Guest - Jennifer Fink

We have a guest today, Mamas!

So Tiff go put on yer bra, Kai get yer hair in a pony and let's welcome her! And someone tell Linda to git a wiggle on it because she's always off doin' somethin' or other.

Jennifer L.W. Fink is lives and homeschools her boys in Mayville, WI. She is a freelance writer who has been published in Parents, American Baby, Ladies’ Home Journal and more. Suddenly Homeschooling (HEM books) will be out in late 2008.

With four sons ranging in age from two to ten, my house is a whirlwind of light saber battles, pillow fights and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Getting any writing done in such a testosterone-heavy environment is, uh, a challenge, to say the least. But it can be done. On a recent day last week, I conducted three phone interviews, nursed my toddler, made some last-minute edits to my Journal Sentinel op-ed, cooked three meals, considered teaching a writing class, hiked with the boys and wrote for three hours.

Freelancing with a family isn’t easy. It requires patience, devotion and time management skills. These tips, from my chapter, Living with Kids 24/7 in the soon-to-be-published book Suddenly Homeschooling, can help you get some work done:

• Develop simple household routines. Don’t be afraid to involve your children. Your kids can help pick up their rooms, prepare meals and clean up the yard.



• Use a master calendar to avoid scheduling conflicts. Be sure to transcribe your professional obligations onto the family calendar as well.



• Take advantage of empty moments. Try transcribing for 15 minutes on your laptop while the kids play video games. Or take your notebook along and outline an article while you wait for soccer practice to end.



• Get up before the kids or stay up after they go to bed. Many mom-writers find these quiet hours to be the most productive of the day.



• Offer to trade childcare with another parent, join a babysitting co-op, or hire a teenage babysitter or pre-teen “mother’s helper.” Even just a couple hours a week of kid-free time go a long way toward meeting your professional goals.



• Have realistic expectations. As one Mom told me, “Life with kids is very different. Be willing to accept the limitations that come with the territory.”

THANK YOU Jennifer, we kiss your feet, FOUR BOYS, PEOPLE!

(I have one, that's about enough!)

The Great Big List of Resources

Paul Lima with the Professional Writers Association of Canada has given us permission to post a compendeum of writer resources that he's blogged about. It's a big list, so big in fact That It Requires Capital Letters To Show You Just How Big It Is.

Here ya go:

ON NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE WRITING

Job description for newspaper and magazine freelancers
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=117

10-steps to writing for newspapers and magazines
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=24

Ideas, Inspiration and Dogs
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=73

21 Rules for Writing Stellar Query Letters
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=27

How to Structure a Query Letter; Sample Query Letter
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=50

The Query Letter - How to pitch editors
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=21

The art of the query - how to sell article to magazines and newspapers
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=107

The art of the query letter
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=96

Keep your e-query letters out of the trash folder
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=22

Pre-query Query Letter can work wonders
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=97

When to follow-up with editors
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=37

You've sold the article idea, now what.?
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=100

Deflation & Freelance Writers
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=15


ON FREELANCING FOR CORPORATE MARKETS

Establish Your Business Vision
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=4

Want to boost your business? Start with your business vision
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=85

Can a freelancer earn six figures?
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=5

How to become a six-figure freelancer in five easy steps
http://paullima.com/blog/index.php?paged=9

Writing Services You Can Offer Corporate Clients
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=48

Place Five Arrows in Your Marketing Quiver
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=35

Place Five Arrows in Your Marketing Quiver
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=47

Simple marketing task that generates repeat business
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=89

How to estimate corporate writing assignments
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=38

How much to charge for work
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=52

Freelance Writing: Do the Math
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=12

How Much Did You Earn Today? - Guest Blog
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=42

Questions you can ask a client before writing
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=32


ON SELF-PUBLISHING: BOOKS

Using the Web to sell books and special reports
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=115

Self-publishing & print on demand with Lulu
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=76


ON IF I CAN DO IT, ANYONE CAN...

Do you have what it takes to become a freelance writer?
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=105

C-student does OK, but it took a while
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=103

Just an English major from York.
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=111

Temporary reprieve from insanity proves to be permanent, or how I became a
freelance writer
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=93

My father was a janitor; my mother a housewife and I am...
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=70

Send in the Writers: How to / Why to. Hire a Freelance Writer
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=74


ON MISC. & (maybe) INSPIRATIONAL

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've
always got
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=69

The business universe is truly mysterious
http://paullima.com/blog/index.php?paged=6

Is the Internet Stealing Your Precious Time?
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=75

The only thing writers have to fear is fear itself
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=19

Dark Dingy Basements of the Mind...
...and other reasons why writers can't write
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=17

Job was a freelance writer: New Research reveals Biblical scholar was
talking to an Editor, not to God!
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=80

Speech: (Almost) Everything you need to know about freelance writing
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=110


ON SELF-PROMOTION & WEB PROMOTION

Send clients and editors your Holiday schedule
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=120

Using the Web to boost your freelance business
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=114

How to get Google to rank your website high
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=65

PR Primer for Small Businesses
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=28

Media Training & PR create a best seller
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=53


ON WRITING (SORT OF)

A creative but useful writing exercise
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=39

Creativity and Brainstorming
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=34

Know Your Target Market
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=36

AND BEYOND...

Writers often do more than write
http://paullima.com/blog/?p=77

Should books have content warnings?

The Internet is buzzing with the latest study showing that Americans aren’t reading books. Are we really that surprised? With the amount of written information thrown at us daily at via junk mail, E-mail, text messages, billboards and the Internet, who has the time to read books?

As writers, instead of asking why people aren’t reading our books, we should be asking ourselves this question: How we can encourage more people to read? As my writing instructor recently pointed out, our goal as writers shouldn’t be to simply put books on the shelves. We need to move those books into the hands of our readers. How do we do that? What is holding back our prospective readers?

I’ll go first. I got out of the habit of reading books in college. (So much for higher education!) Everything that I read was either assigned by my professors or touted as the latest and greatest self-help tome. I no longer read for pleasure; everything in my twenties was about self-improvement. If I wasn’t improving my mind, I was working on my soul. But I lost something along the way … the ability to escape into a novel, the ability to dream.

I’m not sure when I shook off my intense sense of drama and realized that it was okay to relax. Sometime in my thirties I set aside my self-help books and decided to read for fun. But it was hard. I discovered that the last time I actually read for fun, I had my school-assigned Scholastic book order form to help me out. I had no idea where to start. I didn’t even know in which section of the library to begin. And I suspect that I’m not the only one.

I propose that there should be a rating system for books, similar to the ones currently in use for movies, television, and music. This would save time for the harried prospective reader. If your new murder mystery was rated PG for violence, you wouldn’t have to worry about blood splatters and excessive gore keeping you up at night. You’d have the chance to brace yourself for a stream of expletives (and hide the book from your youngest child) when you bought the latest novel, R-rated for language, by that hilarious but highly irreverent humor columnist.

I realize that a book rating system could lead to an over-zealous societal backlash of book-banning or that certain books (and patrons) could be ostracized by placing them in a special “adult” section. But, handled properly, a book rating system might be worth it.

What do you think?

(Thanks for giving me a guest slot, Heather!)