Class Politics:
Local Politician Spends Month on Welfare
What Do Job Projections Mean When There Aren’t Enough Jobs?
Animal Welfare:
Canine Ear Cropping Banned in Manitoba
79 Dogs Seized from Illegal Manitoba Breeding Operation
Think Global, Work Local: Pet Ownership as Social Justice
Civil Rights:
Teachers Forced to Remove LGBT “Ally” Cards
Environment and Health:
Canada Health: BPA’s a Toxin But It’s Okay to Have It In Our Food
There are only three more full weeks before we return to Canada, and there’s lots to do. I’ve just finished the Murakami book, so I need to write up my review for that. That leaves me with four more review books to read this month.
Odds are I’ll still be working on the last one as our plane touches Canadian soil, but as I know I have fresh new review material waiting for me at home, I’m endeavouring to be as close to caught up on my Costa Rica reading as possible by the time we head back. I don’t want to arrive there with more than one unfinished book.
I’ll be doing my usual Care2 blogging throughout the week, and I’ll also be working on a piece I’m writing for a magazine, which I won’t name unless and until they actually decide they like what I came up with and are going to run it. I don’t want to count my chickens, after all.
I have been reasonably diligent with submitting other unsold articles, but don’t expect too much to happen with that, at least immediately. I’ve already mentioned a new blogging gig, but I don’t even know if it’s going to start this month, since the site itself has yet to be launched.
The last week we’re here will involve a lot of last-minute touristy stuff. A canopy tour, a trip to the zoo, a couple last treks to the ocean, and even just local stuff in our nearby towns. My writing output will probably be lower that week as a result (not to mention the need to clean house and pack). So I hope to be on the ball this week and next and keep to a good working schedule.
That’s all for now.
Environment:
Time to Stop Canada’s Polar Bear Hunt
Increase Arctic Shrubbery May Destroy Permafrost
NYC Cancels Winter Jam, Citing Lack of Winter
Hanford Site: Radiation Levels High, Progress Slow
Top Industry Experts: Green Energy is a Smart Investment
Animal Welfare:
Cat Undergoes Revolutionary New Full Knee Replacement
Civil Rights:
Are We Living in a Caste Society?
African Americans for Humanism Launch Awareness Campaign
Pseudoscience, Women’s Rights, and Skepchicks
Politics:
Is Anyone Out There? Do We Care?
Who Are the Real Advocates For Oil?
New Study Links Racism and Conservative Beliefs with Low IQ
I’ve been lax in submitting my freelance work lately. Since I got a regular gig at Care2, I’ve been spending my mornings writing articles that I know will run, rather than investing my time submitting previous pieces to markets who may or may not be interested. I’ve also been tapped to contribute to another soon-to-launch site, which makes it even easier to keep busy with my writing (more on that later).
But I’m going to be slowing down my output at Care2 a bit compared to last month. I’ll write when something really strikes me; maybe a few posts per week. Not because I’m not enjoying it — it definitely beats the more technical stuff I’ve done a lot of in the past: stock analysis or calculus tips, for example. But I’m ready for a little break.
What I’d really like to see in print is a little thing I wrote all about tea. That may not immediately sound fascinating to you, but I enjoyed writing it. It’s a sort of spiritual successor to one of the more popular piece I’ve written, called “The Art of Science — The Science of Art?” I might define it as creative non-fiction moreso than feature writing, if I stop to think about it; particularly the tea article, since I let myself loose stylistically a bit more.
I had this piece in mind for at least six months before I actually wrote it. Where my previous piece in this vein started out talking about DNA but used that as a jumping off point to discuss the works of Salvador Dali, this newer piece starts off with me talking about my chemistry lab and then discussing all sorts of little-known facts about my favourite hot beverage. It’s a kind of writing I really enjoy because it combines my interests in science and culture by drawing connections between them.
It’s also difficult enough to categorize that finding the right market is a challenge. But if I don’t keep sending it out, it won’t happen. And the same goes for everything else that’s making the rounds at the moment. You have to submit. It’s a basic rule of freelancing: keep your stuff circulating until it sells.
Politics:
Climate Change Deniers Set School Policy, Forecast Weather
Post-Fukushima, Nuclear Policies in Flux Around the World
“Climate Skeptic” Thinktank Asked to Reveal Secret Funders
Act on ACTA: The Internet War is Not Over
Canadians Want Legislation to Regulate Sex-Specific Abortion
Animal Welfare:
Texas Pastor Kills Neighbours’ Cat
Why We Will Boycott “The Grey”
Environment:
Tipping Point: Amazon Basin Becoming a New Carbon Source?
I’ve started blogging at Care2.com, “Care2 make a difference”. A good clearinghouse for progressive causes, news, petitions, and such. I’ll be writing on education, environment, things of that nature. I’ll link to my posts from here as they go up.
Of course writing on other topics, reviews, arts and culture, and such, will go elsewhere, and will also be linked to from here.
First post: Girls Can do Math Just Fine, Thanks.
I forgot to mention, I did a quick write-up about the EAT! Bistro, which unfortunately has its last day on Saturday. If you live in Winnipeg, you should try and stop by for one last lunch. My article is here.
No matter what kind of stuff you like to write, odds are there is someone out there who will pay you for it (if it’s good enough). Straight news? There’s absolutely a market for that. Political commentary? Yep. Science writing? It’s been one of the shrinking markets the last few years, but as a freelancer, sure, you can still find outlets. Comedy writing, yeah. Features? Definitely.
Of course, you have to find your market. You can do some research and write an article on gardening and sell it, even if you’ve never even kept a houseplant alive, but the closer you stick with what you know, the more likely you are to earn a paycheque that justifies the time you put into it. Not to mention, you know, caring about what you’re writing.
I have a little notebook file with article pitches. I’m looking at science and science fiction magazines that buy non-fiction articles, so I can write about, well, both science and science fiction. I’m looking at education journals, because I have a few articles in mind for that as well. And I’m also looking at a couple of writers’ magazines.
Sometimes you have to write the whole article and then see who wants to buy it. Sometimes they just want your basic idea for the article, and they’ll let you know if you should write it. Of course, it’s often much better to know who you want to write for beforehand, so you can keep publication style guidelines — and more importantly, your audience — in mind during the writing.
Even a news article will have a different focus if it’s addressed to a specific audience, say in a trade journal, compared to a general audience. An article on the employment crisis in education will be very different if it’s written for a magazine that circulates to teachers compared to one read by the general public.
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You may have been doing a particular kind of writing “for the love” for years, without even realizing someone might be willing to pay you for it. Some time after I realized I didn’t need to depend on my editors to get me books anymore, I realized I also am capable of getting paid for my book reviews. Maybe not much. Maybe only between twenty and fifty dollars per review, but if I’m reading the books anyway (and already reviewing them so that publishers will provide me free copies), why not get a little pocket change out of the deal?
Back in the summer I was named the writer of the week on the Blogcritics site. Here’s the quote:
With Comic-Con over, it’s time to appreciate the excellent writerly skills of J.J.S. Boyce, who’s written a couple of dozen crystal-clear pieces for Blogcritics on books, movies, and games, many (but not all) centered on science fiction. All you sci-fi fans out there, and anyone who appreciates good critical writing, zip on over to J.J.S. Boyce’s writer page for a sampling of some of the best he, and Blogcritics, has to offer our readers.
So, okay, great. It’s nice to be appreciated. There are almost 1, 000 active writers on the site, which has been in operation for a few years. It’s called “writer of the week” so only about 50 win each year (actually a bit less since some “weeks” stretch to 14 days). I started writing a little before last Christmas, and, as mentioned, I’ve done 20-odd reviews on the site.
There are writers with hundreds upon hundreds of reviews who I’ve seen named “writer of the week” in the months since I was so named, and no doubt there are many more still waiting for their moment in the sun. Most will never get it. I don’t have as much seniority nor am I nearly as prolific as most other recognized writers. So why me?
Because the writing on the site can be spotty. Some writers are great but there are plenty of amateurs. Almost every article I write becomes an editor’s pick, and close to half end up being picked up by other publications that purchase content from Technorati Media (the umbrella under which Blogcritics falls). So a lot of my stuff is being sold, but I’m not getting paid for it.
That’s no one’s fault but my own. I didn’t bother to search out markets because it hadn’t occurred to me. But if anything I write is making money, probably some of that money should go to me. Similarly, if you’ve been writing a regular unpaid comedy column that’s getting major hits for a web site, or you’ve developed a decent following covering medical news for a community newspaper, maybe you ought to consider who else might be interested in publishing your stuff.
But, of course, you have to get ready to pitch it. No one’s going to do it for you. It’s tempting to be a big fish in a small pond, but if you want the satisfaction of breaking into tougher markets, you have to be pro-active about it. As my high school English teacher always said, “Get out there and sell yourself!”
It’s not as easy nowadays as walking into a newspaper office and impressing the editor-in-chief with your spunk. The newspaper and magazine industries have both been in decline for years, a decline that was certainly exacerbated by the financial crisis in 2008, but can trace its roots to the increasing number of people getting their news online, and a certain amount of uncertainty about how to make money this way, and pay their writers at the same time.
If, like me, you don’t have a degree in journalism, or some kind of related education, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get one of these traditional writing jobs, at least right off. Actually, the odds are against recent graduates of those programs, as well. There just aren’t enough staff jobs to go around. But that still leaves freelancing.
Freelancing involves getting paid by the assignment. In fact, many of this work won’t be assigned at all, but written in advance and then pitched to potential buyers. There’s plenty of unpaid work for a skilled writer, but if you’ve been doing this for a few years, and think the copy you produce is of a consistently-high quality, maybe it’s time you got paid for it.
Having said that, if you’re just starting out, you need to take anything that will pay the bills. Don’t sit there starving because you refuse to let your work be published anywhere other than National Geographic (which would probably be about the pinnacle with respect to my writing interests).
There’s a lot of work out there producing ad copy or basic content for informational or business sites. For example, a banking web site may want to hire a publicity team, which will in turn require copywriters, to create a series of articles on the different types of accounts they offer. Informational/instructional sites may want a tremendous volume and variety of material, on everything from cooking tips to financial advice to homework help.
You need two things: pre-existing areas of expertise (or at least solid research skills), and technical writing ability. If they want their copy to be AP style, you need to be able to produce copy in accordance with that style guide. If they want Chicago, that’s what you have to come up with. But when applying to these kinds of jobs, this is where you really take stock of everything else you know, and start using that non-writing experience to get your foot in the door.
Have you ever worked in finance, education, accounting, engineering, with animals, in construction? It’s possible that someone out there wants someone who can write copy on any of these subjects, or many, many more. My science and education backgrounds have both gotten me gigs in the past; more recently, my experience as an investor has gotten me a gig writing about finance.
It’s all very romantic to say you’re throwing it all away to be a writer, but in reality, nothing should be thrown away. Everything you’ve ever done, including non-writing jobs and training, may be something you can leverage for a particular job. The next time, I can just say I have experience writing about finance, and provide some samples. But this time, I had to draw on knowledge from the non-writing areas of my life.
This is good general career advice. You never know what past job or volunteer experience you can use to help sell yourself for a particular position. A varied CV is a job-seekers best weapon.