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Writing Etc. – March 15, 2005
ISSN: 1545-5580
Make Your Writing Sparkle. Write Killer Queries, Get Published.
Join the brightest, most ambitious, and talented group of writers on the ‘net.
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In This Issue:
Notes from Minnesota
Season’s Greetings: Making The Most Of Those Treasured Holiday Moments, Six Months In Advance By Rusty Fischer
2005 Action Plan to Jumpstart Your Writing Career
Writing Markets
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Notes from Minnesota:
Greetings!
Date: Tuesday evening
Location: Canine Training Institute
Setting: Lucy (our Rat Terrier Wonder Dog) is in the middle of her first utterly flawless run through the agility course when a man dressed in a parka bursts into the room.
“Holy Cow!” he yells, “You guys seen outside?”
Lucy leaps from the “A Frame” (of course, she’s working off leash… so much for her flawless run) and dashes towards the man to give her a proper “hello.” Four other dogs follow suit.
So… we clip leashes on our respective canines and head for the door.
By golly, the air’s filled with the biggest flakes of snow you’ve ever seen… a scene worthy of a Christmas card. Of course the weather person didn’t warn us of this phenomenon.
We grab our coats and head home knowing if the wind kicks up we’ll get quite the storm. Heaven forbid that anyone would get stuck where the best munchies available are probably liver snacks. (Yuck.)
All’s well until today. March 17.
As I write this, we’re waiting for a bigger winter storm! Lucy, due to her nearly hairless little tummy, thinks this new turn of events totally sucks.
I agree, although Peder (our dear son) has become a religious man as he and his friends fervently pray for a “snow day” tomorrow.
I can’t wait to see what happens. There’s nothing like a nice March snowstorm to get the creative juices flowing.
Oh… and speaking of snow, believe it or not, now’s the perfect time to start writing holiday articles. Pull out your holiday CDs, get in a festive mood, and get writing. But first, read Rusty Fischer’s article this week… it’s right after this brief commercial break. J
Enjoy your week, everyone!
Beth
P.S. Just released: Secrets of a Writing Hustler by Roscoe Barnes, and check out a super deal on our three CD set. Read all about them below.
P.S. Here’s our updated best seller list… be sure to pick up a copy of each of these titles. They’re awesome.
1. Jumpstart Your Writing Career and Snag Paying Assignments by Beth Erickson http://filbertpublishing.com/jumpstart.htm
2. Bob Bly’s Guide to Freelance Writing Success: How to Make $100,000 a Year as a Freelance Writer and Have The Time of Your Life Doing It. http://filbertpublishing.com/bob.htm
3. Weekly Writes: Exercises in Creative Writing by Shery Ma Belle Arrieta http://filbertpublishing.com/Weekly.htm (You’ll get a ton of fr** writing/freelancing tools direct from Shery at http://WeeklyWrites.com when you order this title!)
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I’m so excited about our latest title. “Secrets of a Writing Hustler: How to Beat the Odds, Overcome Rejection, and Succeed as a Writer” by Roscoe Barnes III has people like copywriting great Bob Bly saying, “Fantastic Book, I recommend it highly. Five Stars. No make that Ten.”
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~~~~~~~~~~~~ Feature Article ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Season’s Greetings: Making The Most Of Those Treasured Holiday Moments, Six Months In Advance
By Rusty Fischer
Ah, the holidays. Whether it’s mistletoe or jack-o-lanterns, Easter eggs or fireworks, holiday memories, crafts, ideas, recipes and how-to articles are a staple of most periodicals’, newspapers’, Web sites’, publishers’ and book packagers’ yearly word count. But how do you cash in on this underrated source of extra writing income? Simple:
PLAN AHEAD
First of all, a warning: Don’t expect to get rich writing for the holidays. Not right away, anyway. While Charles Dickens and Washington Irving are well-known for their holiday works, it might take you awhile to get the hang of each and every potential market’s picky style and tone. Still, if you stick with it and make submitting holiday material a yearly tradition, your backlog of published holiday clips, not to mention cashed holiday checks, will continue to grow, well, like a bowl full of jelly!
The first step is to begin writing! Many freelancers simply see the holidays as a frustrating time when their e-mails go unanswered and snail mail goes undelivered because of unnecessary days off! The trick is to get in the spirit and enjoy the holidays as a time of inspiration and creativity. Naturally, unless you want to wait a whole year before submitting your work, you need to anticipate how giddy and fun the upcoming holiday will be, in order for you to write about it the necessary six to twelve weeks in which publishers need it in advance!
To do this, drag out your Christmas carols in July or Easter decorations in October. Sure, your family, friends and neighbors will think you’ve lost your marbles, but if this helps you write a cute holiday poem, short story, or activity, you’ll be the winner in the end.
CALENDAR GIRLS (AND GUYS)
One way to help you organize your writing for the holidays is to invest in several cheap, dollar store calendars, such as the cheesy kinds with horsies and flowers, or perhaps loot the after-Christmas sales for half-off calendars in the New Year. This way, you know to set yourself some stringent deadlines for that holiday-related material.
For instance, if that national women’s magazine needs your Easter story by August of the previous year, pencil it in on your "periodicals" calendar. If that new anthology of spooky ghost stories needs your gothic ghost story well in advance of its planned Halloween publication date, mark it in your "books" calendar. And so on. While you’re at the dollar store, invest in some seasonal stickers and use them to accentuate your gentle reminders.
SIZE DOES MATTER!
As far as holidays go, Christmas is the 400-pound gorilla that Secretary’s Day and Kwanzaa are afraid of! Everyone has a cute Christmas poem or holiday meditation to sell, and often magazines and anthologies, greeting card companies and newspapers have file cabinets full of such seasonal stuff. So, if your inspirational Christmas stories are falling on deaf ears, do a little research into lesser-known or unpopular holidays. Certainly, your clever story about a Christmas treasure hunt can be reworked to be a clever story about a 4th of July treasure hunt!
Be creative, and don’t always go for the biggest holidays first. Remember, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, etc. are all holidays that deserve to be explored more deeply by ambitious and talented freelance writers such as yourself. And, while it may be difficult to find "Easter carols" to inspire you, imagining selling your springtime short story might just be all the inspiration you need!
HO HO HURRY UP!
Writing for the holidays isn’t easy. Finding just the right tone for seasonal material is often tricky and every market sees the holidays differently. It can be frustrating when one editor calls your Halloween story too "fluffy," and another calls the same story too "spooky!" But as the author of hundreds of published poems, stories, recipes and crafts, many of which relate to the holidays, I can tell you that the exposure and payoff can be well worth the fa la la frustration! So who cares if the Christmas tree is already in the attic and the stockings are folded away neatly for next year? Get out those Winter Solstice CDs and start writing today!
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Rusty Fischer is the author of Grass RootsBook Marketing: Almost 300 Fre* Ways to Sell Your E-Book or POD http://filbertpublishing.com/grass.htm
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2005 Action Plan to Jumpstart Your Writing Career
Christmas music in March? You’ve got to be kidding.
Nope.
Kick start your holiday spirit this week and write a couple articles aimed at the 2005 holiday season. If you start now, you’ll have time to polish your words ‘till they shine. Research the market you’d like to hit, then start submitting your articles to appropriate publications.
Writing is a tough biz but when you can get the edge simply by planning ahead… that’s when you’re using your time wisely.
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Quilt Works
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Popular Woodworking
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E-Mag And Web Site Owners! Did you know that Filbert Publishing has an entire cache of articles you can use FREE. Copy and paste these articles straight into your web site or publication. Here’s the URL: http://filbertpublishing.com/articles.htm
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Writing Etc.
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