freelancing – Page 9 – Natalie Burg

November 14, 2013November 14, 2013Self-Employment Uncategorized Writing

MacBooks, horror movies and the serenity to accept all of the things or whatever

Watching horror movies, like taking shots, is something I realized in my early 20s that I hated and didn’t ever have to do again if I didn’t want to. So I’m coming up blank when trying to think of the name of a movie in which the main characters are supposed to die in a massive plane explosion, but somehow get out of it, but then death chases them around and tries to reclaim them.

Now that I think about it, this may have been the very movie that made me say, “Nope. I’m not doing these anymore. Horrifying death isn’t entertaining to me,” so that’s probably why I’ve both blocked out the details and think about it fairly frequently. I bring it up now because…sigh…a death my MacBook escaped two years ago has come to caught up with it. That’s right. I just Final Destinationed my computer. (OK, I Googled it.)

November 5, 2013November 5, 2013General Life Whatnot Self-Employment Writing

Tiny hypocrisies and better haircuts

Recently, I wrote about the phenomenon of writers complaining about not being paid for their work by saying if you’re a professional writer, producing professional-grade work, you’ll get paid work. Because we do, actually, live in a world where vocational aptitude can and will be rewarded (most of the time). Most people will brains prefer the work of professionals, even when a service technically could be done by an amateur.

October 25, 2013Self-Employment Writing

Everything But the Writing

During a recent presentation to college students about entrepreneurship in the arts, I asked the class what they thought a freelance writer did with her time all day. Their guesses included “thinking about character development” and “writing,” and bless their hearts, that would be amazing. But as any freelance writer can attest, the business of pitching stories, research, contacting sources, waiting for sources to call back and interviewing sources takes up the bulk of one’s life. So much, in fact, that I often (or, rather, daily) find myself with this problem: I feel so accomplished by the time I finally hang up the phone after an interview call, that I’m all, “Done! I’m finished! Let’s go fishing or whatever!”