From Bunny Slippers to Business Plans
So apparently, just about everyone in my Twitter feed was at South by Southwest (SXSW) this past week, a conference (and seemingly non-stop party) that somehow brings together “music, independent films, and emerging technologies.” It’s that last that is of greatest interest to me and, as the web developers, bloggers, content producers, and new media entrepreneurs in my feed live-tweeted talks and workshops, party-hopped, and networked, I started to feel that I was totally missing out.
What a week! I announced the winners of my Career Coaching for Word Nerds contest, and have my very first appointment scheduled for this coming Wednesday. I’m way excited to start helping people find career fulfillment, and am also interested in seeing how the balance of editing, writing, and coaching shifts in my own life.
Not only that, but I managed to tear myself away from the computer twice this week in order grab drinky drinks with fellow entrepreneurs. On Monday, I met up with a former colleague who just resigned from her full-time job in order to throw herself into full-time freelance writing. As we’ve both been on the editing and writing sides of the table, I had a great time talking freelance strategy with her, and sharing on-the-job stories. And on Thursday, I headed to Ginger Man for happy hour with two fellow tweeps who had driven up from NC for a short vacation. So great to put faces to tweets!
I’m not sure yet whether this Sunday will be lazy or productive (I have an ebook to work on, and a new copywriting client) but, before I decide, let me give you some weekend reading:
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You guys! Two weeks ago, I announced the launch of my career coaching practice, Career Coaching for Word Nerds. To kick things off, I held a contest here on my blog, so that two lucky readers could win a month’s worth of career coaching, completely gratis.
Once again, I’m posting on behalf of YourTango.com, a web magazine with a focus on love and relationships. I happen to work there three days a week, as their Assistant Editor, and I’m pretty darn happy there. Not even the NJ-NY commute gets me down. Much.
So of course, I want all of you to work there with me as well. So it’s pretty fortuitous that we happen to be hiring:
The other day, I wrote a post on mentors, and where you can find them. I wrote it as part of a round table Holly Hoffman was putting together on her blog, WorkLoveLife. Well, the round table is finally up! Head on over to read 21 other posts about mentors. Among my favorites:
Related: 6 Ways To Find Your Next Mentor
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Back in January, Betsy Lerner — brilliant author of The Forest for the Trees — wrote up a quick post in which she remembered two of her early mentors. And then, a week ago, Holly Hoffman brought up the topic again. All this mentor-talk got me thinking back on my own favorites, and how important they’ve been to my career success.
I myself have never had one single, larger-than-life figure playing the part of mentor (talk about pressure). Rather, I’ve approached mentorship in much the same way career expert Marci Alboher does: as an ever-shifting collection of people I surround myself with…people I feel I can learn from, no matter what stage they’re at in their career. I highly recommend this approach.
Why do you need a mentor? Because you shouldn’t be working in a vacuum, stumbling along your career path without outside inspiration or guidance. Why do you need multiple mentors? Because it’s silly to rely on a single person, when an entire community can provide much better support, and a greater diversity of insight and advice.
So where can you find this army of advisers?
It’s been a busy week, what with the training of new interns at YourTango, my short stint at Vogue, my back-and-forth negotiation with a new client, and the launching of my coaching practice. And there’s still so much to do! (I’m hoping to make major headway on my copywriting project today, and also get some pitches out there.) But before I get started, I wanted to thank you all for the supportive comments you left on my career coaching contest post. I’m so excited to jump into things, and also super-nervous, and it helps to have such an amazing community of freelancers and writers and freelance writers cheering me on. Okay. Let’s not get emotional. Without further ado, here’s this week’s link love:
For quite some time now, I’ve been working toward opening my own private career coaching practice. The idea sprouted after about two years of full-time freelancing — due to all the e-mails I was receiving from young up-and-comers looking for advice — and, when the economy eventually went south, it just seemed like common sense to figure out new and interesting ways to diversify. The publishing landscape was changing, and it was time to look to the future, and to figure out how I might fit into an industry that was in flux.
Now, with exams and teleclasses behind me, and with seemingly more and more people floundering every day — wanting a change and not knowing what change to make, or how to go about making it — it seems about time to get this party started.
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For a few months now, I’ve been working on a copywriting project made up of very adult content. And so, I’ve been spending my weekends at Barnes & Noble, researching sexting and lube and anal sex for beginners and writing furiously. A few weeks ago, upon telling my husband about the latest topic I was researching, he smirked and said, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t take your work seriously.”
I get the feeling this is a problem many writers have, even if they aren’t writing about nude wrestling and shower sex.
So I’m trying to dive right back into things. Here at Freelancedom, and with my fledgling coaching practice. I’m even beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel with the copywriting project I’ve been spending so much time on. Maybe if I’m lucky, I can even get a few pitches out this weekend, to some people I’ve recently been put in contact with. Oh, and I do have that guest post to write. Ah, well. So much for weekends. Before all that, though, I’d like to present you with some interesting links…just to pass the time with:
