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There’s a couple ways to look at doing commercial work:

1) A way to make money while you’re trying to hit it big. That’s the way a lot of people choose to see it whether it’s commercial writing, commercial art, or doing tedious copypasta database programming for Meglocorp Inc. Usually, people get into freelance fields because they have entertained the idea of being the next Hemingway, the next Rembrandt, or publishing the next World of Warcraft. It’s an admirable dream, and it’s not as far away from coming true as you feel deep down. It’s also not as close as you keep telling yourself it is every day.

A bit of encouragement is in order though. You can do what you want and get paid without Goin’ Out West. My friend just sold off his third screenplay and made six figures off of it. He’s just a delta-accented punk who put his nose to the grindstone and kept working at it for years. He doesn’t even see himself as anything special. The key, though, is that he put his head down and hands up–kept fighting. It worked for him in just a few short years.

2) The Valley of Broken Dreams (TM) (C) (XYZZY). This is where a startling majority of freelancers end up. I sometimes like to think of the commercial art fields as the place where dreams go to die. You always wanted to be a novelist or a painter, but you get caught up in the money and “just surviving”. Let me tell you: the years can go by very fast when you’ll start on that novel tomorrow.

I settled for survival until I had a wake-up call which told me that I don’t want to be limited. I’ve got something to say, and I’m going to make sure it gets crammed down the throat of as many English-speakers as possible whether they like it or not.

So, here’s some extracurricular activities which will both boost your freelance career as well as your dream career:

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It’s a simple question, do you answer your phone, or do you let it ring through to voicemail?  For that matter, do you leave voicemails or just send emails or texts?

When you’re running the oDesk client you usually don’t want to be interrupted.  It can be annoying to suspend and restart the client half a dozen times an hour because you keep getting interrupted.  Since six-year-olds don’t always leave Daddy alone even when they know they’re supposed to be asking their sister for anything they want, the temptation to ignore the phone when it rings is just that much stronger.
You might want to think twice before you do that, or at least check the caller ID.

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In a previous post, Becoming Invisible I mentioned some errors that shock readers out of the spell you are casting with your fine writing. I’ve accumulated more for my list and here they are.
Gaffs to avoid
These are mistakes I have collected from writing I have read or edited (and some I’ve made myself).

accept/except - She accepted (agreed to) the gifts, all except (excluding) the one from me.
principle/principal - The principle (rule) of parsimony was the principal (first, primary) reason I kept the article short.
discrete/discreet - The one means circumspect or prudent (discreet) and the other means separate from some group or category (discrete).
belief/believe - My belief (noun) is that you believe (verb) things I do not.
proceed/precede - To proceed is to continue or move on, precede means to go before in space or time, as an introduction might precede the main body of a book.
illusion/allusion - She mentioned the magician’s illusion (a false impression of reality) when making an allusion (implication or passing indirect reference) to how fake my passion seemed.
lay/lie - Lay is the action of placing something down (usually horizontally), while lie is the condition of being there. So, if I lay a book down on the table, it is lying there and it lies on the table.
to/too - The second means extremely, very, or in addition to. I am too (very) short for dancing and I am roundish too (in addition).
capital/capitol - Capitol is the building where the legislature meets, either in Washington D.C. or in a state. All the other meanings are capital.
then/than - Then is used for time and than is used in comparisons: I had more sense then (time) than (comparison) I have now.
accede/exceed - Accede means to agree to and exceed means to go beyond some measure or expectation.
access/excess - I had access to the secret vault where I found an excess of top secret documents.
all ready/ already - It’s already noon, are we all ready to go?
all together/altogether - We were all together on the train, although it was altogether too crowded to breathe.

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I was reading a writer’s forum the other day, and came across a post by someone who had been receiving files in .docx format and wasn’t quite sure how to handle them.  At it’s a helpful forum, various other people chimed in and explained that it was the new format …

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oDesk is a great place to get started as a freelance writer. I know- it’s where I got started.

What could be better than earning money while you develop your skills?

Unfortunately, there’s a flock of novice wannabes jumping in who can’t write well at all. They think commercial writing is a home business venture anyone with a computer and modem can do. If this describes your circumstances, I can assure you that you will make almost no money and become frustrated. But all of us start out flailing about a bit. Here’s how even the most basic beginner can develop into a decent, competent writer.
Write.
Writers write. That’s the old aphorism, but it’s still as true as ever. Pretend writers talk about writing, read about writing and maybe even dream about writing. But real writers write.

The difference is the one between planning a garden and planting (and caring for) an actual garden. Things happen outside of our wishes and beyond our control. The doing teaches what it means for me as an individual to be a writer. Anyone can sit and dream. I’m lazy, I understand. But it’s the act of writing, of getting your thoughts on paper, revising and rewording and shaping a piece so that it approximates whatever is happening in your head– that process can’t be replaced or skipped. Writers write.

If you aren’t yet good enough to write for money, write for free. There are sites begging for free content. Article mills and pay-per-click sites will take your practice prose while your writing muscles are developing. Write for your church or community newsletter. Write a blog. Learn the craft and learn something about yourself. The only thing you will know for certain before you write regularly is that writing regularly won’t be how you imagine it.

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Yesterday, I was wandering around town and having a generally good time. I haven’t been to the library in a while because I knew I had some fines I needed to pay off. One short story collection I got the last time I was there was so bad that I …

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How well do you know yourself?

For example I’m a left-handed male in my mid-forties; I’m a Meyers-Briggs INTP, Astract-Sequential, Visual Learner who prefers compromise to conflict.

That all sounds really wonderful, but what does it mean?  To some people it doesn’t mean anything, and to others it means a lot.  I could also have thrown in that I’m a Libra, which would mean something to some people and not to others; or I could tell you I was born in the Year of the Rabbit.

All these descriptors have one thing in common:  me.

So what do all these things about me have to do with you?

Quite a lot actually.

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So here you are, spending some time searching out work on oDesk and you keep seeing references to “Affiliates.”

That leads to two questions:  What’s an affiliate?  And, is it good for me?

The principle behind oDesk affiliates is simple:  more people can do more work than one person.  That’s why some people on oDesk band together to work on jobs that are too big for one person to handle alone.  Another advantage to affiliation is that you can have someone with a good reputation find work and manage quality control while you’re finding your feet.

I’m not a member of any affiliate companies on oDesk and right now I don’t intend to join or start one.

I’ve seen a number of people succeed that way on oDesk, so it’s not a decision I’ve taken lightly.

Read on to see why I am not doing it, and why it may be the right idea for you.

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As a writer, I’m interested in the written word. How it connects my mind to yours and how that process goes awry. I’d like to point out something that happens to me quite often on the Internet. I’m reading along, and like an electric shock, some error or other jumps off the page and jolts my noodle. The unseen, jarring pothole throws me off and for awhile I can’t focus on whatever the writer was saying; I can only ’see’ the error.

OK, we all make typos and grammar flubs. That’s not exactly what I mean. What I mean is a sort of usage error that has you publishing, ‘Don’t loose your bowel.’ instead of the intended: ‘Don’t lose your bowl.’
What the psychologists say.
Evolutionary psychology proposes that we are pattern formers because it allowed our predator ancestors to pick out the unusual from the background. And these ‘things that don’t fit’ meant food or danger or ‘go look– be curious’; survival for the guy or gal who could best pick out errors in the pattern.

The point is that the feeling of abrupt interruption is hard-wired in our brains. We can no more turn it off than we can turn off the ‘I think my foot itches’ switch. The significance for writing is that we strive to become invisible to our readers. Unless an article is about me, I shouldn’t appear in it. The dissonance our readers feel when a proofreading error gets onto the page yells out, “Look, someone wrote this– and they goofed.”

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The constant drone of the air-conditioner reminds me that summer’s here again.
As I write this the kids are in the pool out back, and half a dozen friends have joined them.  The fridge is full and tonight we’re having a barbecue.

It’s a common picture, and seeing as today’s Father’s Day I wouldn’t be surprised to see the scene repeated all over North America.  The only problem with this scene is the one astute readers have probably already noticed: the kids may be out in the back yard, but I’m here at my desk pounding away at my keyboard.

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