Today is cold, dreary, and rainy — it was not quite 50 degrees at mid-morning, and it has been raining constantly all day.

We don't have many days of solid rain in Colorado, but when we do it's always been a treat for me — especially as a freelancer. I love to write or read all snuggled up on the couch with the blinds open. Same with snowy days.

Now, however, I have a "job" of sorts — going to the barn to clean stalls. Not only do I not get to stay cozy on the couch all day, but I also need to work outside in it!

Cleaning Panama's stall last winter, I found that the cold doesn't bother me for long at the barn — I warm up pretty quickly. (Especially with the help of long underwear, which I hadn't worn since I was a kid and thought I'd never wear again.) The rain rather sucks, though. After I clean stalls today, I plan to warm up with a mug of hot tea and a comfy sweatsuit!

Labels: freelancing

Today I am finally trying what I've wanted to try for quite some time: I am writing at the barn.

I was planning on being at the barn for a while today, so I decided to bring my laptop and do some work if I had a chance. The idea was to clean the stalls and then work while I hang out with my horse. It didn't turn out exactly how I thought it would — Panama got injured and the wound had to be cleaned — but I am now sitting here with my laptop while Panama grazes in the front yard.



It's a great place to work, though of course it lacks some of the comforts of my house. My butt is beginning to really hurt from sitting on the ground, for one thing. Also, I don't have Internet access, so I'll have to copy and paste all my blog posts into Blogger when I get home.

Uh oh — time to go. Panama just got tired of the grass in the front yard, apparently, and walked off with his lead rope trailing. That's another drawback of working at the barn, I guess — it's over when my horse says it's over!

Labels: freelancing

I saw a really interesting story on NPR yesterday, about a performance artist who develops characters from grocery lists. Hillary Carlip hunts for discarded lists, and then — based on clues such as what the list contains, what it is written on, and the handwriting — she creates a character sketch of each. She also goes a step further, though, dressing up as these characters (and boy does she look believeable!).

I'll definitely be checking out (her pun, not mine) the book, a la Cart, but this story made me think of how fiction writers — myself included — get ideas for characters. I know that I am fascinated with people, and often draw entire characters from short glimpses of strangers on the street. People-watching for character ideas isn't a new concept... but grocery lists?

How do you get ideas for your characters?

Labels: fiction writing

A friend teased me for not having updated my main blog in several days — all of my updates have been horse-related, rather than literary in nature. (Although to tell the truth, even the horsey blog posts have been a little less frequent of late.)

I've had several different forces in my life right now conspiring to keep me away from my blogs — and, sometimes, my work — but I'm going to try to catch up in the next week or so, so stay tuned!

Labels: admin

The past few days, I've been juggling my deadline with family activities and, more importantly, with cleaning stalls at the barn. I started cleaning stalls in exchange for free board on Monday. It's dirty work, but I don't really mind it. I do, however, need to get a routine down so that I'm doing the cleaning during the most comfortable part of the day.

Cleaning stalls will definitely take some time out of my day. When you consider the amount of board I'm getting free compared to the hours I'll be spending, it's really like working a part-time job that pays minimum wage. However, if I do the work in the morning my freelance schedule won't be all that different than when I sleep in until 10:00 or 10:30!

Labels: freelancing

On Friday I blogged about procrastinating. I was dragging my feet about making a couple of phone calls, and had sent off emails in the hopes of arranging email interviews instead.

As it turned out, my email interview attempts did work out, although I didn't actually get a hold of someone from one of the organizations until the evening of the deadline. I communicated the delay to my editor, though, and he was okay with it. He knew about the hassles with my computer last week, and was perfectly understanding about the setback that had caused!

Despite the slightly missed deadline, the article was much more enjoyable to write thanks to my email interviews. I didn't have to play phone tag, or fret about the stupid way I ask questions when I'm nervous, or transcribe an interview (and cringe every time I heard my own voice). It's so much easier to exchange a few emails and just copy-and-paste the quotes I want into my article!

No matter what negative things anyone has to say about procrastination, the truth is that it does sometimes pay off. And some people — like me — actually work better when they're down to the wire!

Labels: procrastinating

I have a few small changes that will be taking place later this month. Well, actually, they'll be small to you, because my blogs and websites will stick around, but they are huge to me.

Basically, I'm going to start cleaning stalls in exchange for free board for Panama at my barn. This eliminates a huge monthly expense and allows me to not worry quite so much about my income each month, but it also means I'll be spending a couple hours every day at the barn — more if I want to ride and spend time with my own horse.

To me, the exchange is totally worth it. I love spending time at the barn, and can easily spend two hours or more just doing nothing. At least this way I will have some wiggle room with my bills — and maybe be able to put the extra into paying off my credit card debt!

I'm not anticipating my new obligations to cut into my work time too much, since I already spend so much time out at the barn, but of course I'll have to make a few changes to my work schedule. Therefore I've decided to stop marketing for the time being, and to focus on a few of my favorite and most lucrative clients. So in a way, the changes are to my benefit in more ways than just getting free board, because they've encouraged me to reevaluate my current client situation!

Like I said, I still plan to maintain my blogs, my website, and my best clients, so for all intents and purposes this shouldn't have much of an impact on my career. In fact, I'm hoping that by focusing on my best-paying clients, I'll actually have a little extra free time for working on my own projects, and thereby advance my career!

Labels: freelancing