I felt the same way in 2003. I had an idea for a novel about a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s who knows her grandson is in danger but can’t figure out how to help him. That story eventually became my novel, Visiting Grandma, told from the point of view of the woman’s thirteen year old grandson, a victim of sexual abuse.

It took a lot of trial and error–mostly error–to get that story down on paper. The one thing that kept me going was the encouragement of sister writer and dear friend Regina Sewell. She kept telling me that I couldn’t possibly give up on the project because she had to know how the story ended. She also gently let me know when I was straying off course or trying to force a resolution. If a few days went by and I hadn’t contacted her about my story, I could expect to find an email from her in my box. “More! I want to read more! What’s happening to Danny?”

Without Reg’s coaching and enthusiasm, Visiting Grandma would never have come to fruition. I realize not everyone is lucky enough to have a friend like Reg in their lives, so I would like to offer my services as the next best thing, a professional writing coach. Working with me will entail up to three emails a week on the topic of your choice. If I don’t hear from you, you can bet I’ll be sending you reminders, encouragement, and simple exercises to get you going. I will also edit up to 2500 words of prose–that’s about ten double-spaced pages–per week and offer feedback on grammar, spelling, style and flow.

So, let’s take that book that’s stuck in your head and work together to make it a reality. For more information on coaching services and rates, please send me an email at debra@debrastang.net. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.

Current Projects:

If you’ve missed it before, here’s your chance to read Visiting Grandma for yourself.

Helping Your Loved One Adjust to Life in a Facility on Experts123

Terminal Mental Illness – Is Suicide Ever Inevitable? on Suite101

Writing Tips – Make Passive Voice Work for You on Suite101

There are many blogs I look at, but I currently have five favorites that provide me with regular doses of hope, humor and (occasionally) despair. Here they are:

Ink in my Coffee by Devon Ellington. Devon keeps an almost daily journal about her fiction and theater writing, as well as her jobs for private clients. She also talks about her cat, her evil landlords, and the alignment of the planets. I’ve been following Devon’s journal/blog for nearly two years now. It’s the last thing I read before signing off my computer at night, and it’s one of my not-so-guilty pleasures.

Screw You! by Kathy Kehrli. Kathy is the superhero of the freelance writing world, a voice for justice and fair treatment of all writers. She has a keen eye for the insulting and the absurd, and regularly nominates low-paying assignments for her infamous “Middle Finger Award.” She makes me laugh, and she’s made me stop and think a few times about the implications of not putting enough value on my talent.

Writing Frump. Frumpie isn’t posting as often as she used to these days, and I miss her writing tremendously. She specializes in highlighting clueless clients, people who hire you to make their work better and then veto every suggested edit or improvement. A word to the wise: if you hire a freelance writer to write or edit for you, let them do their work. You wouldn’t tell your surgeon how to make an incision or your banker how to open a Swiss account, so please don’t tell your writer how to write!

Evil Editor. This page is for any aspiring fiction writer who has ever wondered why his or her book query is turned down again and again. Evil Editor takes actual queries and points out their weaknesses and logical flaws. It’s a bit humbling when you realize you’ve made some of the same mistakes he is mocking, but it’s also good, catty humor at its best and well worth a mouse click whether you write fiction or not.

The Freelance Jobs Writing Network. Okay, I’m cheating. This page actually has several blogs devoted to the business end of writing, marketing yourself, and writing technically perfect copy. My favorite blog post today is Three Bags of Gold by Carson Brackney.

So now, if you’re bored, or lonely, or just plain need a new place to surf, you know where to go to experience the work of some great writers. Enjoy.

‘Til Next Time!

Current Projects:

Debra Stang on WebAnswers.com. No, I’m not Dear Abby, but I’m having fun answering questions that range from the thoughtful and serious to the plain ridiculous. See how scary I can be when I try to give advice.

Terminal Mental Illness – Is Suicide Ever Inevitable? on Suite101.

Five Tips for the Long Distance Caregiver on Experts123 adult caregiver series.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a legitimate complaint, but as I was soon to find out, it was a very minor one. Just as I was getting ready to start typing, my phone rang. A client I’d been working with for about a year had died, and her daughter was asking for me. I can’t say too much about the client’s situation, because it would be a violation of HIPAA, the strict laws that govern patient confidentiality.

Suffice it to say that if John F. Kennedy had met this woman’s daughter while he was writing Profiles in Courage, the book would have had one entry only. Hers. The daughter survived a hell of abuse as a child at the hands of her mother’s second husband. Then, after she was grown and safely away, she voluntarily came back and faced the monster down again to get guardianship over her now terminally ill mother. She cared for her dying mother with the greatest love and tenderness imaginable.

Her job came to an end tonight with her mother’s death, and my hospice co-workers and I were there to help her start to pick up the pieces. I felt so many things tonight: sadness, certainly, and grief, but most of all I felt pride. I was proud of the woman’s daughter and the way she had protected her mother’s quality of life so fiercely. I was proud of my hospice colleagues. I was proud to be a part of the family’s journey. And I was proud that I had done my job well enough that the daughter wanted me to be one of the people with her at such a sensitive time.

Suddenly, the ineptitude of a single editor didn’t even seem worth thinking about, let alone worth writing about. True, writers and editors should try to avoid technical mistakes whenever possible, but mistakes are also a fact of life. They will occur. They’re not important.

Even when I’m doing the most asinine keyword articles, I have always felt that my writing is in some way a natural extension of the work I do as a social worker. I want to entertain, of course, but I also want to support, educate and encourage. If one person reads my work and finds it has made a difference, however small, in his or her life, I’ve accomplished my goal.

Change the world? No, I’ve given up on that grandiose idea. Most social workers do, at least the ones who don’t burn out. But I do think my writing, like my hospice social work position, has the power to make a difference one person at a time. And in the end, can we hope for a better legacy?

Keep Track of Due Dates

A professional rarely misses a deadline without very good reason. And let’s face it, not many doctors will write your client a note explaining how you were at the brink of death from bubonic plague. The articles that are due first are usually your first priority.

Satisfy the Humans First

I say usually, because there’s an interesting fact about content sites. Most of them don’t count it against you if you miss a deadline. You can even “unclaim” assignments if you know you’re going to miss a deadline. The assignments return to the general pool where you can claim them again if you still want them or where another writer can snatch them up. So, if you’re on deadline for an editor and a content mill and you can only get one project done, satisfy the human.

Keep Track of Income

If you’re writing for residuals or pennies on one site, while another site is paying you good hard cash per article, it’s kind of a no-brainer which articles get the priority. Whatever else freelance writing may be, it’s still a business, and good business sense tells you to go where the dollars are.

Don’t Over-Commit

Watching your freelance career grow wings is like transforming from one of the ugly stepsisters at the ball to Cinderella, but even Cinderella only had a certain number of open slots on her dance card. When you were scrabbling for work, you probably snatched up every new project that came along. Now that things are going better, you can afford to be a little selective. I tend to take the projects that pay well, the projects that interest me, the projects that I can finish quickly and with relatively little effort, and the projects from clients to whom I owe loyalty.

Have Fun

Yes, you’re running a business, but you know what they say about all work and no play. Every so often, throw prioritization and time management to the wind and take a project just because it sounds like fun.

‘Til Next Time!

My Current Projects:

What is an Assisted Living Facility? on Experts123

Bizarre Psychiatric Treatments of Bygone Days on Suite101.com

Mandatory Alcohol Education and Assessment Treatment on eHow

Today I realized I could put off the inevitable no longer. My business has reached the point where I can stay small and continue to have fun and earn pin money…or market myself more aggressively, stretch my creative muscles, pick up some new fans and assignments and turn my freelancing into profitable venture.

I’m almost as bad at decisions as I am at plumbing, but in the end I decided to put up with the effort of marketing and the growing pains and take the next steps, though I have no idea where they may lead me. Could the keyword concubine actually step outside the world of content mills? We’ll see.

For those of you who are interested in how I went about this transformation, I’ve developed a three-pronged approach. First, I created a professional page for myself on Facebook. Then I invited all my friends to follow me online and created a month-long advertisement targeted at the people who share my interests. It must be working. Before I could even finish setting up my page, I had three “likes/fans” from people I didn’t even know.

Second, I’m going to re-work my website to focus less on my fiction writing and more on my non-fiction. Fiction and poetry are fun for me, balms for my soul, if you will, but they aren’t big money makers, and in the past few years, they’ve drifted further from my radar. My website needs to reflect those professional changes, and also make it clear that I am available to work on your project at reasonable rates.

Finally, I’m taking a more active role in writing communities, reading and commenting on blogs and leaving my blog address in return. This is the least objectionable part of marketing for me. I enjoy connecting to other writers and finding out what does and doesn’t work for them.

This week, then, has been one of changes for me. I feel a little like the fish who crawled out of the ocean and took those first, tentative, evolutionary steps into the world of oxygen. (By the way, yes, I do believe in evolution. Some Kansans still do.) I hope you’ll wish me luck and follow me as I go with these transitions. Please feel free to leave a comment as well, I always like to hear from readers.

‘Til Next Time!
Debra

Newest Projects:

I continue to publish as an Adult Caregiver Expert on Experts123:

What to Do If Your Loved One Experiences Memory Loss?

An Overview of Home Health Care Services

And finally…

Texas Medicaid Requirements for Nursing Home Patients on eHow

But sometimes I stumble into a situation where I’m asked to write something against my own beliefs or ethics. A minor example of this is being asked to write about an unproven herbal remedy as if it’s a miracle cure for terminal cancer. I won’t do it. I won’t encourage desparate patients to use time and money they could be spending on improving the quality of their lives chasing a phantom cure.

Then there are the big ethical no-no’s. I recently had a client ask me to write an article about “pre-teen sex.” My response was a terse, five word, “You’ve got to be kidding.” The client wrote back explaining the site s/he needed content for was designed for teens to provide accurate information about sexuality. I responded that accurate sex education has no greater proponent than I, but that he had asked for an article about “pre-teen sex,” not teenagers and sexuality. I was determined not to write an article that would titillate every pedophile with an Internet connection.

In the end, we compromised. I wrote a dull, factual article about sexual development in the pre-teen years. For good measure, I threw in that, while normal pre-teens may engage in sexual play and exploration with each other, an adult who wants to have sexual contact with a pre-teen is not normal and should be reported to the nearest trusted authority figure. The entire 300-word article took me nearly five days to research and write, an embarrassingly slow record for someone who is usually a fast writer.

At least, however, I came out of it feeling I’d stayed true to my own value system which emphasizes protecting children from predatory pedophiles. Sometimes when you do keyword writing, you have to walk a thin line between what the client wants and what you believe is right. Every keyword writer must make the final decision for him or herself. As for me, I’ve decided that the money isn’t worth selling my soul.

Child Protection Issues:

Eight Dangerous Myths about Spanking on NoSpank.net

What Should I Do When I See Someone Hitting Their Kid? on NoSpank.net

And the final articles in my Mary Tudor series:

The Two False Pregnancies of Queen Mary I of Englandon Suite101.com

Mary I of England – Beloved Queen or Bloody Mary? on Suite101.com

Anyway, I’ve been writing for Experts123 for a few weeks, picking up an article here and an article there. If I recall, the last one I wrote for them was about buying supplemental insurance. Their work for hire assignments are reasonably priced, and they pay on schedule.

I usually leave the revenue share assignments alone, because you have to have something like half the free world look at your content to earn a couple of bucks. So whatever possessed me to apply to their revenue share program as an “Adult Caregiver Expert”? Beats me, but they decided I had the expertise they were looking for and accepted my application. Every other week or so, I’ll be posting articles about issues of concern to adult caregivers like cognitive dysfunction, changing their loved one’s living arrangements, home care options, dealing with nursing facilities, long distance caregiving, caregiving and legal issues, adaptive devices to help seniors remain independent, safety issues, elder abuse, self care for the caregiver, end of life care, and any other topic I can think of that might be relevant.

This is a true labor of love–I know very well these articles probably won’t earn me a dime. But they will give me a soapbox to talk about one of my favorite topics: the family members and friends who tirelessly provide care to loved ones who need assistance. If one caregiver finds one of my articles and gets some hope or comfort from reading it…well, mission complete.

‘Til next time!

Who Are Adult Caregivers? – Experts123

And for those of you with a passing interest in Tudor history:

Mary Tudor – From Princess of Wales to Bastard Child - Suite101

Family Feud Among the Children of Henry VIII – Mary vs. Edward - Suite101.com

Mary Tudor and her Bloodless Rebellion Topple Jane Grey - Suite101

For those of you who are wondering, yes, I am a little curious about “Bloody Mary” and what made her into the person she was. My next article in the series will deal with how she could think she was pregnant twice…and be wrong both times. Physician error, medical condition, wishful thinking, or flat-out lie? You decide.

Just what, some of you are probably wondering, does a hospice social worker do? Plenty. I–or my social work partner in crime–go out with the nurses on each new admission and make sure that the legal paperwork is taken care of properly. Then I have to do a three page psychosocial assessment and a two page bereavement risk assessment on each new patient within five days of admission. Not five business days, mind you. Five days. From those assessments, I come up with a plan of care and handle any needs that are immediately apparent on admission, like helping clients find extra caregivers, sign up for home-delivered meals or a personal medical alarm, or select a funeral home. Sometimes, the situation at home is so bad it requires that the client be placed in a skilled nursing facility immediately, but luckily those cases are rare.

After the initial rush of the admission, things settle down a little. As long as the situation is stable, I visit clients in their homes or nursing centers twice a month to provide emotional support and assess the need for any new resources. I’m also available for emergencies during the day–”Mrs. X doesn’t have an air conditioner and it’s 100 degrees outside.” “Mr Y’s caregiver just went to the hospital for chest pains and we have to get Mr. Y to a nursing home where someone can look after him.” “Ms. Z doesn’t have any food in the house.”

After a client dies, I follow families for a year of bereavement counseling, making phone calls and home visits, sending letters and cards to people I’m having a hard time reaching by phone, helping facilitate support groups, and in general just being available when bereaved family members and friends need to talk.

Then, when I get home from my day job I gulp down a meal, watch a half-hour long sitcom, and go to work on my writing. It’s quite the life. But, you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way! More on my writing projects next time. In the meantime, enjoy my current ramblings:

What is an Indian Penny? on Experts123 (mine is the second answer)

Can HIV Testing Be Required Prior to Medical Treatment? on eHow

History of Disposable Diapers on eHow (come on, admit it, you want to know)

And my personal favorite…

DVD Review – Jesus Christ Superstar 2001 on Suite101.com

‘Til next time, enjoy the summer and stay cool!

Of course, when I got my new computer, I realized how shabby my old computer desk looked, so I had to buy a new one. And then the office chair I’d been using for the last century or so broke, so I needed to get another one of those, too. And to make room for all the new stuff, I had to do a thorough apartment cleaning. I ended up calling 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Their service was amazing, and they hauled away about half a truck load of furniture and other items I no longer needed. Then I donated another three boxes of books, DVDs, and CDs to the thrift store that helps fund the not-for-profit hospice where I’m employed as a social worker.

So, I’ve spent the weekends working like crazy on my apartment, but my efforts are finally starting to pay off. It looks less like a landfill now and more like a living space. The only unhappy campers are my cats, who enjoyed playing among all my junk. I figure they’ll deal with it.

The best part is that through all of this chaos, I’ve been writing steadily. I’ve done several assignments for Textbroker at decent rates, and Experts123 has also been a steady source of income. I also have a confidential client for whom I write blog posts. Finally, I’ve gotten to indulge some of my interests on Suite101.com. Lately I’ve been interested in lobotomies, after watching the 1982 movie Frances, a biopic about the actress Frances Farmer. I’ve listed my two lobotomy articles below in case anyone else is as morbid as I am. But here’s the ultimate irony. Contrary to what is portrayed in the movie, Frances Farmer never actually had a lobotomy! That was a myth started by one of her biographers. Oh, well, at least I got some writing mileage out of it.

‘Til next time!

Recent Articles

The History of the Frontal Lobotomy in the United States

Famous Lobotomies – Celebrities Who Underwent Psychosurgery

And for those of you who have absolutely no interest in lobotomies…

Cat Fight: When Two Cats in the Same Household Can’t Get Along (Not to brag, but this one includes a couple of adorable photos of two of my cats. At least I think they’re adorable, anyway.)

I’m supposed to bring my old computer in on Tuesday evening to get the files transferred, and then my sweet little tax write-off will be able to come home with me and assume her duties as primary computer of the household. Hurray!

Since I’m not the most technically competent person on earth, I’m assuming I’ll be without Internet access for a day or two while I struggle to get everything up and running, so I’m rushing to finish some assignments that are due next week. I’ve got one outstanding for Textbroker, four for Demand Studios (who are paying for my new computer), and one for Suite101.com.

I’ve also found a new employer, a kind of reincarnation of Life123 called Experts123. I’m giving them a chance, since Life123 did pay me what they owed me in the end. Like most start ups, they’re a little disorganized right now, but their rates are good, at least for a content mill. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Wish me luck!