Source: The Goodbye Crutches Blog
My final project, Cyber Monday Magazine aims to give a fresh, social media perspective on holiday shopping in 2012. By reporting on the internet-induced fall of Black Friday and the reinvention of online shopping via Cyber Monday, this blog looks to analyze the myriad of ways social media and the internet have come to change America’s holiday shopping experience.
Source: A.D.Rowe
“It might be a losing game, but that’s what you’re choosing to do,” says Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of the book Random Family, about freelance writing. “The benefit is the time to do something you really care about.” In reading Telling True Stories Part IX: “Building a Career in Magazines and Books,” I found the passion of the contributing writers to be most relevant to my life as a writer. Though I am far from getting an agent to pitch my stories and no where near writing a non-fiction book on an international social justice issue, all of the writers in the pieces from this Telling True Stories section seemed to allude to one thing: To be a successful writer, reporter, Journalist, or author, you have to have a passion for writing and a desire to tell stories.
According to Jim Collins in his piece for Telling True Stories titled “Making It as a Freelancer,” pitching stories is just as important as writing them. First, you must look for potential magazine outlets and organizations to pitch to and write for. Collins warns not to “judge a magazine by its cover” because there is likely potential for narrative work in a variety of writing mediums including airline pamphlets and vertical magazines that specialize in narrow topics for niche audiences.
“Begin reporting your story before you pitch it,” writes Collins. “You don’t need a magazine assignment to start reporting.” In order to freelance successfully, something I hope to do someday, you not only must refine your story idea to fit each potential magazine you plan to pitch to but you also must do some research on your story before even considering pitching. Framing your pitch to emphasize the “meaning below the story line” is key to selling your story idea to any magazine.
Reading the magazine you plan to pitch to and write for, according to Collins, is also key to to improving your chance of selling a story. Scrutinize the publication, searching for narrative and production elements that might help your case as a potential writer for the magazine. When analyzing however, be sure to focus on your own qualities and potential contributions as a write. Proving your ability to to write a story is essential in your pitch. You should include clips of your previous work that, according to Collins, “prove your ability to think through a story, to write clearly, to write smooth transitions, and to elevate a story to include meaning.” Evidence of your writing and reporting skills as a professional freelancer is certainly a necessary factor in a story proposal, but Collins stresses that elevating the importance and strength of the particular story you want to tell is even more vital.
Source: Race Talk Blog
Other tips that Jim Collins has for potential freelancers? “Think of a story idea that only you can write,” writes Collins. Everybody has personal narratives and varying levels and types of expereince. Use those to your advantage. “Those esoteric areas of your life will lead to story ideas that you are especially qualified to write about,” writes Collins. “If you have unique access, the editor can’t get the story without taking you, too.”
When writing independently for any medium, time must be budgeted efficiently and effectively because “no one else will help you with it or pressure you to complete it,” writes Stewart O’Nan in his piece, “Not Stopping: Time Management for Writers.” “To have any chance of finishing,” writes O’Nan. “You have to make your own rules – rules to not stop.”
This particular point of advice from O’Nan resonates with my personal writing style. Abandoning projects and writing pieces I have “fallen out of love with” is a particularly bad habit of mine. Without my own set of rules, time constraints, and personal encouraging pressures, I would likely not finish a majority of my independent writing pieces. Although O’Nan’s set of seventeen personal writing rules in his piece for Telling True Stories is helpful and full of advice, only one rule truly made me think about my writing habits and potential career in Journalism. “Enjoy yourself,” writes O’Nan. “You can’t be sure that the book you’re working on will make it. You must enjoy the time you spend writing it.”
This blog is devoted to exploring the U.S.’s War on Women through media and news articles, blogs, pictures, videos, and social media tools. This blog aims to provide reliable information on the War on Women at both the national and state level in unique ways. Topics to be covered may include but are not limited to:
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