my new blog – Freelance Writing Business.  On this site you’ll have access to free monthly reports on how to build and sustain a profitable freelance writing business.

You’ll find articles and posts on:

• how to manage your time,
• prevent a big fat writer’s butt,
• outsource tasks for maximum efficiencty and profits
• and even how to write faster, enhance your credibility and boost your profits.

In the very near future we’re launching a quarterly success interview where you can hear first hand how other writers have been able to create the freelance writing career which suits their needs and interests.

Visit FreelanceWritingBusiness today and sign up for your free report or if you know of someone who is looking to start thier own business please forward the URL to them right now – great things are happening!

It is perfectly okay to write garbage–as long as you edit brilliantly.

- C. J. Cherryh

As you may or may not know, I’m a very strong believer in that in order to be a good writer, you MUST be a good reader.  That doesn’t mean reading only your genre and only in your industry but reading everything and anything that interests you.  Here’s what’s on my bookshelf for December:

My daughter turned 12 last month.  That, combined with some parenting issues we’ve been having prompted me to purchase  Parenting With Love And Logic (Updated and Expanded Edition)
I also bought the edition for parenting teens.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s a great kid. Good grades, good friends, confident and kind.  We just knock heads from time to time and I wasn’t sure we were handling those situations the best way possible.  I did a kind of drive by reading of the first Love and Logic book, whipping through it and reading all the tips and chapter summaries.  Actually learned a bit just from doing that so I’d recommend the book if you EVER have any parenting doubts.  I disagreed with some things, like allowance, however by and large it’s a very good book with a solid foundation in good parenting.  I’m actually going to get it for my sister and her husband for Christmas because they just had a new baby and you can’t start too early!

I’m also reading Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer.  It’s an amazing story written by a fantastic author (I actually have a bit of an author crush on him)  Reading it is, I admit, partially motivated by the fact that I tend to see him from time to time at the climbing gym and well, gosh, you really should read books by people you’ve said, “we’ll be off this route in just a minute” to, right?

Lastly, and completely unrelated to all the other books on my bookshelf is the The Guide to Getting It On, 6th Edition which I purchased not because I’m looking for instruction but because I have a heck of a time writing the more intimate scenes in my fiction projects and I thought a book on the subject might help me figure out some unique yet completely plausible positions for the characters to be in (blush)

So….What’s on your bookshelf this month?

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

- Orson Scott Card