FREELANCE journalist Anne Wollenberg specialises in entertainment, technology and workplace issues and also works on more general or 'real life' features.
She writes for newspapers and a mixture of consumer, trade and customer magazines. As a result, she says that “working” has involved "interviewing everyone from members of the Lost cast to a woman whose husband is impotent."
Anne is a fellow member at JournoBiz and I know I speak for more members there when I say that her success in her freelance career, just 12 months in, is an inspiration.
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IF anyone has any preconceptions about successful writers - then let them go now! One inspirational figure is author and journalist John Craggs - known to many at My Writers Circle as "Gyppo." John's sound advice and unassuming humour have helped many of the forum's members - myself included.
Now John has taken the leap into self employment as a writing tutor. Having benefited from his wisdom to help progress with my short stories, I can heartily recommend his services and wish him all the best in his new venture. Here, he shares his experience of juggling various writing jobs over the years and what that experience has taught him.
I WAS always a part-time writer, cramming my writing into the gaps between various 'day jobs' until life grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shook me like a terrier with a rat.
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BEING paid to write about John Barrowman is what I call a dream job. Freelance journalist and lecturer Carrie Dunn shares an inside view of what else she gets up to each day. The RSI doesn't sound quite so ideal. Hope you can get over that soon, Carrie.
MY writing day varies, and no two days are the same. As a freelancer, I do shifts at magazines and newspapers as well as lecturing in journalism at two universities – and that's on top of my usual freelance pitching and writing! However, if it's an at-home day, it generally goes something like this:
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NICK Daws is a Midlands-based author who has written more than 40 books and is known internationally for the wisdom and support he has passed on to aspiring writers. Nick's work and his starting point from a non-writing related career are an inspiration to many, me included. And isn't that an impressive picture?
MY daily schedule varies according to whether my partner, Jayne, is working in the morning or not (she's a college IT lecturer, and works varied hours). If she's around we have a leisurely breakfast and I don't start work till around 9.30. Today she's working a standard 9 to 5, however, so after seeing her off I have a quick breakfast and am at my desk by eight o'clock.
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HAZEL DAVIS is a leading UK freelance, working on a variety of jobs for clients including broadsheet newspapers and specialist magazines. Recently, she flew to St Petersburg to report on its famous conservatoire.
I OFTEN say to people that I work much harder as a freelancer than I did as an 'employee'. In fact I say it so often, 'people' are tired of hearing it. But it's true. The main thing I have found since going permanently freelance two years ago is that people who work in offices 'faff'.
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NORFOLK-based LESLEY Smith is a freelance journalist and passionate gamer. Since launching her freelance writing career in 2005, her work has appeared in a wealth of games magazines and websites. Here, she shares her writing day, giving a glimpse into the work of someone who has made the most of a specialism.
UNLIKE other journalists, I’m a bit strange - I don’t need coffee or tea to function but that doesn’t mean I won’t be found at my PC first thing each morning. Despite the persistent idea that freelance journalists don’t roll out of bed before noon I’m usually up by nine as I try and keep the same hours as my clients. This can get interesting when it’s time to file copy for American editors and I’m sometimes working very late – 3am has to be some kind of depressing record.
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MARIA McCarthy is the author of The Girls' Guide to Losing Your L-plates: How to Pass Your Driving Test
, contributes features to national papers and magazines and is a lecturer in journalism. She still found time to share her writing day with us...I hope you find it an inspiration, I certainly did.
THE day starts with a cup of industrial-strength tea at my computer. I’m currently working on a feature for one of the colour supplements entitled ‘I found a fortune’ - about people who’ve found junk at car boot sales or in the attic which has turned out to be worth thousands. I’m finding it good fun to do and most importantly, the case histories aren’t proving too hard to track down.
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