NS October 30th, 2007

No, not Halloween. November. Otherwise known around here as NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and also my own personal Get Freelance Career Started Or Die Month. Oh, and I have another (unpaid – boo! But I still love ya, gals) feature to write for The F Word. So essentially, for the duration of the next month, I will be writingwritingwriting, organising, submitting, blogging, editing, typing, updating, revising, researching, interviewing, networking and querying, not to mention a fair bit of pacing, crying, stressing, whining and undoubtedly drinking.

Fasten your seatbelts because if I’m going to embark on this crazy ride, I’m bringing you all with me. Air bags may deploy occasionally, hitting you square in the face, rendering you unconscious, but you’ll probably make it out okay. Whether I do or not remains to be seen. Wish me luck!

Now. To keep myself on task, I have made up a torturous to-do list for the next two weeks and want to post it here so that I can’t pretend I never wrote it and therefore can pretend it doesn’t exist. My deadline to get all of this done is Sunday November 11th.

• Check if library has good periodical section. If not, find out if any others nearby do
• Email two fellow freelancers to ask two specific questions
• Find more online magazines and their submission policies
• Find local/London/free mags and their submission policies
• Go through the giant stack of national women’s glossies sitting on my living room floor
• Join NUJ (National Union of Journalists) and Women Writers Network
• Order more resource books from Amazon
• Organise filing cabinet, computer files and work area
• Create spreadsheets to keep track of submissions
• Find sites where I can locate experts to interview on various subjects
• Research British media and copyright laws
• Buy printer
• Set myself up as self-employed for tax purposes
• Arrange visits to check out local daycares for Noble Child (considering putting her in for two half-days a week)
• Match existing ideas with 2-3 publications each and write queries
• Blog every day

I need you, my blogging biznitches, to keep me on track and what better way to achieve this than by promising to do something and asking you to encourage me through the beautiful art that is nagging. According to my husband I am a master nag so let me give you a few helpful tips:

• Be persistent. A true nag never lets something go
• Be vocal. Whispering isn’t going to spur your prey into action, fearing for life and limb
• Be repetitive. The person in need of direction often ignores first, second, third and even fourth reminders. Don’t be afraid to go double digits on their ass

I will give a progress report in a week. Let up, already!

• Career
• Comments(6)