The Writing Life

Just in time for Christmas, my computer decided to end its life.  OK, it’s not actually dead just yet, but it’s well on the way.  If it were human, the family would have been called in.  It kept getting slower and slower.  My husband checked it out, being the wonderful IT guy that he is, and found the processor is going bad.  Unfortunately we were unable to buy a new processor.

So, after doing some research online and in person, we found a good deal and purchased a new laptop last week.  I realize during times like these how much I rely on technology.  I know I’ve written about this a time or two before, but I had to again.  The last week I’ve been in transition from one computer to the other.  Right now, my Outlook, which organizes my entire life, is still not moved over to the new computer.  So for e-mail and calendar functions, I pull out the old slow computer.  For just about everything else, I’m using the new one.

The transition should be complete within the next couple of days.  Then I’ll have a whole new issue to face — saying goodbye to the old computer.  Every time I get a new computer, I cry over the old one.  It’s insane, I know.  I just get attached and think of all we’ve been through together.  First it was classes we went through together.  Then it was writing my thesis.  Then it was starting my business.  You get the idea.  I have resolved not to cry this time around, but I do that every time.

I do, perhaps, rely too much on technology, but I’m not sure I have too much choice in this day and age.  I know my business wouldn’t be successful without it.  And so I mourn the loss of an old friend and look forward to getting to know a new one!

We all have moments where we do something and find ourselves embarrassed.  And for those of you like me, that embarrassment really does lead to a red face.

Today, I’m taking a jab at myself and the faux pas that I’ve made in the past when trying to be a svelte business person.  We all have them.

My most recent red-face moment happened a couple of months ago.  I was working on a series of articles for my local newspaper.  I was conducting interviews with business owners all over the city.  I headed to a downtown restaurant that is closed for a couple of hours between lunch and dinner.  The owner asked me to come during the downtime.

I entered the closed restaurant, told the employee who I was there to see and he went off to find the owner.  I stood beside the bar, waiting.  A minute later, a well-dressed man came walking through with a purpose.  I assumed he was the owner.  Trying to be assertive and overcome my natural shyness, I stuck out my hand and said, “Hi, I’m Stacey with The Star Press.”  The man kindly took my hand, shook it and responded, “Hi, Stacey.  I’m just passing through.”

I’m not sure what I said, if I even said anything.  I do know my cheeks turned bright red, though.  Now, it’s quite funny.  It was a bit funny then, but it was definitely more embarrassing.

And of course smaller embarrassments happen as well.  I have a small digital voice recorder that I often use for in-person interviews.  Combine that with my clumsiness and the formula for disaster is quite apparent.  I was interviewing a local school principal for an article when the recorder flew out of my hand and hit the floor.  Like everything I own, I’ve dropped this recorder numerous times, but somehow this time it hit just right and the cover flew off and the batteries rolled out.  Yeah, I’m a professional…  Definitely worth a good laugh now, though!

Even though it isn’t a work-related incident, I have one more red-in-the-face moment to share with you.  I suppose sharing my shame is cathartic!  Not so long ago, my husband and I were working around our house.  He needed to make a quick trip to the home improvement store.  I decided to tag along.  Since we’d been working, I had on old clothes and ran inside to change quickly into something more presentable.

I grabbed a green V-neck T-shirt from my closet and threw it on with some clean jeans.  We headed to the store.  I never looked in the mirror.  As we were walking in, I realized I was getting a breeze on my back.  Yep, I’d put my shirt on backward.  I looked down and realized the size information was on the front.  Not only was it backward, but it was also inside-out.  I was already embarrassed.

Fast forward to paying for our items.  The cashier looked at me a minute and said, “You’re shirt is on inside out.”  I mumbled something about how I knew that.  Then he said, “And it’s backwards.”  Yeah, thanks for pointing out my incompetence!  I was definitely red-faced over that one.

No matter what happens to embarrass us, at the end of the day we are at least left with good stories and good laughs.  We are left with lessons learned.  I know make sure to find out who is walking toward me before I introduce myself.  I am still working to clutch tighter to my recorder and not drop it.  And I most definitely check my clothes to make sure they are right-side out before I put them on.

Feel free to share your red-in-the-face moments so that I don’t feel quite so alone…

Part of this blog is to share with you the ins and outs of freelancing.  While I’ve listed the drawbacks of being a freelancer on here before, I also felt it was important to share some of the tasks I dread.  Though these are tasks that I personally dread, I know they aren’t dread-worthy for everyone.  Perhaps I just needed to vent them!

Updating my clips. I love what I do.  I love having articles published, but I hate organizing my clips once I have them.  Right now I have a pile in my office of clips that need to be organized.  I started by cutting out each article, pasting it on black card stock and inserting it into a sleeve in my portfolio.  I’ve stopped doing that for all articles because I have too many.  But, I still try to do that for my big articles that I’m most excited about and want to really showcase.  I also will scan clips to have the electronically for my Web site.  However, I put it off.  This task is especially easy to put off because I can justify that doing paying work takes precedence over non-paid work.  The downside is that I end up with older clips than I’d like to have on my Web site, too, which could inhibit my paying work.

Processing income. I also love getting paid for what I do.  But as a self-employed person, it’s up to me to track every check that comes across my desk for paying taxes.  I also have to track them to ensure I’m getting paid for the work I do.  I tend to let check stubs pile up until there are a few to process at a time.  I’m not sure why I put that off, but I do.

Processing expenses. This is pretty much the same as above.  I tend to wait until I have a few expenses to track, like mileage, office supplies, etc., before I knuckle down and just process the information.  All I have to do is enter it into a spreadsheet, file receipts and make sure my business check register is updated, but I still put it off many times.

Filing. This kind of goes along with processing expenses, but filing is another task I just don’t enjoy.  I’ll let the aforementioned receipts stack up a bit before filing them.  I’ll have a pile on my desk of papers that need to be filed somewhere in my office that I also let stack up.  I just put it off.

I guess that’s my top list of tasks that aren’t fun.  They are all part of my work, but I’d much rather be researching and writing than conquering these tasks.  Since none of them directly result in income, I find it all too easy to make excuses for putting them off.

What tasks do you avoid doing?

I enjoy my work.  That’s no secret, but sometimes I enjoy it even more when my work overlaps with my personal interests.  The two came together this past weekend when I covered Gen Con Indy 2009 for The (Muncie) Star Press.

Though Gen Con is in its 42nd year, it’s been held in Indianapolis since 2003.  Indianapolis is 60 miles from where I live, so it’s an easy drive.  I’ve discovered that it provides a great opportunity for me to combine my work and personal interests.  Gen Con includes just about anything gaming related: electronic games, card games, board games, role-playing games and more.

A few years ago, I went from being a gamer’s wife to being a gaming wife.  Games have long been an interest of my husband’s, but they didn’t interest me too much until a few years ago.  He’s still the biggest gamer in our home, hands down, but I enjoy playing along with him sometimes.

We first went to Gen Con four years ago as attendees.  I was only half interested, if even that.  Once I was there, though, I found myself enjoying the experience.  We spent the day traipsing all through the Exhibit Hall in the Indiana Convention Center.  It was that year I realized the potential of covering the event for publication as well.

As a freelancer, I am always on the lookout for new markets and new “gigs.”  I look for stories everywhere.   Gen Con had its share of stories.  Since then, I’ve done some work ahead of time and found editors who were looking for articles about Gen Con.  Last year and this year, I wrote articles for my local newspaper.  I’m hoping to expand even more next year.

And since the articles are newsy rather than personal, I decided blog a bit about my own experiences at Gen Con this year.  It was the first year that I was able to go for two days instead of just one.  Going for one day always feels like we’re rushed to get everything in, and we still have stuff we want to do when we leave.  Going for two days was pretty similar!  We had a chance to do more this year, but we still had things we wished we would have had time for when we left.

One difference I’ve noticed since the first Gen Con I went to is the smaller amount of free stuff given out.  That first year we were heavy laden with free goodies.  Each year since the offerings have gotten smaller and smaller.  This year had very little free stuff.  However, this year did include a coupon book.  We got free dice keychains with one coupon, a board game for $1 with another and a card game for $5 with yet another.  That was nice.  I’m willing to give any game a try for the right price!

We spent the first day walking through the exhibit hall checking out everything.  The electronic games probably had the most impressive booths.  A booth for a new game based on Dante’s Inferno definitely caught attention as did the Atari booth promoting Champions Online, a computer game launching Sept. 1 that has received much hype.  The Atari booth was especially crowded at 4 p.m. each day when a raffle took place to win a lifetime subscription to the game.  My husband was hoping for that one, but neither of our numbers were called.  We’re just going to have to bite the bullet and pay for that ourselves.

The second day was spent mostly doing game demos.  We haven’t gotten to do that much in the past because with one day there just isn’t enough time.  We did a game demo through Upper Deck for a new Marvel card game coming out the first part of next year.  As a die-hard Marvel fan, I was thrilled to do the demo, but disappointed with the cards I drew.  My husband easily beat me fair and square.  The game is based more on the Marvel movies.  One thing that bothered me was the main character (in my case Wolverine; in my husband’s case Iron Man) could be pulled out and used as many times as you wanted.  It doesn’t make sense to me to have more than one Wolverine.

Our second game demo for Gen Con Indy 2009 was a Penny Arcade card game.  The game is based on a comic about two guys, Gabe and Tycho, who are typical gamers.  My husband enjoys the comic.  I’ve read a few that he’s sent to me.  Basically, we ended up trying this game because it was produced through Fantasy Flight, and we were waiting for a demo of Descent.  However, I’m glad we tried it.  First, I’m glad because I won and I like winning!  I was also glad, though, because it was a fun game.  We enjoyed it so much that we picked it up for $25 from the Fantasy Flight booth.  It will be a good one for family vacations or quick games on weeknights.  It was probably my biggest surprise of Gen Con.

The third game demo was the aforementioned Descent board game, also from Fantasy Flight.  This board game is pretty unique.  We actually purchased it a few months ago and played it once.  But as a newer gamer, I was easily confused by it and even my husband needed some clarification, so we did a demo.  For those who have played role-playing games, many of them require a Game Master (GM).  This game is different.  Basically there is a Warlord who is trying to kill the heroes in the game.  My husband and I played along with two others as heroes.  Our Warlord was great at instructions and has been involved with creating expansion packs for the game.  We had a great time and learned more about the game.  I especially loved at the end when I defeated the final two monsters in one round — a first for this year’s Gen Con, according to our Warlord.  Score!  We had such a good time that the day after our return from Gen Con, we sat down and played our own Descent game and had a blast.

Overall, Gen Con was fun.  I spent time on Friday (our day one) conducting interviews for my article and then put it together at lunchtime.  I got it sent off to my newspaper editor before dinner that evening so it could run in the next day’s paper.  It was definitely great to combine work and fun.  My wheels are already turning about how I can get even more work based on next year’s Gen Con!

I love my work.  I make no secret about it, but even in loving my work, I struggle to stay motivated 100 percent of the time.  As I’ve written in this blog before, external things like deadlines can keep me motivated.  But, sometimes I have fewer deadlines and more time to work on pursuing new projects or do paperwork and my motivation lacks.  Here are a few tricks I’ve learned to keep myself motivated when I don’t necessarily feel like working.

Set your own deadlines. I learned this trick while working as an assistant historian for the History Program of the National Model Aviation Museum during graduate school.  My biggest task was to compile biographies of model aviation enthusiasts.   It was an ongoing project that had no deadline or end in sight.  I would set deadlines to have so many biographies or certain biographies completed by certain dates.  I also knew that I had to schedule other tasks to keep myself from burning out, so I also set deadlines to create things like a writing guide for the biographies, a form for modelers to use, etc.   I employ the same tactic today in setting deadlines for non-deadline tasks, like updating business finances, pitching new projects, etc.

Know when to switch tasks. This is part of what I mentioned in the first tip.  Some tasks just don’t hold our interest for long.  If I have a task that I dread doing, like updating business finances, then I reward myself with a task that I like to do.  Knowing that as soon as I’m finished with the dreaded task that I can start on something more fun helps keep me motivated to keep plugging away.  For larger tasks, sometimes that can mean breaking it up over a couple of days to avoid getting burned out.

Find someone to keep you accountable. A little while back I wrote about how Twitter can keep me accountable.  That’s one option, but sometimes I need a bit more interaction with someone.  I have another writer who lives across the country from me that I’ve discussed this with.  Sometimes we e-mail each other and encourage the other to keep going.  I also use my family support when needed.  I’ll tell my husband about a project I’m working on, and as he asks me about how it’s going, I want to have answers, so I stay motivated.

Understand that sometimes you just need a break. I’ve also learned along the way that sometimes to maintain my motivation and drive I need some time away.  When I’m working on more technical aspects of writing and less creative ones, I will sometimes need to take a creativity break.  Just spending 30 minutes playing the piano can refresh me to return to my task more motivated.  I also take breaks sometimes just to throw the ball for my dog in the backyard or chat with a friend on the phone.  Whether it’s a five minute break or an hour break, it’s sometimes just the thing I need to refresh myself and my motivation.

Work through the drudge. Another tip I have for now is working through the lackadaisical feelings.  Sometimes I find I get the most done by simply applying my backside to my chair and working when I don’t feel like it.  Usually by the time I’m 20 minutes in (or sometimes less!), I forget that I was even dreading work.

Music as a motivator. My final tip is to use music as a motivator.  I love music.  It’s part of everything I do.  I’ve written a bit about this before as well.  When I’m feeling least motivated, I can put on the right music to keep me going.  For times I am struggling to write, I turn to the soundtrack from “Riverdance.”  For times that I’m feeling sleepy and need to do some design work, I turn to peppy tunes that make me happy.  I’ve been known to jam to old M.C. Hammer tunes or Broadway scores when I need some pep.  It works for me.

What do you find helps you to maintain motivation on days/times when you feel like doing anything except working?

As we talked about last week, interviews are a time to do much more listening than talking.  However, you will always have sources that you connect with more than others.  Sometimes it’s commonalities.  Sometimes it’s from sources coming back at you questions about yourself.  And sometimes it just happens, usually with some of the most memorable interviews.

A couple of years ago, I was covering a small community just outside of my city for the local newspaper.  I was responsible for a column, profile and feature article each week.  One of the features I wrote was about a long-time local family whose mother was 98 at the time.  The family was so intertwined in the community that they had a road named for them.

I went in to their mother’s house to interview her and a few of her children.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but they immediately welcomed me warmly.  They were overly nice.  In fact, after talking for probably 45 minutes, I agreed to let them perform their family initiation on me.  I definitely went outside my comfort zone and let them blindfold me to take me on an “airplane ride.”  It was a wood plank in the living room.  No danger was involved.

But, I connected with this family.  Though that page no longer exists, I have stayed in contact with the family.  They’ve invited me to their mother’s birthday parties, including her 100th this summer.  We just connected.

Another source I connected with even longer ago.  About four years ago, I was writing an article for a denomination publication about how its churches were using the Internet to reach out to members.  I found a church in Africa doing this very thing and contacted the pastor.  I still get e-mails from him today.  He checks in with me and asks about my family.  We’ve only spoken through e-mail, but it was a connection.

Sometimes connecting with your sources can mean getting outside of your comfort zone a bit and being blindfolded.  Sometimes it can just mean answering questions about yourself when asked.  Of course, keeping an interview on track is important, but many people feel more comfortable sharing information with someone when they know a bit about the person.  Don’t be afraid to connect with sources!

A big part of being a journalist is conducting interviews.  Being a copywriter involves meetings, which are similar in some respects to interviews.  For both situations, listening is vital.

A stereotypical writer is a person who is quiet and shy.  Notice I the use of the word “stereotypical” in that last sentence.  Not all writers are quiet and shy.  I acknowledge that.  Personally, I do tend to fall into that quiet category and am more of an introvert.

Regardless of your natural tendencies, it’s important to know when to listen and when to speak during an interview.  A good rule of thumb is to listen 90 percent of the time.  Here are some tips for good listening:

1. Give nonverbal and subtle verbal cues to show you’re listening.  Whether I’m on the phone or in person, I do this.  It can be a nod of the head, an “uh-huh” or just looking the person in the eye.  While taking notes during an interview is important, it’s just as important to keep conversation cues in place to encourage the person to keep talking and feel comfortable to do so.
2. Ask follow-up questions when appropriate.  While listening is vital, so is asking follow-up questions when relevant.  Think about talking with a friend who is telling you a story.  Throughout their story, you ask a question here and there to clarify things or keep the story going.  Even just questions like “What did you do?” or “What were you thinking?” can show the person you’re listening and really do care what they’re saying.
3. Don’t get overly absorbed in your notes. A good way to turn someone off is to keep your head bent into your notebook throughout the entire interview.  I like phone interviews because I can type faster to keep pace.  However, for in-person interviews or important, complex interviews, I record the interview as well so I don’t have to take as many notes and be distracted from really listening.  Never rely solely on a recorder since technical errors occur, but it’s a great backup plan.  I sometimes even make notes of the time on the recording where a good quote is that I don’t have time to write down.  However, don’t make a big fuss with the recorder.  Ask the source if it’s OK for you to record (common courtesy), then sit it down near them and leave it be.
4. Don’t be afraid of silence. I don’t want this to come across as being smarmy, but when silence happens, people want to fill it.  Sometimes I get the best information from my sources just by staying silent for a moment when they’re finished talking.  I’m not trying to trick them.  The kind of writing I do isn’t investigative anyway, but they feel the need to fill silence and sometimes expand more on a topic and I get great information.

Talking can actually sometimes be vital to a good interview as well.  It makes up that other 10 percent of the time.  Sometimes you need to make small talk with someone at the start of an interview to get them to relax.  Aside from asking your questions, other times for talking come up during interviews.  Here are some examples:

1. You have something in common with your source. Not just that you both like the color red, but something in common relating to the article.  When I was in college I did a series of articles on children of Vietnam veterans with PTSD.  They were wary to speak with me thinking I might unfairly characterize their parent.  Most times I would explain that I was in their same situation and understood where they were coming from.  Just a sentence or two was enough.  I didn’t need to recount every detail of my experiences for them to get it.
2. Your source gets off track. Chitchat can be good to put a source at ease in some situations, but the bottom line is some people just really like to talk.  You know what kind of information you need, so don’t be afraid to nicely bring the conversation back around to the topic at hand.  You can ask a question to get back on track.  Or if you caused the veer off topic, you can say something like “I got a bit distracted there.  Anyway, back to what we were talking about.”  Something like that to get them back on track.

I suppose to sum it up, the best way to know when to talk and when to listen during an interview is to remember that you are there to hear the other person’s story.  You are not there to share your own.  The focus is on the interviewee and should remain there at least 99 percent of the time.

I enjoy working from a home office — most days.  However, that’s now.  When I first started freelancing full-time from home, I had a few obstacles to overcome.  I needed a space where I could be organized and do my work.  And I needed respect for that space.  Here are some things that have worked for me in maintaining a mostly professional home office.

A dedicated room or space

When I first started freelancing full-time, we were living in a 900-square foot apartment.  I didn’t have the space to dedicate an entire room to my office.  I started with a corner.  It was the same corner where my desk was set up in the back of the living room, so it made sense.  I had a bookshelf and a computer desk with my computer and printer.  I spent my days sitting in that corner.

A year later we moved into a house with just over 1,600 square feet, so I finally had the space to dedicate an entire room to my office.  I picked a room in the back of the house with an attached half bathroom, door leading to the outside, two walls of built-in bookshelves and plenty of windows looking into the backyard.  It is perfect for me.

No matter where you find, make it your dedicated space.  It should be where you can go to do work.  It should be separate from the rest of your household.  True, I have a shelf and a couple of files in my office where I keep personal finance information, but at least 80 percent of the space is dedicated solely to work.  If I were too overwhelmed with household or personal things, I would never be able to concentrate on my work.

By the same token, having a dedicated work area means that you can leave it behind at the end of the day.  I don’t spend much time in my office during non-work hours.  I have a laptop and if I need to do something on my computer, usually I will take the laptop to another room when I’m not working.  That way I am actually getting away from it.  Otherwise, I start to get burned out.

Office hours

In order to take yourself seriously and have others follow suit, you need set office hours.  In general, I try to be behind my desk at least by 9 a.m. every day.  I try to be finished for the day by 4:30 p.m.  I take an hour for lunch.  Of course I have both shorter and longer days, but these hours are my guide.  Oh, and I work Monday through Friday.  Yes, I have worked weekends, but I don’t make a regular practice of it.

The nice thing about a home office is you really can make the hours work best for you.  I do my best work during the morning and day-time.  I know others, however, who work better at night.  Pick hours that work for you.  If I waited to start work until 7 p.m., I’d be dozing at my keyboard within a couple of hours.  I’m far from a night owl!

Another bonus to having hours is that you can let those around you know.  When I first started, I would often get phone calls during the day from family members wanting to chat.  After telling them time and again that I was working, it sunk in.  Now I seldom get chitchat calls during the day.  Or if I do, they ask if I have time to talk, just like if I were in an office outside of my home.

Letting others know also helps keep you accountable in some ways.  On the days my husband works from home, we both give each other space.  I almost feel guilty if I am not working like I know I should be because someone else is around to see that.

Caller ID, voicemail and long distance calling

A variety of tools can help you maintain a professional office, but caller ID is one of the most important and perhaps most overlooked.  I love caller ID.  When I first started, I couldn’t afford my own office line.  Caller ID told me when I needed to answer the phone professionally (as in “Hi, this is Stacey”) versus casually (as in “Hello?”).

Caller ID also told me when it was a personal phone call that I could let go to voicemail if I was busy or on the other line conducting an interview.  That said, when I am on the phone conducting an interview or client meeting, I never click over and answer the other line.  Caller ID shows who called, even if they don’t leave voicemail.

Voicemail is also crucial.  An answering machine can’t pick up when you are on the other line.  Voicemail can.  I, personally, use Vonage for phone service.  I get an e-mail with voicemail messages attached.  I can also forward the phone to my cell phone when I am expecting a call and need to make a quick trip to the post office or something.

Another benefit to Vonage is free, unlimited long distance throughout the United States and Canada.  When I started free-lancing, Vonage didn’t exist.  I had a regular phone company phone plan.  I paid through the nose for long distance.  Sometimes I was reimbursed; sometimes I wasn’t.  And when I was reimbursed, it was usually months after the phone bill was due.  Unlimited long distance keeps me from worrying.  It’s vital to a home office for a free-lancer.

One more option I’m going to mention is Vonage’s virtual phone number feature.  For a while I actually maintained two phone lines.  Now I opt for a virtual phone number for around $5 a month.  I still have the same two phone numbers, but they ring in on the same line.  Again, caller ID lets me know when it’s a business call or when it’s a personal call so I answer the phone accordingly.

I could go on and on about maintaining a professional home office and the tools needed, but I’m going to stop here for now before this gets too long.  I guess to summarize, I would say maintain an air of professionalism and that will follow through.  I literally had days near the beginning where I’d put on shoes just to feel like I was going to work and feel more professional.  Whatever it takes!

One part of being a free-lancer that I didn’t think about too much before I started was the financial aspect.  I knew I wouldn’t start out making a ton of money and that the income would be unpredictable.  What I didn’t think about, though, was tracking expenses and income for tax reasons.

Fortunately, I had enough sense to go and talk with an accountant before I really got going in my work.  He educated me on what kinds of thing to keep track of like mileage, mailing costs, phone bills, etc.  I realized early on that I was going to need a system to track all these numbers so that when tax time came each year, I would be organized going to his office.

I am perhaps a typical writer in that I don’t like math, so I wanted to find something easy that would require little work on my part.  Here is how I handle tracking income and expenses.  I’m not attempting to give any sort of financial advice here, just offering how I best keep track so my accountant and I don’t have major headaches come tax time.

And the other thing to note is that I’m frugal.  I didn’t want to drop a couple hundred dollars (or more!) on special software, so I started with what I had and have found it works well.

I utilize Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to track income and expenses.  If you don’t own Microsoft Excel, no need to fret.  You can actually use a Google version of virtually the same program if you have a free gmail account.  Check out Google Docs.  Another bonus to Google Docs is that you can share documents with others and they are stored online, so if your computer crashes you don’t lose anything.  I may write a whole post about Google Docs some day — it’s that great.

Anyway, my setup goes that for expenses I have a spreadsheet titled “2009Expenses” (or whatever year it is).  I have multiple worksheets.  The first is mileage.  In here, I track the date I went somewhere, where I went, how far the round-trip mileage was and why I went there.  For calculating mileage, I usually use an online mapping tool like Maps on Us or Google Maps.  I try to make sure I update this at least once a week if not the day I go places.  I also keep track of my meetings and appointments on my calendar in Microsoft Outlook.  So, if I get backed up and have a couple weeks of mileage to catch up on, then I can go through my calendar and work from there.

I have another worksheet labeled “Expenses.”  Here is where I keep track of incidental expenses like buying more ink for my printer or mailing a packet to an editor.  I track the date of the purchase, where it was made, how much it was, how I paid for it (business debit card, cash, etc.) and what it was.  The third worksheet is labeled “Utilities.”  In this worksheet, I track the month for the utility, the vendor (like my local gas company), the total amount, the deductible amount (my office is 12 percent of our total square footage, so I can deduct 12 percent of my utility costs), what utility it is (gas or electric) and how I paid for it.

My fourth worksheet is “Communication.”  This is set up just like the “Utilities” worksheet and tracks my expenses for Internet and phone service.  I can’t tell you exactly why these don’t fall into the “Utilities” category; I just know that my accountant says they have to be separate.

The final worksheet I have is “Taxes.”  Here I track when I paid my quarterly taxes.  This is more for my own records and to let my accountant know what I have already paid out for taxes.

I also keep an envelope in my filing cabinet where I store all business-related receipts in chronological order.  So far I haven’t had to have those, but if I ever get audited, I know they will come in handy.  Of course, I track my business account balance in its check register.

Income works much the same way, though with fewer worksheets required.  I have a spreadsheet titled “2009Income.”  For the most part, I just have one worksheet for income.  When I teach, I will usually make a second worksheet to track teaching income separately because some taxes are withheld from that income.  Otherwise, I track the date (usually the date on the check versus the date I received it), who it was from, how much it was for and what it was for.  I am specific in what it was for so that I know exactly which articles I’ve gotten paid for and which ones I haven’t.  I keep the check stubs or a copy of the check (for those without stubs) in an envelope as well.  If I get paid through PayPal, I print out the transaction and stick that in the envelope.

I also use a spreadsheet for publications I do multiple projects for and need to track what articles have run when and whether I’ve gotten paid for them.

The nice thing about spreadsheets is they do all the calculations for you.  At the end of the calendar year, I total up all expenses and income on each worksheet.  I then print it out or e-mail it to my accountant who takes it from there.  It takes just a few minutes at year-end to do this.  It keeps me motivated to keep on top of tracking things so I don’t wind up with a shoebox of receipts to sort all at once or anything.  It also makes sure I remember short trips to the post office or to drop something off to a client and count that mileage as a deduction.

What tools do you find helpful in handling business finances?

Social networking is everywhere.  These days many folks are connected through online networks like Facebook, Twitter, My Space and Linked In.  I personally use Facebook, Twitter and Linked In.  I use them for different reasons.  Facebook is my network to connect with friends and only a few close colleagues.  I use it for more personal, day-to-day sort of information.  Twitter and Linked In, though, I use solely for professional connections.  I must admit that I haven’t done much with Linked In, but Twitter and I have hit it off.

While social networking online can be a time zapper, it can also help you stay on task — at least that’s what I’ve found.  I follow a relatively small amount of folks on Twitter (just under 70 at the moment).  Many of them are fellow freelance writers.  Others are great for idea generation.  In connecting with other writers through Twitter, I’m often inspired to plug away at work after reading their brief updates of what they are doing.

And I often post on Twitter what I’m working on.  Once I have it “out there,” I feel more accountable to make sure it gets done.  In a way, my connections on Twitter serve as my co-workers and sometimes my boss by keeping me on task.

Instead of being a time zapper, it actually keeps me working some days.  And on the times I think about cutting out early, I wonder what my fellow Twitter-ers would think.  I know in reality, they don’t care too much, but it helps keep me on track.

And, yes, I’ve been able to use connections made through Twitter to get a couple of writing and editing jobs.  That alone makes the few minutes I spend on Twitter nearly daily worth it.

How do you use social networking?