I have really been enjoying my new work blogging at NCRegister.com.

But the commenters over there? These are not my usual peeps. Did you see the way the Matt Archbold’s post about atheism exploded, for example?

And pro-life posts that I could write all day long here at my blog or over at Faith & Family and never hear a word of disagreement — get negative comments almost immediately at NCRegister.

Today’s post about how the youthful enthusiasm of the pro-life movement frightens the opposition is a great example. Only two comments in, we have an angry tirade against the “anti-choice right.”

I think it’s good for me to venture out of my Catholic mom-o-sphere bubble in this way, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t welcome your company out there in the great big world.

Come on over — and make your voice heard!

I am thrilled to be a part of the new NCRegister blogging team, among such greats as Mark Shea, Jimmy Akin, Matt and Pat Archbold, Matthew Warner, and Tom Hoopes.

As the only female, though, I am feeling just a little bit lonely there. Please come visit me, leave me some comment love, and let me know what kinds of blogging you’d like to see me do at NCR.

Talk to you there!

I sometimes stumble upon something as brazen as my words published with someone else’s name attached. I usually address that kind of thing.

But then there’s the subtler stuff —

• a blog post or article of mine copied in its entirety without a link or permission
• a chapter from one of my books copied in its entirety and without permission
• an original phrase of mine used by someone else without credit
• a theme for a series of posts or gathering of links used elsewhere without mention of the original

And when I happen upon things like this, I sometimes grow righteous and angry.

How dare they? Those are my words, I think, and my ideas!

But that’s when I hear a more reasonable voice from somewhere deep inside.

No they’re not, it says.

Were they good words? Was it a good idea? Were they good enough for someone else to want to share them? And will greater good come from that sharing?

Then rejoice and be glad. None of us does anything good or worthwhile on our own.

And we’re all copycats in the end.

(HT: Elizabeth‘s sidebar long ago)

I’ll be taking part in a live chat there tomorrow afternoon (Monday) at 1:00 pm Eastern time. My topic will be Writing With Passion While Keeping Perspective and I hope to answer moms’ questions about balancing work and family life, writing from home, and time management.

Signing in is easy and I don’t believe you have to be registered at the conference to take part in the chat.

Do not leave me there all alone — Please join us!

I am.

See you there!

I am not alone! I heard from more than a few of you after my last post about grammar and proper word usage, and so I thought maybe it would be fun to share some of our pet peeves here.

It’s a rainy Saturday, there’s nothing else to do, and we all might learn something new anyway. Let’s be language snobs. What mistakes bug you when you see them? The word “infer” when a writer really means “imply”? Mispronunciation of “mischievous”?

To get us started, I’ll share this one that makes me laugh and want to bang my head against the wall every time I hear it — misuse of the word “literally.” As in “When I told him the news, he literally blew up in my face.” Really? Wow.

Technorati Tags: mispronunciations, grammar mistakes

Did you know that when you write online, small words and phrases that you use with little thought to their proper usage are left up on the screen for people with altogether too much time on their hands, like my brother, to scrutinize and then email to correct you?

I stand corrected.

I accept this correction and hereby withdraw my previous begging of the question. But only because I want to reserve the right to remain snobby and smug about the proper use of “affect” and “effect,” “it’s” and “its,” and “lose” and “loose.” And please, big-time blogger whose name I will not mention, don’t ever let me catch you typing the words “deja view” again. Unless it’s a seriously clever play on words.

Technorati Tags: grammar, begging the question

4 Freelance Myths

Good for you! You’ve got a dream and you are ready to make it a reality: You want to be a freelance writer. Before you get started, though, let’s consider some mistaken ideas many beginners have about the business of writing for money.

1. Writing is art. A good writer shouldn’t have to work at it.
Writing may be an art form, but even the very best professional writers will tell you that they work at their craft. Not only is good writing work, it’s hard and sometimes tedious work to boot. Freelance writing means producing content for someone other than yourself. That might mean doing research or conducting interviews in a subject area you find rather uninspiring. It might mean tailoring your style to suit a particular audience. It might mean swallowing your pride and re-writing an article that an editor sends back to you for changes you don’t think are necessary.

Artistic inspiration is a wonderful thing, but if you want to turn your art into a profitable business venture, you will need to work at it. Editors will not be impressed with first draft writing, no matter how “inspired” it feels. They want professional writing that is honed, clear, concise, polished, and targeted to their readers. To get there, you will have to work and re-work, write and re-write.

2. A rejection letter means I stink and I should give up.
A rejection letter might mean you stink, but it also might just mean you sent the wrong pitch to the wrong editor at the wrong time. To increase your chances of success, you need to know and target a specific magazine’s editorial needs. Sending out generic queries to dozens of magazines without researching them first is a waste of everybody’s time.

If you focus on a few publications that publish material similar to your work, research them, and send out focused queries, you will greatly increase the chances of finding the right home for your work. Keep in mind that most publications work on issues 6-12 months in advance. Knowing a particular publication’s lead time will help you pitch seasonal topics at the appropriate times.

Even with the best of research, however, you will need to keep in mind that rejection is an inevitable part of the freelance process. As hard as it might be, try not to take rejections too personally. Look at rejections not as failures but as a stepping stones toward your future success and look for ways to learn from them.

When I was first starting out, a particular editor at Family Fun repeatedly rejected my submissions. Though I was disappointed each time, I brushed myself off and kept submitting and she kept rejecting, often with one or two brief comments explaining why.

This continual rejection process helped me to further understand that particular magazine’s needs, fine-tune my work, and make my name recognizable to the editor. As a result, I did eventually make the right submission in the right way at the right time. I was published in the magazine and, though she is now at a different magazine, I have maintained a working relationship with the editor who rejected me so very often. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t persevered after receiving that original rejection letter.

3. I have talent. Once I am “discovered” finding freelance work will be a piece of cake.
An important part of the work of freelance has nothing to do with the writing itself. It has to do with self-promotion, looking ahead, and planning future projects. Successful freelancers keep projects going in three different stages:

1. projects in the “idea stage” that they are actively pitching to editors
2. projects they have been assigned and are actively researching and/or setting up interviews for
3. projects for which they have completed the research and are now writing, re-writing, and polishing for final submission.

Part of the thrill of freelance work is that you work for yourself, no one “owns” you, and you can pick and choose your own projects. A consequence of this boss-free living, however, is that no one is going to be handing you work (not in the beginning anyway) unless you actively seek it out. To be continually successful, you need to be continually selling yourself and your work.

4. I am an artist. I can’t be bothered with such practical things as figuring out how to send email attachments, maintaining a professional website, or working a fax machine.
Being an eccentric “artistic” type might have worked for Hemingway, but if you want to find freelance success in the 21st century, you need to make your talents, your pitches, and your submissions as readily accessible as possible for potential editors to consider.

While some publications still accept snail mail queries and submissions, many do not. Like it or not, it’s a fast-paced, online world and the trend is headed toward more and more editors expecting even their on-paper writers to be as web-savvy as possible. Simple skills like email attachments and faxing are just plain expected. Also, a well-maintained, professional website makes it easy for potential editors to review your work and read your clips when they are considering giving you an assignment. The more professionalism and techno-savvy you can exhibit, the more likely editors are to take you and your work seriously.

How did you get started?
I have always been a reader. And published or unpublished, I have always have been a writer. As a teenager, I used to keep journals—Emily Dickinson-like—squirreled away in dresser drawers. Years later, as a new mom, I filled notebooks with letters to my babies.

But then I had more babies. And still more. Suddenly, life was too busy for baby books or journals anymore. And that was okay. I was too busy adjusting to motherhood in general and to mother-of-many-hood in particular to even miss such things.

But then came the summer five years ago when I was expecting Stephen, our fifth child. Dan had a part time summer job that kept him working nights. With a gang of children ages 6 and under, I found myself with time alone night after night, beginning with the kids’ bedtime at 7:30 and lasting until Dan came home around midnight.

I saw an opportunity and I seized it. We had no internet connection at that time, but we did have a computer… packed away in boxes in our bedroom closet. That year I told Dan that the only thing I wanted for my birthday was the computer—unpacked, plugged in, and connected to its printer at the small desk I kept in the tiny hallway upstairs. What man could pass up such a money-saving, wife-pleasing opportunity? He obliged.

Then what?
My next step was getting a book. I looked through a few freelance writers’ how-to books at the library but was not satisfied with the outdated information I found in them. One thing is for sure: Wannabe freelance writers need up-to-date information on the magazines and newspapers that might use their work. At the bookstore, I picked up a current copy of Writer’s Market. If you are getting started as a freelance writer, this book is a great place to begin. A new version is published every year and it contains information about every single magazine on the market—its needs, its features, its style, whom to contact and how, and its rates.

During the days, I spent many hours beside the kids’ wading pool, studying that book and making notes about various publications that might be interested in my work. During the nights, I worked at my writing. I sat sweating at the computer and wrote and wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote several different personal essays.

Then I took a deep breath and started sending stuff out. By mail. Yes, some people still do that kind of thing, or at least they did five years ago. I was so shy and insecure about my writing in those early days that I didn’t even have anyone read it for me before I sent it out. No one. In fact, when I got my first acceptance letter (And a paycheck! However small, it was a paycheck!) from Our Sunday Visitor I showed it to Dan and he said, “Okay, now will you let me read what you wrote?” Silly, I know.

As sensitive as we sometimes feel, any beginning writer needs to be prepared for rejection. In the beginning, I found it helpful to keep a number of submissions “out there” at a time so that if something got rejected, I could shift my focus (and my hopes) to the next something.

After getting a few more things published in a few more places, I grew more confident and began to cultivate a relationship with editors at different magazines and newspapers. This, I found, was invaluable. Sometimes an editor would reject one of my submissions but would be very nice about explaining why he/she couldn’t use it. The next time I submitted something, my previous rejection only worked in my favor as the editor was likely to recognize my name and give my work more serious consideration.

Though I did a little bit for magazines like Envoy, Pregnancy, FamilyFun, eventually, my writing found a happy home in a few of my “favorite” places, like the National Catholic Register, Faith & Family, and Our Sunday Visitor. Before I knew it, I was being offered enough work to occupy all the time I had for writing.

What time? How do you do it, anyway?
Writing is a lovely form of part time work in that it is so mother-friendly. But if you are going to try it, you do need to stop waiting around for enormous chunks of free time to just fall into your lap before you get started. You need to be flexible. You need to able to hold a whiny baby, wipe a kid on the potty, and try to think of a perfect synonym for “wiggle” at the same time. You need to be willing to jot notes in a messy notebook or scribble phrases onto paper napkins in order to “save” them until you can clean them up and polish them later on.

And you need evening time. I happen to be blessed in that my husband is able to be home for long periods of time in the day. He helps with the homeschooling. I mean that. He really helps. So that frees up some of my daytime hours, but still I would be lost without free time in the evenings. If you are a mom who feels you have no time to do anything on your own, try turning off your television for a week. You’ll be amazed at the pockets of time that open up for you.

What about your website?
My brothers are wonderfully generous and supportive people. A couple of years ago, they collectively decided that they were embarrassed by the Dinosaur of a computer I was using for my writing (We had managed to get an internet connection by then, but I was still working with a computer we had bought back in 1996). So they bought me a new computer. Isn’t that just so wonderfully kind and sweet? A huge box from Dell arrived on my doorstep and that was that. I have been well-equipped, highly connected, and oh-so-up-to-date ever since.

When my first book was about to be published, I thought that having a website would be a good way to promote it as well as a convenient place to have writing samples and other information available all in one spot. Once again, I turned to my computer-savvy brothers. My brother Paul volunteered to design and maintain the site and we were in business.

While we were planning the site, I asked him if it would be possible for him to include a spot where I could post a little piece of writing every day. He said, “Sure, I’ll set it up” and Danielle Daily was born.

After a little while of posting on the site and connecting to other people through it, I started getting emails from people saying things like, “I really like your blog.” My first thought was, “You really like my what?”

I was only vaguely familiar with the concept of blogs and the few of them that I had read were really narcissistic and strange. For this reason, I fought the blogger label for a long time. But as I became more familiar with the world of blogs and the many good and talented people out there who do blog, I eventually came to accept the inevitable. As my oldest brother put it to me from the start: “You are too so a blogger!” I suppose I was. And I suppose I am.

I am hoping all of you can give me some food for thought before the interview. Why do you read blogs and what do you get out of them? If you blog yourself, why do you? What do you think makes a “good” mom blog? Do you see any particular problems or shortcomings in the world of blogs?