I find myself writing a diary entry every night that is somewhere between three hundred to five hundred words. Strangely that comes easier than the posts I manage to write on this site, as I feel must be more professional. This is the gateway to my future career hopefully, although my twitter feed somehow comes up in the top results on Google. I find myself inspired by almost anything and everything and focusing on the task at hand can be very difficult. I pour my hear out in my writing whether it be an article type post for IGN or a short story based on some kind of post-apocalyptic world.

Where I am going with this is I have found it exceptionally hard to simply choose a freelance project that feels worth doing. All of them want masses of articles, from fifty to one hundred, and they would like them for anywhere from twenty cents to seventy five cents a piece. The hardest part is being able to let go of my personal passions and just write whatever they want me to write. Kind of makes me feel like a mercenary, good enough to help but the bad guys are the ones paying! There have been some articles that have seemed interesting but in freelance you put in your bid (essentially undercutting the competition) and then seeing if you get snatched up. Imagine an eBay for writers, where the bids keep going down, until eventually someone is almost paying to write the article for the company they won the bid on. It’s a harsh world, but I suppose you need to start somewhere.

Lucky for me my blog at IGN is getting more notice, more people are viewing it and random people who aren’t a friend of a friend. The more notice I receive the better it is. I once read an article that said many companies these days will actually Google a prospective employee, especially when it comes to jobs in the media or design and development. You must demonstrate consistent passion and knowledge of your particular field and sell yourself every single day. As a writer you are just as much your product as your story is. No one gets rich over night, not in this field. They work at it, slave at it and they perfect their craft. As hard as it has been and as mentally draining as it can be, I have been loving writing every day.

The book I mentioned in my last post, Elements of Style, is a general knowledge book I believe everyone should have. It’s a little over seventy pages and that is all it needs to be. Short, concise and straight to the point. The new book I’ve started on is a Scriptwriting book that probably should have learned from Elements of Style. If I remove much of the wordiness and meaningless sentences, I find that so far this Scriptwriting book has taught me nothing. Not even a review of topics I already knew. Just nothing. Which is fantastic, I give it another two chapters before I turn to Scriptwriting For Dummies. At least I figure that one should be dumbed down already!

My short story will be posted tomorrow regardless of it’s state of edit, and I will begin the actual plans for my projects next week. Also I will be submitting a guest review for a friend’s website on the video game Fallout: New Vegas by Bethesda in the next few hours and if it does end up being posted, I’ll toss out a link to it and you can decide if you’d like to share in my experiences of the barren wastelands of the Mojave.

Either way thanks for swinging by this little blog and I hope everyone out there has a great day!

Today’s blog post is brought to you by the letter A (as in awesome) and the number one (as in I am). Now, if I may direct your attention to the title of this post. Yes, there is a reason for it. No it’s not because I am styling (but thank you nonetheless) but it is because I just began reading a book on english grammar and proper punctuation. The rules may be pretty loosely defined over the years and different teachers have their own preferences, but this is the definitive rulebook if you would.

The book is entitled as my post is: Elements of Style. The authors are William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White. Thus far everything seems pretty common sense, that is until you’re revising your own work with a fine tooth comb. I have been working more on structure and sentence building as well as paragraph maintenance. If you’re a writer or consider yourself to be one, you need this book. I’ll bet even most successful authors have this in their libraries. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts it has been awhile since I’ve written this much, lately I’ve got the quantity down but now I need to focus on the quality.

The old articles and short stories will remain up in their choppy, garbled forms; but new articles will begin to rise from their ashes. The short story I am working on right now may require some more editing. I’m unsure if I will be able to as I just passed a significant event in the story. I’m not even sure how close I will be to completing a story as I write until I’ve had my fill each day. Today will be the sixth day writing it, and I’m already at over four thousand words. Wish me luck and hopefully I will be able to leave you all with at the very least an interesting story and some decent writing practice for myself!

Strangely enough I got inspired for a story about a daughter seeking out the father that walked out on her, only to discover that he wanted to be a part of her life so badly he documented the things he did and places he went for her. Not sure as to why this idea popped into my head, but I do like it and the potential characters I can write about. As Barney Stinson would say… “Challenge Accepted!”

I recently decided to give a go at freelancing as so many websites say it’s actually fairly easy to do. I am here today to officially debunk that myth. For writers, we are a passionate group, however the market for writing is pretty cut-throat and hard to really break into. I had never actually thought about freelancing until a few days ago when I came across an article that told me “The way to get started.” I got really excited, and have been stalking the few websites I have found to see if anything comes up within my interests or expertise. Let me put it to you this way, when they say “get started” they literally mean here’s the websites and go. What they don’t tell you is you’ll definitely want to broaden your horizons.

Freelance work seeming stems from a few things, what I can see on these boards for writing are mostly articles for teen magazines or even women’s magazines such as Cosmo or Cleo. I had no desire to write for these magazines, but on these kinds of websites, that seems to be the majority of the articles. All fluff pieces, talking about the top (insert number here) ways to (insert random thing here). If you want to freelance, and you’re desperate, then you’d be at the right place. The better solution is something I strangely didn’t see on any of these so called “How To Start in Freelancing” articles was to get out there and research. Your local paper may take your submission, your favourite magazine may also take your article and while you’re at it just blog it.

A lot of really reputable magazines and websites will have a place where you can actually submit your work and they will take it into advisement. Sometimes you’ll get feedback, and sometimes you won’t, but the important thing is getting your name out there. Be aware however, if you submit something that is absolutely terrible they will remember your name for all the wrong reasons, so be kind and please revise! I for one still haven’t picked up any freelance work as I’ve taken on two blogs and a short story this week. Majority of the freelance work on these websites want a mass commitment from you. I saw one that asked for sixty articles, minimum four hundred words each and they would pay you sixty cents a post. After sixty articles and twenty four thousand words, they will give you thirty six dollars. That is the reality of much of the freelancing I have seen thus far. They want more for less. I’ve been writing between two thousand and three thousand words a day, six days in a row now, which brings me up to roughly fifteen hundred words. No, I’m not getting paid for mine, but to think I’d need to write for ten days to crank out that many words (at least) for thirty six dollars makes my hourly rate probably a dollar twenty if I do three hours a day. I suppose what I’m saying is get a day job.

Freelancing is like training for the Olympics. It’s going to be hard, you won’t make any money until your famous and then you have to remain consistent to keep the money coming in. But the hardest part is training, write and read my friends, I cannot stress it enough. Even though I just recently got back into writing, I know I haven’t read enough lately to really enrich my stories. I just like all of you out there need to train, need to work at it and I’m still not even ready to practice for the practice squad yet. But I will know when I’m ready, and then I will make the push further, for now my goal is to consistently write over two thousand words a day and make my targets of two blog posts and a page of a short story. I’ll raise the bar next week! For now I am off to work and I hope everyone has a great “humpday”! The weekend fast approaches!

I dream of a world where I can be paid to create for some creative works company. Whether it be games, movies, television, books, at this point anything would be incredible. As it stands I am practising for bigger and better things. I’ve been looking online and have been wondering if there is script adaptation help somewhere. Thus far I feel like my articles are getting better, but I need to start practising for creative writing. This saturday I will be posting a short story which I started just on sunday. Thus far I’ve been writing a page and a half per day (8.5×11 @ 10pt) and it’s feeling good. I enjoy the main character and the world and I hope you guys will too. Also feel free to leave comments on the saturday blog post here if you catch any errors or want me to contact you about the story. I can use all the constructive criticism I can get!

After this story I might as a side project try to convert the mediocre assassin story into a tv show script. I’ve been watching How I Met Your Mother and just recently read the script for the pilot episode. It doesn’t seem too hard, or complicated, but I will need to find a script for something more action oriented to compare to if I want it to hold up. Also, does anyone out there have any great ideas for novel writing? I figure if I can manage to write two thousand words a day, an eventual reality might be to write a novel. Also has anyone been published who’s reading this? How did you manage and also, should I consider publishing myself?

As for articles I think I’m holding up pretty good, although I suppose I cannot combat the content of the IGN articles. I found myself openly laughing at the Star Wars versus Marvel article, but I do commend the artist. Also please check out my latest IGN post about 3D, I think you’ll find some interesting ideas in there and I’d love to hear about your thoughts on the topic too!

For now I continue checking the freelance work for anything remotely close to what I would like, but I did consider writing an article for a girly magazine entitled “Top five ways to make your bath time more romantic.” However, I haven’t sold out (yet) but it was paying forty dollars an article. If only people would stop trying to get into the game industry it would give me a chance! But for now I must be off to work for a few hours and then back to write more on my short story.

Many people state the hardest part of writing is getting started. Perhaps I’ve never experienced this or my issues differ, but I can always get started. I never have a plan when I write short stories, I always come up with a scene or an idea and it simply flows from that simple start. My problem seems to be keeping consistent, as well as finishing a task. I believe every writer will have his or her own issues while trying to write. My problem is I get sidetracked too easily by other ideas and it’s very hard to settle with the main one I’m already working on.

For instance, I was working on a story at one point where the main character was a knight who is slain by the very King he served. He ends up in Hell despite his fight in the name of God, and after a short while asks for a chance to avenge himself. Seeing this as an opportunity, the Devil sets him free upon the world again but much time has passed. The King is older, governs many smaller kingdoms and has a massive army. The fallen knight decides that he needs to somehow break into the castle. (Here’s where I got sidetracked) Upon entering the castle through the sewers, he stumbles upon a single sorceress who is one of the last magicians alive. Now great, the knight’s story is going well and he’s getting close to his goal, however I now have this girl who I wish to add more back story to. And thus, I begin.

The Sorceress is the last of the Magi, a race whose magical ability is second nature to them and most of which were wiped out in a war several hundred years before she was born. (I am already getting sidetracked by the thought of war of the magi) As she looks human, she has been raised by an elite group of assassins to hone her skills for sneaking and killing. However upon her arrival at the castle it was discovered that the King himself has a single trained Magi of his own, locking the two in battle. As they fought she was quickly overtaken by the battle trained Warlock and she was sedated and placed into the dungeon.

So now I’ve got two characters on the go, and I find myself drawn to the idea of the War of the Magi. Thousands of years ago the Magi were a race of people who lived harmoniously with the land. They were feared by humans as their innate magical abilities drove the minds of men wild with thoughts of destruction and their eventual extinction at the hands of these Witches and Wizards. The Magi however were peaceful and kept treaties with all neighbouring countries so they could remain within their country, secluded and protected. One day the Prince of the Magi wished to visit the human worlds despite it being forbidden by laws in both Magi and Human society. As the Magi kept spells to keep Magi in their country and keep Humans out, the Prince turned to dark magic to attempt his escape. His decent was quick, as in less than a month he was finding out how powerful the dark magic really was and began sacrificing his own people for more power. Eventually he broke free of the walls of the Magi kingdom and began his innocent exploration of the Human worlds. However the darkness had taken its toll on him as he felt the need more and more to sacrifice, almost as if being recharged every time he cast dark magic. Eventually he was caught as a serial killer and jailed, with his kingdom wondering where he had gone to. One of the Human guards who caught him caught a glimpse of the Magi Prince’s signet ring and reported it to his Captain. As the Human Kings found out about the Prince, it was deemed that the Magi had been a threat far too long and to war they would march.

So now I have three stories I could go into. Sure I could intertwine the two characters but for every character I create suddenly from their back story comes a whole world I could write about. The chain continues on and on, until I’ve drifted far enough away from the original concept that I almost forget where that story was heading. I also find when I write short fiction, I write in episodes. One page can have so much happen, and I also have the tendency to over or under describe. I remember the first time I tried to get published I must have changed some of my descriptions over twenty times. “Too Much” or “Too Little” were always the comments from the editors, no matter what I changed and then eventually the description changed so much I think I had gotten away from the characters I wanted. For me I can be inspired by the slightest thing and I have to be careful and diligent or I will fall straight off the point and onto something else. It’s one thing to know your issues and a completely different thing to be able to overcome them. Anyone out there find something hard about writing? Or do you have the same issue I do? Let me know in the comments below!