We’ve arrived at that magical time of year when I typically sit down to write my annual post about how school is out and the children are making me insane. Except that this year things are a little different, and that’s not the post I need to write; for one thing, this was a particularly difficult school year for all of us (for a variety of reasons), and so the arrival of summer vacation feels like a much-needed exhalation and relief, for a change. And the truth, too, is that with each passing year my children becoming a bit more independent. Sure, we still have “Really, can you not find anything to do? I’m sure I can find something for you…” moments, but at 12 and 10-and-a-half, my days of playing referee and constant monitor are mostly over.

For another thing, right now the biggest distraction to my work comes not from the kids, but from my poor neurotic dog. I wrote yesterday on my personal blog about how apparently some sort of creature has made its way into the crawlspace underneath my office bathroom. And my dog—my poor, dear, 12-pounds-of-sentry pooch—is driving me insane.
Read the rest of this entry

There’s a lot of talk out there about “branding yourself” and “having a consistent brand” and “being an engaging presence in social media” as keys to a professional representation of yourself to the world. (One could argue this matters for everyone, but especially so for freelancers.) And as we’ve already established, I kind of fell into this career backwards, a piece at a time, and so I often feel like this is one area in which I struggle to catch up. I had a blog. Then I started a second blog. Then it occurred to me that really, I needed to have a “home” professional site. And some business cards. And I got on Twitter. And started a Facebook fan page for my site. And and and and.

In the midst of this, my personal blog has been redesigned a few times; always low-budget affairs, always with no real concept in mind. My shopping blog has had the same design for four years, since its inception, and my so-called professional site was slapped together by my husband a few years back.

Clearly, this would not do.
Read the rest of this entry

People often asked me how I made the decision to take the leap into freelancing. I am—as I have noted in this space countless times—a fairly risk-averse person. That makes it kind of odd that I’m a freelancer, actually.

My answer to the question is always the same: I didn’t enter this path in the conventional sense of weighing the pros and cons and deciding to take the plunge. In my case, I was unemployed, had come off a series of demoralizing office jobs I’d hated, and in many ways felt I had hit career bottom. From my perspective, I had nothing left to lose by trying freelancing. These days I regularly give thanks for that horrible set of depressing circumstances, because I doubt I would’ve come to it any other way; if life had been okay, I never would’ve taken the risk.

But most people do come from acceptable career circumstances, by choice, and have to figure out if freelancing is really right for them. And there are countless resources available on the Internet to help you decide.

Today I want to draw your attention to an invaluable pair of articles, because together they do an incredible job of illustrating exactly what you need to consider on both sides of the equation.
Read the rest of this entry

Spring is here! Or—to be a bit more specific (for me, anyway)—here in Georgia we have passed through the brief hell known as three-straight-weeks-of-deadly-pollen-levels and are now catapulting directly into what already feels like, and soon will actually be, summer.

I am approaching having lived in Georgia for three years, and embarking on my fourth summer here. The same thing happens to me every single year and yet it still causes me to panic, because I am apparently a slow learner. Oh, the first summer we’d just moved, and we were getting settled and everything was new, so, sure, I felt like work couldn’t be the top item on my priority list. And then the next summer, well, I figured I was just worried about the new summer schedule for the kids and such. Last summer, I just had a lot going on, you know, so there was that. And this year? Well, I think I may have finally cracked the code.

The thing is, I’m pretty sure I have senioritis. Just, you know, every May.

And what’s more, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think that—given what I do, and the way I work—it’s actually a really good thing, once I stop panicking about it.
Read the rest of this entry