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Join fellow writer and University Of Masters teacher, Yvonne Perry, this evening as she interviews Pamela Harper in a one-of-a-kind interactive teleclass. They will discuss The Three Most Powerful Steps to Manifesting Your Life Purpose and Prosperity.

Author, Yvonne Perry

Listen to this F.REE Tele-class and get ready to become the “Wakeful Dreamer” this evening, August 31st at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time. The lines will fill up quickly so reserve your spot now by going here. Phone in with your questions for Pamela, “The Queen of Visualization”.

Pamela Harper, Founder and President of www.universityofmasters.com

And don’t forget to….

Enjoy!

Suzanne Lieurance
the Working Writer’s Coach

Most freelance writers who make a living from their work will tell you they are usually doing one of two things. They are either working (on a writing assignment) or looking for work (more writing assignments). That’s the only way to keep both the work and the money constantly flowing in so they can pay their bills on time.

One way to make it easier to keep new work coming in is to develop a weekly marketing plan. A good day to develop your plan for the week is either Sunday evening (when you’re getting ready for your work week), or Monday morning (before you actually start working). It isn’t difficult to develop a marketing plan for the week. The key is to do it each and every week.

Your weekly marketing plan should consist of a list of the following:

1. Editors and other contacts - These are the people you plan to call or email during the week. This may include an editor you wish to query, or one you need to follow up with about an assignment or contract, or it could be an editor who requested a resume and writing samples and you need to get them out to that editor this week.

2. Job Boards or other job listings - These are sites you plan to view to see if there are any new job listings that interest you. If you know certain web sites post new jobs for writers on Tuesday, then put that down on your plan for Tuesday. If you don’t have a list of online job boards, then plan to spend an hour or so in the coming week searching for some. Also, sign up for ezines for writers (that include job ads) if you don’t already subscribe to at least a few.

3. Promotional activities - You must constantly promote yourself and your writing in order to be a working writer. If you have a web site or blog, updating it each week is part of this promotion. If you don’t have a web site or blog to promote your writing, then you need to create one, so “start on website” or “create blog” would go in this category of your marketing plan.

Writing press releases about your business or for a new book you have coming out, or getting contracts to schools or other organizations that want to book you as a speaker, are other activities that come under this category. Writing free articles for article directories might also be included here since these articles will help promote you and your writing services.

4. Networking activities - This category is a bit different from contacts or promotional activities. If you belong to any community organizations, or groups for writers, jot down how you plan on using these groups for networking this week. You might plan to join a listserv for writers and then introduce yourself to everyone on the list this week, or you might want to attend your local business association meeting to let other business owners in your area know about your writing services. Just make sure you have at least a few plans for networking with other writers and/or businesses each week.

You can make your weekly marketing plan as general or as detailed as you like. But once you have written down all your marketing plans for the week, you will know how much time you should have available to work on your current writing assignments. Generally, working writers weave their marketing activities in with their writing activities each day. But some writers prefer to do all their marketing on Mondays, so they have the rest of the week to work on assignments. This is a good plan, but if you’ve applied for various writing assignments, you might get a response from an editor during the week and you’ll need to follow-up with him immediately instead of waiting until the next Monday when you try to do most of your marketing activities. In a case like this, it helps to be flexible.

One of the big payoffs in consistently developing a weekly marketing plan is that you will begin to receive more and more job offers. In fact, sometimes you will receive offers for jobs you haven’t even applied for. Editors will simply find your web site or blog and will call or email to see if you are available for an assignment. When this happens, you will realize just how important a weekly marketing plan can be.

So, no matter what day of the week it might be right now, if you don’t have a marketing plan for this week, get busy and develop one. You’ll be glad you did.

NOTE: If you need help creating your personal marketing plan, join The Working Writer’s Coaching Program. During the next 8 weeks you’ll find out how to develop a plan that will transform you into, not just a freelance writer, but a working freelance writer. Sign up at right.

Sometimes learning just a few more “tricks of the trade” can take your writing to a higher level. Try these five easy tips to instantly improve your fiction. Some of these will work for nonfiction, too.

1. Weed out modifiers. Use strong verbs instead. Modifiers are words like - very, much, fairly, really, just, so, some.

Don’t write “Jane ran very quickly to the store,” when you can write, “Jane raced to the store.”

Don’t write “Mark spoke very quietly to his brother,” when you can write “Mark whispered to his brother.”

Use strong verbs and you won’t need modifiers.

2. Look for compound verbs that tend to slow down the action and distance the reader from what is happening. Change these compound verbs to simple verbs. Here are some examples:

Mary HAD BEEN CLIMBING the tree.

Mary CLIMBED the tree.

John BEGAN TO SHOUT at me.

John SHOUTED at me.

Every day Jenny WOULD WASH her hair.

Jenny WASHED her hair daily.

Sandy STARTED TO SMILE.

Sandy SMILED.

3. Raise the stakes for your point-of-view character. If your story seems to be lacking dramatic tension and rising action, that’s usually because things aren’t difficult enough for your main character. Raise the stakes by making it more difficult for him to attain his goal, and give him more to lose if he fails to attain it.

You can also create a greater sense of urgency, and therefore more dramatic tension, by creating a tight deadline for your main character. If he needs to raise some money for a big business deal, for example, give him just three days to get the money before the deal is no longer available.

4. Limit the number of sentences that begin with a participle phrase (a participle phrase contains a verb that ends in the letters -ing). Here are a couple of sentences that begin with a participle phrase:

SKIPPING THROUGH THE FOREST, she found her brother.

RUNNING FOR COVER, he took a dive into the grass.

There isn’t anything wrong with using a participle phrase to begin a sentence. But beginning writers tend to overuse them. Look back over your story. If more than two or three sentences begin with a participle phrase, delete all but two of them.

5. Avoid over describing actions or characters in dialogue tags. Dialogue tags are used to let the reader know who is speaking. These tags can also include a short description of what the character is doing as he speaks. But be careful. Don’t overload the descriptive part of the tag. Your writing will be stronger if you use short tags and describe what the speaker is doing in a separate sentence.

Here is dialogue with an overworked tag:

“Hand me that money,” John said angrily to Mary as she pulled a five dollar bill out of her purse and held it in front of him.

Here is a shorter, stronger tag with the description written in a separate sentence:

“Give me that!” John demanded. He snatched a five dollar bill from Mary’s hand.

Each time you write a story, go back over it with these five tips in mind. If you do, you’ll instantly improve your fiction.

Happy Writing!

Suzanne Lieurance
The Working Writer’s Coach

Recently I moved my mailing list to Yahoogroups.com. In the process I lost many members of my original list.

Here’s how to get back on my mailing list:

Send an email to: themorningnudge-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

When you join the mailing list you will begin receiving The Morning Nudge every weekday morning. Once a week you will get my Updates & Reminders and once a month you will get my newsletter.

I’m always happy to help fellow writers promote their work and products, so email me information about upcoming books, workshops, or other announcements you would like to make and I will include them in my newsletter. Information for the September issue should be sent to me by Friday, September 1st.

Thanks!Have a great writing week!

Suzanne Lieurance
The Working Writer’s Coach

Every once in a while I get a coaching client who has no problem identifying her writing passions. Linda Della Donna is just such a client.

Della Donna loves to interview people. And her natural curiosity and a kind heart lead her to ask questions that paint a remarkable portrait of each person she interviews. As Della Donna says, “My goal is to allow the essence, the goodness of that person to come through…” And indeed it does.

In her interview of an old guy on the beach, for example, the reader knows at once that this is a gruff old man. Yet he has an underlying sweetness that is revealed when he tells Della Donna he has suffered from loneliness for years after losing his spouse who “meant the world to me.”

Della Donna, who was widowed herself not too long ago, is also passionate about helping others through the grief and pain that come with the loss of a loved one. Every morning she offers widows a “safe place to stash their cares and woe” in a little bit of Mourning Joy (as she calls it) at her GriefCase blog.

As a writing coach, I feel so fortunate to be coaching Della Donna. I get to help her turn her passions into a writing career. And I know that it won’t be long before people everywhere are whispering, “How do I get interviewed by Linda Della Donna?”

Visit Linda Della Donna’s website and read some of her interviews. Every day get a dose of her Mourning Joy at her blog.

Note: Linda Della Donna will now be interviewing authors, editors, publishers, illustrators, etc. for my “author interviews” page at my website. Look for her interview of author Alfie Thompson at the site soon. And, if you need an interview to promote your own book, business, or charity, email her while she still has an opening.

Since you’re visiting this blog you probably want to be a successful writer.

You want to see your byline on articles, stories, books, etc.

Plus, you want to make enough money writing these types of things that you can live comfortably without having to work at something else, too. In fact, you probably want to quit your regular day job so you will have more time to write.

That’s all well and good.

But, if you make those goals your main intention for writing, you probably won’t be very successful.

Instead, you’ll forever be anxious and edgy, always on an emotional roller coaster - UP when you get an acceptance letter and a check - DOWN when you get rejections.

And that’s no way to live.

To truly enjoy the writer’s life that is joyful and exhilarating, focus on serving others through the materials you write.

If you do, you will experience a calmness and serenity that leads to greater satisfaction and a successful writing career.

Live and write with this intention: I serve others through the things I write - and see what starts to happen.

Last night I was listening to a teleconference for life coaches.

I know what you’re thinking.

Suzanne’s a writing coach. Why was she listening to a call for life coaches?

Well, as a writing coach who helps writers develop the freelance writing career of their dreams, I’d say I’m also a life coach.

If my students develop the career of their dreams then they start living the life of their dreams, too.

So it helps me be better at what I do if I keep up with what other coaches are doing.

Anyway…

The main speaker for this teleconference said she recently read an article that said this:

If you have two goals, and you are trying to focus on both of them at the same time, you only have a 17% chance of attaining either one of those goals.

However, if you stick to only one goal, and focus on just that ONE goal, you have an 87% chance of attaining it.

Sometimes, as I’m coaching writers, they tend to think they need to branch out and write anything and everything to make a living as a freelance writer. But when they do that they lose their focus.

If that’s the way you’ve been thinking lately, change your thinking.

Focus on one goal at a time.

Remember…you’ll have an 87% chance of attaining it if you maintain a single focus.

The second and fourth Tuesdays of each month I present my workshop Freelance Writing: How to Jumpstart Your Career at University Of Masters.

Each of these sessions is recorded so members of University Of Masters can listen to them whenever they would like.

Last night I talked about how to write and use free articles for article directories to boost your freelance writing career. The recording of that session is already available at my classroom at University Of Masters.

Some of the information I covered in this session was:

1)why freelance writers should write these types of free articles,

2) how these articles should be written and formatted somewhat differently from articles for traditional print publications, and

3) other ways to make good use of these articles.

I’ll be posting additional information about online article directories at my University Of Masters classroom later today.

Happy writing!

Suzanne Lieurance
The Working Writer’s Coach

Please join me for tonight’s teleclass of Freelance Writing: How to Jumpstart Your Career at University Of Masters. The class begins at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time.

There is a change in topic for tonight’s session. I had planned on having LD Harkrader as my special guest to talk about writing for children, but that session has been postponed until September 26th.

Tonight the topic will be How to Write and Use Free Articles for Article Directories to Promote Your Freelance Writing Career.

Click on the banner above to visit my classroom at University Of Masters to get all the details.

It’s sometimes difficult to stay motivated to write, day after day, week after week. We can all use a little help now and then.

That’s why I created The Morning Nudge - to inspire and motivate writers to get a little writing done each day.

Send me an email if you’d like to join my mailing list and I’ll send you an invitation for The Morning Nudge. Here’s a sample:

The Morning Nudge

Words to inspire and motivate you to get a little writing done today

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Is there an article you’re dying to write but you just can’t get all the information to come together the way you would like?

Maybe you’re trying too hard.

Relax a little and make things simple.

Try this.

Before you start writing the actual article, think of a jazzy title for it that would attract the attention of an editor and other readers.

Your title should also help you develop an appropriate structure for your article.

For example, “Ten Easy Ways to Stop Smoking” lets you easily develop an article with a short introduction, then list the 10 ways to stop smoking, and end with a short concluding paragraph that sums up what you hope the reader will gain from all this information.

The most difficult part of writing any nonfiction article is figuring out how to structure it.

Start by creating a title that will determine the structure for your article.

If you do that first the article will almost write itself.

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Suzanne Lieurance

The Working Writer’s Coach

http://www.the-working-writers-coach.blogspot.com

Turning freelance writers into "working" freelance writers