Written Creations, LLC

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!

Bear with me as I go off topic from writing in this blog post, but I have something on my heart I must share.

As I write this with Christmas just days away, I am struck by the difference I feel this Christmas.  I have had Christmases that were different before.  There were two Christmases that were difficult after losing a loved one.  There was a Christmas spent in the hospital waiting to see if another loved one would pull through — and by the grace of God she did.

This Christmas is different in a better way, though.  This Christmas I have a daughter.  This Christmas I understand parental love.  I have always marveled at God sending His Son, knowing that He would have to die for our sins.  And I would think how I couldn’t imagine giving up a loved one like that.  I struggled to imagine even giving my beloved dog for that reason.  Now I look at my daughter’s precious face, and I know I couldn’t do it.  I don’t have that kind of love in me like God does.

I think about Mary and how she spent hours feeding baby Jesus and changing his diapers, just as I am doing with my daughter now, and I am breathless to think how she must have felt to see him hanging on the cross.

And I think about the cross.  I have always been grateful for Jesus’ sacrifice.  I have always been thankful for God’s faithfulness and love even when I fall so short.  But I am so much more grateful that He did those things for my daughter.  I want only the best for her.  I know He is the best, and I am so thankful that He was willing to give Himself for her.  I am awestruck that He loves her even more than I do.  I don’t think it’s possible, and yet I know it is because He is God.

So this Christmas will be different.  I will enjoy time with family.  I will enjoy giving and receiving gifts.  I will enjoy good food.  I will especially enjoy holding my baby girl.  But more than anything, I will be more thankful for the ultimate gift given to us in God’s Son.

May you have a joyous Christmas!

So, it’s been a couple of months since my last blog post.  I took some time off to have a baby.  Our baby girl is the first child for my husband and me.  Now I’m easing my way back into work — and working is a bit different.

I have always thought that working from home would be great whenever we decided to start a family.  And while it is great, it is also teaching me a few lessons along the way.  Those lessons will most assuredly pop up in this blog.

The first one I have to start with now is flexibility.  I have always thought that I am flexible with my work.  If someone needed to change an interview time at the last minute, I was fine with that.  If I had a big deadline and needed to work on an evening or weekend, I was also fine with that.  I am having to hone my flexibility skills of not being able to plan everyday quite as stringently as I used to.  Now I work around feedings that take longer than usual, dirty diapers and fussiness that just happens for no apparent reason.

I’ve gotten creative about when I get my work done.  The typical business hours aren’t really a factor any more.  I have become flexible.  I figure if I get through the day and have completed my work tasks and have a happy baby with a full belly and clean diaper, then I am OK.  So far, it’s worked, but I’ve only been at this for a week and a half.

I’ll continue to share tips and lessons along the way of what I learn about how to best maintain a home office while also “maintaining” a baby!

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 would daresay that nothing is more important to a sentence than its verb.  Verbs are what give a sentence action and propel a story forward.  The right verbs are what make good writing even better.  However, sometimes instead of using strong verbs, we use adverbs to make weaker verbs stronger.  Is that OK?  I would say sometimes, yes, but most of the time, look for adverbs and see if you can find a stronger verb to use instead.

Take a look at these two sentences and see what is stronger:

• The girl aimlessly walked down the hall.
• The girl wandered down the hall.

The first sentence uses an adverb.  While this sentence is not grammatically incorrect, the adverb/verb combination makes it weaker than the second sentence which uses a stronger, more descriptive verb.

Another bonus to replacing adverb/verb combinations with a stronger verb is the writing becomes more concise.  Word count is reduced.  Skilled writers can say more with less.  Minimizing adverb use is one way to do that.

More examples for you showing word count:

• John sipped his water.  (4)
• John slowly drank his water. (5)

• John purposefully walked into the room.  (6)
• John strode into the room. (5)

• She spoke quietly.  (3)
• She whispered.  (2)

Sure, this one has a punny title, but I couldn’t resist.  While the title may be punny (I won’t go as far as to say funny!), the topic is quite serious.  Changes in viewpoint are a pet peeve of mine and a mistake that many beginning writers can easily make without realizing it.

Before we can talk about changing viewpoint, we must first talk about the types of viewpoint out there.

• First person: This is an article or story written from one person’s point of view.  This blog is written in first person.  First person uses pronouns like “I,” “me,” “mine,” etc.  While first person is frequently used in casual writing, it is almost never used in news reporting.  In my years of writing professionally, I have only written from first person fewer than 10 times.  For articles, first person should generally only be used if the writer is an authority on the topic or if the writer is describing a situation or event the way he experienced it.
• Second person: This viewpoint is often overlooked.  Second person viewpoint addresses the reader directly.  Second person uses pronouns like “you” and “your.”  Of all the viewpoints, it can be most lenient and sometimes used in conjunction with first or third person, but that should be done sparingly.  Second person is most often found in how-to articles.  The trick with it is to avoid becoming preachy or condescending to the reader.
• Third person: This viewpoint does not involve the writer or the reader at all.  Third person pronouns include “he,” “she,” “they,” etc.  This is the most common viewpoint for news articles and is the viewpoint I use most of the time in my work for magazines, newspapers and even businesses.

Understanding the different viewpoints is crucial to use them correctly.  Most important is to NOT combine more than one viewpoint in the same article.  I don’t think I can preach consistency in writing enough.  In teaching, I tell my students that I’d rather them be consistently wrong in their article than to alternate back and forth.

Changes in viewpoint can sometimes slip into writing.  Most of the time with articles, readers really don’t care about the writer’s perspective.  First person is seldom used for that very reason.  If first person is used, then it should be used consistently, not just in a lead and forgotten about.  A writer should never interject himself in the article without a compelling reason to do so.

Second person can sometimes be used in a lead to draw a reader in and then switch to third person for the rest of the article, but this should be done sparingly and only when absolutely necessary.  One common lead is reader commonality, which starts with something like: “Don’t you just hate when X happens?”  This can work, but it isn’t the strongest type of lead and certainly shouldn’t be overdone.  Be aware that indirect commands count as second person as well (this sentence is an example).  These are sentences that address the reader directly and give a command without using the pronoun “you.”

Third person is the best viewpoint for new writers.  And it’s the most common for news articles in general.

Since changes in viewpoint can slip into articles, editing for viewpoint is important.  When I edit my work, I look at everything: grammar, punctuation, style, viewpoint, flow, etc.  Look for direct commands that slip into second person.  Look for spots where the writer has been drawn in to the story directly.  Ask other people to read the artilce and give their feedback on viewpoint — whatever it takes.   Don’t be a viewpoint switcher!

If you’ve searched for information online, then you’ve surely come across Wikipedia.  It’s user generated and regulated — meaning anyone can edit the information.  And information can be found on a broad range of topics from diseases to celebrities to televisions.  Pretty much anything.

But is it trustworthy?  That’s where the debate starts.  And the debate is important.  For example, New Scientist recently reported that 50 percent of medical doctors are using Wikipedia for information.  Its trustworthiness goes beyond whether an article we’re writing is accurate.  It affects our lives.

The theory on Wikipedia that I employ and teach my students to employ is that it’s a good starting point, but any information found on the site needs to be confirmed by a more solid source.  That’s what I hope is happening with doctor’s using Wikipedia to look up information on certain prescription drugs or conditions.

In the end, the Wikipedia debate comes down to whether the information is reliable.  Because it is user generated information it is both reliable and unreliable.  My very tech-savvy husband falls more to the reliable side of the debate.  His argument is that with so many people editing it, the information is bound to be accurate.  Someone who knows better isn’t going to let a mistake go uncorrected.  The New Scientist article even points out that no factual mistakes were found.  That’s a decent track record.  And we can surely all agree that multiple heads are better than one for catching mistakes.

However, I fall more on the unreliable side of the debate, especially for article writing.  I feel as a journalist that I have a responsibility to my readers to dig deeper than the general, user-generated information on Wikipedia.  Does that mean I never visit the site?  No.  Does that mean that I may start with the site to get an idea for what kind of sources and information to look for?  Sometimes, especially if it’s a new article topic I’m not familiar with.

All that said, I also need to point out that Wikipedia articles include references for where the information is coming from.  That means the information has to have some credibility to it.  I would say, though, instead of using the Wikipedia page as a source to go to the actual sources quoted.  First, you can confirm what is written on Wikipedia is true.  And second, you’ve just found a primary source.

Primary sources are those who were/are directly involved in the event or topic being covered.  Secondary sources are people outside of the event/topic reporting on it.  For example, I originally found the New Scientist article through another Web site.  But, to use it as a source and credit it, I went back to the actual article.  I even checked the information the article references for accuracy.  I’ve long been a fan of the Pew Internet & American Life project for data, so I made sure what New Scientist reported was actually what Pew found.  I didn’t want to quote a secondary source even in my blog.

Wikipedia seems, to me, to fall into that secondary source category.  Sure, some of those editing the posts may be directly involved, but we don’t know that.  My biggest problem with Wikipedia is that very fact — we don’t know who is behind the information.  Since it’s such a large collaboration, knowing who specifically said what is impossible anyway.  How do you quote that?  At least going to the primary sources at the bottom of each Wikipedia page gives you a more primary source to reference.

At the end of the day, credibility is most important.  Wikipedia is credible to an extent.  But, it’s a secondary source that has no place being quoted or referenced in articles.  Too many other sources exist to draw information from if you’re willing to take the time to look for them.

How do you feel about Wikipedia?

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?