Archive for July, 2010

I’ve been writing this blog for nearly a year and a half.  With that in mind, I’d like to ask you, dear readers, what you’d like to see in here.  I have two reasons for doing this.  One, like any writer, especially a blogger, I’d like to make sure I’m connecting with you and offering you what you want.  And, two, I feel like I’m running out of blog topics that excite me.

And, so I am turning to you, if indeed you are out there!  What do you want to know about freelance writing?  Do you want to know about freelance writing?  Do you want to know more about my daily life?  Do you want to know more of my thoughts on motherhood?  Do you want to see more faith-based posts?  What have you enjoyed that I’ve written about in the past?  What have you NOT enjoyed that I’ve written about in the past?

One thing I have preached in teaching and in this blog is to know  your audience.  With that in mind, I am reaching out to you, my audience, for some feedback.  Let me know what you’re thinking.  Post here, e-mail or send smoke signals — whatever works for you.  On second, thought, avoid smoke signals.  I don’t know how to read them and I’m not outside all that much.

I hope to hear from you!

I know I’ve mentioned on here at least a time or two that I enjoy my work.  I love learning new things.  So, when someone thinks a project I’m working on sounds boring, I’m always stunned.

The first time this happened was a couple of years ago when I was covering a very small town suburb of my mid-sized city.  And when I say small town, I mean it.  This area has no restaurants or anything.  However, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The community welcomed me.  I learned so much about the people who lived there.  They shared their stories with me.  Every week was something new for the three articles I wrote.  When I mentioned it to a relative, she immediately replied with, “Well, that sounds boring.”  I sincerely thought she was joking at first.  Boring?  To me, nothing is boring about learning people’s stories.  I loved what I was writing.

I’ve had these things happen a couple of other times since then with other stories and projects and I still don’t understand how people can think boring.  I throw myself into everything I work on.  I am a passionate person.  I am passionate about my work.  The only boring part of it to me is the bookkeeping and business tasks.  I’m not crazy about updating my clips online.  I’m not crazy about tracking my income and expenses.  THOSE things are boring to me.  But, my writing, editing and designing are far from boring to me.

If you enjoy what you do, then it’s not boring.  I know some folks are out there who enjoy the tasks I find boring.  More power to them!  And, I suppose, other folks really do find what I do boring.  I don’t understand it more than just to acknowledge that we are all different with different likes, dislikes and passions.

What do you enjoy?

Article research involves a few components.  Along with researching the actual topic, sources must be managed effectively.  I was reminded of this recently in working on an article for Aviation Security International magazine for which I have made nearly 30 contacts with sources.  Not all of them will be in my article.  In fact, several of them referred me to other sources and others have not returned my messages.  However, I have to keep them organized.

While I have used spreadsheets to keep track of sources in the past, many times I end up going old school with a pencil and piece of paper to start with.  No matter what I use, I track the same information.

First I put the name of the source.  Usually this is the organization I am contacting.  For example, one contact made for the aforementioned article was the East West Institute.  So, I write East West Institute.  Beside that goes the URL for the group.

Below that I write the contact information that I found on their website.  Finding such contact information could be an entire other blog post!  When possible (and oftentimes it is possible), I look for a press room area on websites.  Then I keep track of e-mail addresses and phone numbers for media contacts.  Sometimes I find a specific contact, like in this example, and other times it is a general media inquiry e-mail address.

Finally, beneath that is where I start tracking when I’ve contacted the source and what happened.  For example, the first entry for my example of the East West Institute look like this:

• 6/14: E-mailed him at 3:05 p.m.

Simple enough, but then if I need to follow up, I can make sure to let enough time pass (they need time to respond) and I can also reference the date of my first message.  In certain situations, I’ll even go into my “Sent Items” folder and pull up the original message and forward it to the same person as a reference.

Finally, I also track what deadline I’ve given them to have the information completed by.  Usually this is the same for all sources I’m talking to.  Sometimes it can vary, though, if I am making a contact later in the writing process and need to offer the source more time to respond.

Tracking sources can get tedious, but not tracking sources just spells trouble.  For large articles, especially, knowing who you’ve contacted and when is the only way to stay organized.