Warning: Freelance writing may cause WADD
Today’s to-do list:
- Collect info for a newsletter for a telephony and call center company (15 minutes)
- Meet with a regular client about a seminar we’re putting together (2 hours)
- Interview a board member about renewable energy sources for her monthly column from the chair (30 minutes)
- Interview a VP from a printing company about reducing paper handouts at educational events (15-30 minutes)
- Discuss an industry article about online job boards plus development of a company blog (15 minutes)
- Follow up with a dentist regarding an article about his charity work (5 minutes)
- Type up my notes for an article about new ideas for trade show sponsorship (30 minutes)
Six clients and seven tasks in one day — pretty typical.
Since I opened my doors as a freelance copywriter just about one year ago, I’ve developed a syndrome I call WADD — Writing Attention Deficit Disorder. I work on multiple projects from multiple clients every day… sometimes for 15 minutes, an hour, two hours…. I don’t think I’ve ever dedicated a full day to one project except at the very beginning, when all I had was one project at a time. Even an uninterrupted 4-hour block is rare, except on the weekends, when I tend to knock out my “chunky” projects.
This kind of schedule suits me because I love the variety and get a little bored if all I’m doing is writing one paper for three days. I’m definitely a little ADD in everything I do, so switching from one project to another rapidly and often actually keeps me more productive than working for hours and hours on one project.
But this doesn’t bode well for my plans to write a book. I get up every morning and post to this blog, with entries taking 15 minutes to a full hour. When I’m ready to pull all this stuff into a book, it’ll be tough for me to sit for 6-8 hours at a time and cobble all these pieces together. In addition, I tend to put off big projects like the book or a big writing project, even if someone’s paying me for it. If I am looking at 6 hours of work without any back and forth with the client, I keep hitting the snooze button on the due date alarm.
I admire people like copyeditors who can spend hours, days, weeks on one project, meticulously reading chapter after chapter for hours at a time. I guess I could do it if I forced myself, but I think I’d find too many distractions to take me away from the computer.
steph on 09 Jul 2008 at 9:40 am #
It’s hard, I tell you! I usually have projects that are an average of 300 pages. It IS hard to focus on one thing for a long time. I have such a difficult time concentrating, especially because usually the books are kind of boring. As you imagine, I DO find too many distractions, but it eventually gets done and I do receive good feedback so I know the distractions didn’t keep me from doing a good job. The issue is that I could be doing it all faster if I was more focused. I could be doing more jobs and bringing in more money. The deadlines are often longer than I need. I’ve never missed one but I rarely hand in a project as early as I could.
I like having articles (usually an average of twenty pages) to do in between or to work on anthologies, which at least breaks up the writing style if not the topic.
steph on 09 Jul 2008 at 9:43 am #
PS. Looking at your schedule I feel slightly relieved. I keep wondering if I should be a freelance writer instead of editor, but that does not look like something I’d enjoy! Not because of the variety but the subject matter.I think if anything (for money), I’d rather write essays for mags and stuff. But that will prove difficult since I never leave this house. Gilbert did it because she travelled everywhere.
Beth on 10 Jul 2008 at 9:46 am #
Steph, I think every freelancer has a different schedule. I would imagine that some writers end up working on very large projects and nothing else. I turned down bidding on a gig that would have been full time for 4 or 6 months. That would have killed my relationship with my other clients and made me want to stab myself.
David - Los Angeles Internet Marketing on 13 Jul 2008 at 1:12 am #
I’m not exactly in the writing biz (I try to dump that on other people when I can help it), but I totally sympathize with the “push 6 hour at a shot projects off” syndrome… Any suggestions you have for curing it would be much appreciated
BTW, can you email me what your rates are?
Thanks,
David