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Vol
12 Number 25 - June 24, 2008
In this Issue:
Want to contribute to this newsletter? We are a paying market. Read our guidelines for contributors here: http://www.writingfordollars.com/wfdguidelines.cfm Welcome Check out our new article database. We finished adding our whole inventory of past articles from WFD, now over 400 articles are available to search and read. Find just the right information you need to make a few more bucks in the new year. Don't forget our database of writer’s guidelines is readily available to everyone for FREE! All links have been checked within the last year (the date that they were last checked is listed) so you can be sure to have the most up-to-date information. Here are the top-selling writing books at AWOCBooks.com - FREE SHIPPING on selected books! ($2.95 value)
Dan
Case, editor The Brainstorm Book by Kathleen Ewing "I can't think of anything to write." By the time you sit down to create a poem, article or story, you should never have to make that remark. Ideas pursue you through the day and haunt you at night. They assail you without warning, jumping out at you from corners both dark and light. They tickle you, tackle you or steal your breath. With a spiral ring notebook, you can capture the essence of those ideas when they occur and keep them safe for those moments when your brain is vacant. I call my notebook the Brainstorm Book. It is my most valuable writing tool. This stiff-backed volume accompanies me when I read the newspaper, watch the news on TV and peruse magazines or eavesdrop in the doctor's waiting room. Some entries are brief phrases or a single, poignant word. A few cover half a page. Some are neat and thoughtfully written, others scribbled in a rush and barely decipherable. All of the entries have one thing in common. Each is an idea that appealed to me when I recorded it. Do not bother trying to organize your book. It is merely a spider web, a dream catcher, a mustache through which you filter the crumbs floating in your daily broth. It should resemble a scrapbook as much as a journal. Those notes you make when you wake up in the night with the perfect plot or line of dialogue? Do not waste time rewriting them. Tape them into your book. If you find a photograph, a small news clipping or a sticky note that intrigues you, glue it to a page. No one is grading you on neatness. It only matters that you are able to read your collage at a later date and recall the reason you entrusted those notes and items to your book rather than to your faulty memory. Do not judge or agonize over what you write here. Send your nagging internal editor on hiatus. Participles may dangle. Nouns and verbs may clash. Adverbs and adjectives may proliferate. Doodles are acceptable. At this stage, it is all about capturing the illusive idea, not the style with which you narrate or illustrate it. Ignore the temptation to fully develop your idea in your book. You don't want to expend all your creative energy at this stage. Simply record the idea along with a few pertinent details, and then allow it to sit and germinate. When you return to it at a later date, you may find that your mind has been secretly taking the original concept in a totally different direction that you imagined when you recorded the entry. The best time to glean ideas from your collection is when you have just finished the first draft of your current project. Open your Brainstorm Book and select the seed for your next project. When you find one that still intrigues you with its potential, create a file folder for it. Staple a copy of your book entry inside the front cover of the folder. Do not remove the original from your book. In the future it might provide another seed for an entirely different embryo in your writer's laboratory. Into this project file folder you can place other notes as they occur to you, pertinent news clips, photos and market data, including guidelines to help you slant your work. It will ferment there while you polish your current project and be waiting for you when you sit down to develop your next piece. With a Brainstorm Book, your complaint may become, "I have too many ideas!" Every writer should have such a magnificent dilemma. © 2008 by Kathleen Ewing Kathleen Ewing is a freelance writer who lives in the central mountains of Arizona where she enjoys hiking, horseback riding, four wheeling and target shooting. Among her more recent credits are articles in Art Calendar Magazine, American Falconry, Funds for Writers and Hobby Farms Magazine. You can visit her site at www.nothingbinding.com/writer/kathleen-ewing.html 11 Paying Markets Updated or added in our database since June 17, 2008 High - Over $500
Medium - $125 - $500
Low - Less than $125
Expanding Your Point of View by Shannon Caster At least once a week I read or hear a standard piece of writer’s advice—write-what-you-know. This adage has served many writers well, helping them become specialists in a particular field of writing. In fact, this piece of advice served me well when I began writing, until I realized I had inadvertently narrowed my focus too much. Sure I was an expert at writing short pieces for children’s magazines, but there were other markets out there waiting for my expertise if I just expanded my point of view. At one point in my life, my day job was teaching elementary school.
I taught kindergarten, first, second (sometimes all in one grade),
and fifth grade. What does that mean for my freelance potential?
I can tap into educational markets, teacher magazines, parent magazines
looking for educational topics, and anything related to education
and Next, think about your home life. I have two children, three dogs, a cat, and a husband. For me this translates into possible freelancing in the areas of parenting, pets, and dating/marriage. Sure, I’m not dating now, but I dated at one point in my life. I can still remember “Surviving the First Date with Humor” or “Top Five Outdoor Dates for Spring.” Life makes you an expert in many ways. Not a day goes by that my kids don’t give me something to write about. Today I could have written articles on “The Modern-Day Tooth Fairy,” or “When Your Child’s Ready to Walk the Dog,” and “Are Picky Eaters Born or Raised?” Can you guess what my morning looked like? There’s a large market out there waiting for your personal essays, filler articles, and even lead articles if you are ready to give it a try. By now you’re probably seeing a pattern emerge. Your life experiences have provided you with multiple facets in which you can tap into for freelance opportunities. Now it’s time to get out your pencil and paper, or open a new document on your computer, and start brainstorming. First, make two columns: “I Know About” and “Potential Markets.” Use the prompts below to think about yourself and fill in the “I Know About” column. Then go back and write out potential markets related to your answers.
Finally, if your list of potential markets isn’t overflowing with ideas that will take you days to dig through writer’s guidelines, here’s one last tip. Ask your family what you are passionate about—you know those things you are always commenting on, complaining about, or rambling off some new fact you read about. Sometimes it takes others to expand your point of view. © 2008 by Shannon Caster Shannon Caster resides in Portland, Oregon where she can be found reading at the park, watching her kids at sporting events, walking her dogs, or writing on her laptop. Shannon frequently writes for children, parents, educators, writers, and any other audience willing to listen. Shannon welcomes visitors to her website at www.shannoncaster.com.
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