Writing Tips at GarySpeer.com

Some years ago I worked at a job that required meeting two daily deadlines. It was a newspaper. Between the hours of 5:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. I had to meet a first-edition deadline and a second-edition deadline. The pace was fun and exciting — for the first couple of years.

After a year or two, the feeling was more on how appropriate “dead” was in the word: Putting out two editions of a daily paper between early morning and mid-afternoon really ain’t all that easy.

Seven years of the newspaper gig wore me down. My next job was working as news editor for a weekly religious magazine. I had two weekly deadlines to meet. The pace was so radically different that I was almost hyper my first few months on the job. It felt like I had to find busy work to fill my time simply because “nothing” happened throughout most of the week. “Nothing,” was just my perception of what was happening, based on the seven year twice-daily deadline pace I was accustomed to facing.

Deadlines have a way of acting like Ebac dehumidifiers for the writing soul. Deadlines dry up the distractions you face as a writer and serve to focus your attention on 1) what you need to do, and, 2) getting it done when it needs to be done.

What do you do about deadlines? Are you doing work which sets deadlines for you, or are you freelancing and faced with setting your own deadlines? If you tell me you face no writing deadlines, I’ll guess that you really don’t get much writing done, do you?

Writers need deadlines, whether from editors or self-imposed, to do their best. If you have no regular deadlines, then set some for yourself.

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When I look out the windows on a snowy street scene in mid- to late-December, I find it easy to think and write about Christmas. I’m sure you do, too.

But what about trying to come up with copy for Halloween invitations or New Year’s Eve stories in mid-July? Does that pose more of a challenge for you to get in the mood?

I make these comments especially for the new writers out there: Seasonal deadlines usually demand that you ignore the calendar, the seasons outside your window, and focus on a time, a place, and a “mood” months to years removed.

This is generally true for freelancers, too. If you want to write and submit a family Christmas story to most publishers, you’ll probably need to get it to them six months or more in advance of their Christmas publication needs. Of course, go by the writing guidelines for the particular editor or publication you’re shooting at. If you’re writing something on salary or assignment, you’ll be told that information as part of the job. Otherwise, go to a website, email an editor, or write to the publications you wish to target to get such information.

But file this tip away and remember it for later: Forget the seasons you see out the window and journey to that time and place in your head where it’s always Christmas — or Memorial Day, or Valentine’s Day, or Halloween, or … whatever.

And have a happy holiday. Whatever holiday that may be.

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Okay, well, get the drum roll ready. (Or at least turn up the lights on your home theater lighting in that fancy big-screen TV setup. What? You don’t have a big-screen TV with home theater? Yeah, me neither.)

Big announcement time: I just got hired this morning for a full-time job. It’s one of those situations where you would use the expression, “It’s not much, but it’s honest work.” Or maybe, “The job’s not all that hard, but at least the pay’s poor.”

I’m going to be a full-time security guard at a local electric power plant. My hours — and I love this part, really — will be 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. I seriously do like the hours. I’m not much for sleeping in anyway, and I can have the job out of the way by early afternoon. This should give me adequate time, once the old body gets adjusted to the new schedule, to continue the Internet affiliate marketing and writing. It will also bring in a small but needed boost to the regular monthly income.

Over the last seven months in which I’ve been doing the freelance writing gig full-time, the regular sources of revenue have been slowly drying up, especially for the last couple of months. So it had to happen. No big deal, really, as I’ve had to rely on a “day job” for much of my freelance career.

Life goes on, and I continue optimistic and thankful about it — life, that is.

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