Mishmash Musings

I’m still in the process of gathering materials for my upcoming direct mail campaign, and I suddenly realized that I don’t have a real plan in place in the event that one of these businesses contacts me to come in for a meeting to discuss a possible project.

What I’m thinking I should do is develop a professional presentation for each potential client to highlight all the ways that I can help their business. I checked online and saw that there are several websites that offer quick turnaround on presentation folder printing, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to pull this off.

A couple of weeks ago I told you that I’m trying to get my act together and put on a more professional front when it comes to freelance writing. I’ve been looking at business cards this whole time, but since there are so many different options to consider, I haven’t been able to make a decision yet. How many colors do I want, which font style do I prefer, logo or no logo…. these are questions that I am still wrestling with. Hopefully I can take care of this soon!

My Tackle It Tuesday project for today was to write emails to 15 friends or family members that I haven’t contacted in awhile. I’m sorry to say that I failed miserably at this project, sending out only TWO personal emails today!! I got so wrapped up in other assignments that came up suddenly that I didn’t have time to take care of my personal emails. A pretty shoddy excuse, but what can I do? Looks like I’ll have the same project next week .

I’ve said before that one of my personal goals this year is to increase my presence as a freelance writer in the local business community. I hope to get more face-to-face gigs this year rather than focus strictly on online assignments as I’ve been doing in the past.

One thing I’m going to do to help meet my goal is to organize a direct mail campaign. I’ve identified 30 local businesses that might be interested in my writing services (I wanted to start small) and am planning on sending them a short letter inviting them to check out my websites for writing samples. I’ve printed the letter on good paper with a self-designed logo, and will send them in nice envelopes with personalized return address labels. I will mail these letters out this week and then follow up with phone calls if I don’t get any responses within 14 days.

For today’s Tackle-It Tuesday project, I decided to go with something personal. I have been just terrible at keeping in touch with friends and family over the past year or so, and I want to start changing that. So for today, I’m going to force myself to sit down and write at least 15 emails to people I haven’t contacted in more than two months. They can be short, they can be long, heck they can basically say the same thing… the point is that I want to reach out to these people and let them know that I’m still thinking of them even though I haven’t written in so long.

Since there’s not much else going on right now, I figured I’d do another one of those Manic Monday memes that I just found out about last week. I’m not really interested in the questions that were posed for this week, so I browsed through the archives and selected different ones. Since I’m not actually participating in the official meme, I figured this would be okay to do .

If you did not work (or if you don’t) how much TV would you/do you watch during the course of the day?

I work at home during the day, but I never have the TV on. I can’t stand daytime soaps, game shows, or talk shows, so after I watch SportsCenter in the morning, there’s really no reason for me to turn the TV on again until the primetime stuff comes on at night.

How long have you held your current job and how does it rate against your former jobs as far as overall happiness?

I’ve been working as a freelance writer for more than two years now, and this is by far the best job I’ve ever had. I love being my own boss, choosing my own schedule, and selecting the assignments I want to take in order to hit my monthly income goals. I sometimes feel that I work harder for myself than I ever did for another person, but at the same time it’s very rewarding to be able to do my own thing.

If you had to describe the thing done by someone at work that drives you the craziest, what would you say?

Back when I worked in an office, the thing that drove me the craziest was my supervisor asking me every two minutes what I was doing. I hate the whole concept of having to “look busy” and I absolutely detested getting bullshit assignments in order to pass the time. I worked faster and made fewer mistakes than my office mates, which is why I always had “downtime.” My reward for that was to get questioned and badgered, and that drove me completely bonkers.

Do you work a typical “9 to 5″ Monday to Friday work schedule?

Nope, not at all. I work the hours that I want and can take days off whenever I feel like it, so I definitely don’t have a set schedule. But generally I do write every day, and I’m up from 5:30am until midnight most days. Granted, I’m not sitting at my comptuer and writing constantly for that whole time, but my average day does feel very long.

Needless to say, I was off my diet again today in order to enjoy a big party at a friend’s house for the NFC Championship game. Chips, dip, wings, pizza, Italian beef, beer — we went all out with the empty calories!! But it was totally worth it as we saw the Bears romp to a 39-14 win. Next stop: Miami and the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl! That’s going to be another no-diet day, so I’m going to have my work cut out for me in terms of getting back on track after the football season.

Hey cool! BlogDesk worked perfectly! My post appeared on the site in just a few seconds… I’ll be using BD a lot from now on (though not exclusively since I still have to do administrative work through the WP control panel).