More on Writing

On Saturday, while the rest of you were out enjoying a beautiful autumn day (those of you in Maine, anyway), I was taking a class in the Joel and Linda Abramson Center at the University of Southern Maine. The topic: How to Freelance.

The course was taught be Sherry B. Hansen, a Brunswick resident who has had hundreds of articles, poems, and short stories published over the last 17 years. Like me, she did not grow up, or even graduate from college, thinking that she would be a writer. However, when she was in her early 40's, she gave up the workaday life for that of a freelancer. And what a life it is! Hard work, uncertainty, and quite a bit of rejection. When an article does get published, it probably won't pay a heck of a lot. Still, there are resources and skills that one can develop to help maximize ones chances of getting your work published.

The class of 11 was a varied lot. Participants ranged in age from mid-20's to about 60, with most of us hovering within a few years of our 40th birthday by my estimation. There were a few stay-at-home parents, a nurse or two, an "odd job" guy, and a couple of people who have jobs, but not what they would call careers. By my count, there was just one accountant in the mix. People's areas of interest were equally varied. One guy wanted to write CD reviews and band interviews. One woman wanted to write "life experience" stories. One woman has written a lot of health-related articles for in-house news letters, and was thinking that she ought to start getting paid for her troubles. Another woman wanted to write essays about her experience as a cancer survivor. One guy wants to be the next Dave Barry. One guy writes about baseball and the environment. Some folks have been published previously, others of us have not.

There was a lot of practical advice to be gained from this class. One of the biggest items for me was the most basic - how do you contact publications that you might be interested in writing for? Following that up - how much do they pay, when do they pay you, how are rights handled. And the biggie to end the day - how to write query letters. There was more than enough information for one to get started, which is really what I was hoping for from this session. The other valuable lesson from Ms. Hansen, though not one on the agenda, is to not expect to get rich, but at the same time not to get discouraged. If a publication rejects your article, move on to the next publication. With enough hard work (and enough talent, I suppose), you will get that first clip, and you're on your way. Sherry had a lot of war stories to tell from the last 17 years, all entertaining and informative.

Next up is figuring out what to write. I did send out my first query, a book review for When Towns Had Teams. I'm going to wait to find out if it's been accepted before I publish it on Joe's Sea Blog. I pitched it to the Times Record, but I have a couple of fallback publications to look into as well. After that, who knows? The Abramson center features water free urinals. These babies save, on average, 40,000 gallons of water per year, per urinal. The topic is a natural for the Land Blog, but I have to start thinking, is there anybody out there who would pay me for an article on the subject?

Stay tuned. . . .