It’s been an intense two weeks. It honestly feels more like a month has gone by in some respects. With the kids out of school and somewhat around most days it’s been a little harder focusing on freelance building and novel-writing than I had hoped. If a couple of months from now we can see a future from this direction I may need to look at a laptop for me so I can go to remote locations regularly. Right now I would need to take the one Heather uses. It would be OK for me to take it on occasion and test working elsewhere, but it wouldn’t be a permanent solution.

On the freelance writing front I’ve spent some time trying to refine my marketing efforts. The most important thing a freelance writer has to market themselves is their clips. (Examples of their work for others.) As someone new to freelance writing I don’t have clips. I have years of writing here on this website, and over 75 articles at OurAgileJourney.com. The problem here is two-fold. The stuff written here is mostly personal blogging. It’s audience is family, friends, and weird internet stalkers. (Yeah, you know I’m talking to you. It is weird. We have no connection. Either introduce yourself or stop. Your life will be better for it. 🙂 ) The stuff at the other site is written professionally, but it wasn’t on-spec/commissioned/written for hire stuff. I’m working a couple of angles to try and get clips to put up. I’m offering a discount on the first project for clients and am willing to talk to non-profits about doing pro-bono writing projects. I am attempting to find and target tech companies large enough to hire out writing services but small enough to not use a large national marketing firm. I’m also trying to start with relatively local companies in hopes of that angle helping my pitch.

The novel-writing apprenticeship has started and wow! The talent represented is intimidating. Many involved are full-time authors already, working to go from making a living to making a really good living. Some are branching into a new genre for the first time. Some are trying to improve the catalog in their current genre. I find myself wanting to soak up all the knowledge and creativity they have to offer and being a little timid about contributing. If I create and maintain connections with a handful of the people from this group over the course of the next 9 months it’ll be worth it. Not to mention that I’m pretty sure it’ll be close to impossible for any of us to not get at least novel #1 written in a 3-5 book series in the environment created by the group. I hope to have #’s 1 and 2 done with #3 either done or close by February. I also plan to turn around and start another series as we finish. I’ll be looking for Science Fiction fans later this year to do beta reading, so feel free to let me know and I’ll make sure you get invited to a mailing list. (Which I don’t have set up yet.)

That’s all for now. Next time I update the kids should be back in school. This two month summer break just flew by!