Promo for Upcoming Events

8:30 AM. I'm in my office, sipping coffee and enjoying the morning sun, easing my way into what promises to be a busy day.  It's days like these that I'm so grateful to do the work I do. Got cats, coffee, and a computer--life is good.

I have a few upcoming events I thought I'd mention.

Saturday August 26th at 1030 AM, Pam Cable and myself are presenting a letter-writing for social change workshop at the Making Your Voice Count: Our Collective Power celebration hosted by the Greensboro  Commission on the Status of Women. We're speaking on behalf of NOW and the administrators there picked a workshop title for us: Southern Charm for Social Change. Pam and I added to the title a bit and now the workshop title is "Southern Charm for Social Change: Bless Their Hearts, The Politicans Won't Know What Hit Them." Makes me laugh every time I read it. (For you Northeners, "Bless Your Heart" is big down here. It's almost always used to lighten an insult as in, "Bless her heart, she's just dumber than a door.") Click here for details on attending the breakfast and workshops.

On a lighter note, I'll be at the Mayodan Public Library on Monday, September 11th from 6:30 - 8 PM for a "Meet Your Local Author Night." Myself and 3-4 other local authors will give a brief talk, answer questions and sign books.

The coffee is gone and the cats have left me for better sleeping quarters, so it looks like it's time to start the day. Happy Friday, everyone.

And the Work Comes Pouring In...

I don't know what magic make-the-work-appear fountain I drank from but dang, it's done the trick.

Literally on Monday I remarked to Blair that, ho-hum, work was slow for me and I didn't have much on the horizon. WARNING: Never let the work gods hear you say this as they consider it a challenge.  48 hours later and AACK!--I'm trying to figure out how in the heck I'm going to get all this work done.

My radio interview this morning was GREAT fun. Jay Stephens was the perfect host, putting author Gail Langley and me at ease and Gail was the perfect co-guest--fun, informative and her fiction was a good balance for my humorous non-fiction. The station manager asked for my card as I was leaving and he left me a voice mail that he'd like to explore the possibility of my joining the Community Accents team with an occasional show of my own. Cool!  (NOTE: No longer is this a tiny AM station with limited range. Now it's a major broadcasting opportunity for me. Changes in perspective are such fun--it's a miracle I don't get whiplash). Anyone who knows me know I can talk the ear off an elephant so I can't wait to see what Mike has in mind for a possible show.

Other work that's come in includes a 10,000 word article with an extremely tight deadline, a new Message on Hold assignment, a web site rewrite (big project), and a former editor called about a new weekly publication that he's interested in having me either write for or write a column for.  I'm also trying to cram in two big assignments due by the end of the month. It's like, did I blink or something? Where did the ho-hum go?

I love it though. Thrive on the chaos. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go practice my radio voice.  ;)

On the Radio

I'm doing a radio interview this morning (in about 45 minutes, to be exact) on a local AM station. It will be broadcast to at least 4 houses in the Rockingham County listening area so if you're up and about this morning and living only moments from my house, be sure to tune in.

Seriously, it should be fun. The interview is from 8:30 - 9 AM on "Community Accents," WLOE (1490 AM) in Eden and WMYN (1420 AM in Mayodan). If you miss it this morning, the interview will be rebroadcast at 6:30 PM. Jay Stephens from the Rockingham County Public Library will talk with me and another local author, I assume about our books.  To be honest, I'm not really sure what the focus of the interview is. Could be writing, could be publishing, could be many things.  I just got a call the other week asking if I was free today for the interview and I was so I said yes. 

A friend yesterday advised me to come up with a few key sound bites. Does "Buy my book!" count as a sound bite? ;)

Alright. I need to think about getting my stuff together and leaving. Listen for me on the radio....

Getting Paid

Here's an interesting glimpse into the life of a freelance writer - we have to beg for our money.

I spent an hour or so yesterday following up on payments owed me for articles already published. It's astonishing how often I have to do this. One payment I checked on yesterday was for a humor article published in March that I wrote for a Florida family magazine. The magazine is usually good about paying so it was unusual I hadn't received a check. I sent an e-mail and found out that in the move (they're changing buildings) my payment was somehow overlooked. They put it in the mail to me yesterday.

I had to take a publisher to small claims court this summer for monies owed.  A publication owed me close to $2000 and had stopped taking my calls or replying to my e-mails. I filed suit in small claims court and we were scheduled for a Monday hearing. The Friday before--at 5 o'clock, no less--the publisher called and agreed to send me payment in full. He apologized and said he got behind and money was tight at the magazine.

Writers hear that excuse a lot. "Money is tight." I don't know why that's considered an acceptable excuse to not pay someone for their work. Would you go into your accounting or HR or shipping department and say, "Money is tight. We'll try to get you your check out next month?"

The frustrating part of the above incident was that I had offered to work with this publisher on numerous  occasions. I said he could send me partial payments as long as he let me know what was going on. But to just drop all contact when you owe me that much money? Forget it. I'm going after your ass.  I just don't understand the logic. All it would have taken from him to stop the court mess was a two -minute phone call to me.  Pride goeth before a fall, I suppose.

Some magazines are great about payment. Art Jewelry for example, where I write my marketing column. They're like clockwork.  Others it's not the payment they get behind on, but sending me the finished work.

For example, I have a new book out. A coffee table book on cats. I think it's been out for a month or two but I haven't seen it yet. I e-mailed yesterday to check and see where my copies are and the publisher thought they had already sent them to me so they're checking on it.  It's odd having a book come out and no one bothering to tell you about it. Such is the work-for-hire lifestyle.

All that said, I've only been stiffed once in my life on payment so that's not too bad.  A lot of writers have some sad money tales to tell about pouring their heart into a work and then never seeing a dime.

I'll let you all know when I get the book and how you can find it.