Need to Get Back Your Commitments

Misplaced commitments and completely wayward planning. The two reasons, why some of us are bound to fail in life. When we take up a task to work on, how do we actually approach it. Is it with a sense of burden or is it with a sense of joy.
If we are to take up any work with a sense of burden in our mind, chances are that we will either never be able to complete it or will end messing it up all the more.
It is therefore every important that we understand the need to undertake work with a firm sense of enjoyment. Enjoyment in undertaking work will only come when we are a very understanding on the need why we are undertaking work. In most case the approach we have towards our day job is one of burden. It is rarely that after years of slogging out at our desk morning to evening and sometimes late in the night, we will continue to enjoy it. In most cases we would just love to kick our bosses out of our lives.
However, it is important that we understand, the important of why we are working. End of the day we got to pay out bills. And till such time that we have a secondary source of income which is good enough to become our primary form of money making, kicking out boss will be one of the most suicidal things to do.

Reached a small milestone on Associated Content

I have finished writing my first set of 10 articles on Associated Content. Though the days have gone by without any financial benefits from writing, I must agree that the experience has been incredible. I enjoyed the feeling that I was writing again. I realized that words had begun to flow much freely from my mind through to the keyboard.
Though in monetary terms this small milestone has not been of much import, I now realize the benefits of writing for such article directory sites. On Associated Content, I now have over 150 page views, irrelevant by all standards but the first steps are the most difficult ones to take. For me these 150 page views are an important achievement as a writer. Even if I am to discount 50 of those views considering them to be my own having at least 100 views on my articles makes me feel good.
My writing experience has been pretty mixed. When I started about 15 days back, I had thought that I could comfortably submit about 5 unique articles each day. But, as I began the process, I realized how difficult it actually is. Writing 5 unique articles a day will require much great focus and speed. I realize that, it also depends on the knowledge that the writer may possess on the given topic. For me, who has reinitiated writing after such a long gap, writing with such speed and focus will only come with experience.
And before I am able to do that, I will have to focus on building up some other weak areas to regain my capabilities as a writer.
Firstly, I believe that it is now time to begin writing on my core area of interest. The question is not about producing high quality research papers, the problem lies in building the skill to produce short snappy articles on global affairs and current affairs which I can upload on to Associated Content and other similar sites. During this week, I will primarily focus on writing short perspective articles on some of the most important happenings in global affairs. The expected outcome from this work will be to build up my repository of targeted research on global affairs and rejuvenate my mind to deliver perspective thinking.
By the end of the week or better still, when I complete my next set of 10 articles I will report back on the progress and future steps that I intend to take.

How to find Time to do things

Over the past few months, I have been working around the idea of better time management. The whole idea is to build a time management process that takes into consideration the fact that we are part of a whole. The common principles of time management though address certain core issues do not address an area of key concern. They address the issue with an individualistic prespective discounting the fact that we work within our environment. I have come to believe that good time management can only succeed if it comes from within. Principles that you may adopt in a certain circumstance may not necessairly deliver the same result in another environment. It is therefore very important that rules of time management this core factor into consideration.

Check out my recently published content on AC: How to find Time to do things

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How to find your writing niche

Finding a writing niche is one of the first steps for developing a long term and sustainable writing career. I have recently published an article on Associated Content which addresses this concerns based on the line of which I have been working to find my own niche area. Please check out my recently published content on AC:

How to Find Your Writing Niche

Your thoughts, opinions and comments are always welcome!

Write or Die – Pretty Interesting

It has been some days now that I have wanted to use this writing tool “write or die” available at www.writeordie.drwicked.com. This looks to be a very interesting web based tool for people like me who are prone to multiple distractions when they sit to write. Today is the first time I am using this tool and the first article that I am writing here is on the tool itself and how my emotions are running as I work on this writing tool.
For starters, this tool as I understand is programmed to be an aid for you to avoid distractions. There seems to be various levels of punishment which we can choose from. What makes it interesting is that there is a twitter widget which shows what people are saying about this tool. It actually is very interesting to read what people have to say on how they are using this tool. Any author just wrote in to say that she typed 1000 words of her novel using this tool. It is really incredible if this tool is helpful as it is being made to be.
As I am writing I find that the white screen behind turns pink for a few seconds and then changes. I wonder what that is for. However, I am continuing to write as I have programmed this to write 400 words in 10 minutes. I actually do not know what will happen once that time elapses; probably I will only be able to write about that in my next blog post if something drastic is to happen. It is 4 minutes and 6 seconds now and I have only written 224 words here. Actually it is interesting to note how the mind works. When we are sitting away from the computer thinking about the next article we wish to write there are hundreds of ideas gushing past our mind. However, when we actually sit in front of the computer to begin writing, we realize how difficult it is to assimilate the ideas and get the flow of words out from our minds. I find that my mind has suddenly hit a road block all my ideas are feeling lost.
I am still working hard on this article. 1 minute and 26 seconds to go and I have to write another 75 words to reach 400. I think I will be able to do it. I think I can make it. This is actually getting very exciting, provided I do not make any mistakes that I have to go back and delete. Now it is 30 seconds to go and 30 words to writing. I don’t think I will make it but I will still try to do it, smaller the words the better to reach my target. It is almost the end and I think I can do it.
Can u believe it; I actually succeed in writing those 400 words in 10 minutes. Wow. That’s a good show. This looks to be a great tool to be in the resource centre of my blog. I am all excited about this, will now make it more challenging may be I will think about a topic before I begin writing. That will make it all the more difficult. I realize that the piece that I have written is not very intelligent, it is just what I was doing and that is what made it possible to complete the article – I think.

I have edited this post substantially to make it readable.

How to Plan Quitting your Day Job

Check out my recently published content on AC:

How to Plan Quitting Your Day Job

Searching for a Freelance Writing Opportunity

Since the time I decided to build back my freelance writing career, I have been on the active lookout for freelance writing jobs. There are many website that offer you such opportunities, however a lot of it depends on where you are based. Some of the interesting opportunities that I found were not available for Indian writers. However, there are many others which you can tap into. I have found that freelance writing opportunities can mostly be divided into three broad categories.
1. Writing opportunities available for bidding: These are the most typical form in which writing opportunities are available on the Internet. You register yourself on a website and then begin quoting your price for undertaking a writing assignment. Typically, the client will contact you if he likes your bid. He will interview you and others like you. Finally, you may land with the assignment if you and the client meet on common ground. The advantage of bidding sites is that you get to quote your price and may land up with some really long term assignments of your choice. However, I find that for a new writer trying to get a freelance job, this may turn out to be quite a frustrating experience. I find that the bidding marketplace is completely crowded. You might just end up bidding for assignments after assignments and keep getting rejected because of the sheer number of bidding that each writing opportunity receives. My experience bidding sites tells me that there are mostly writers from India and a few other developing countries who under cut bid. They quote figures which are abusively low, promising the heveans to clients. Only a few of them actually survive in the long haul. But with so many new aspiring freelance writers joining the ranks everyday the place is always crowded.
2. Writing opportunities directly advertised: One of the most popular site to find such opportunities is Craiglist. I have found that there are hundreds of other sites that offer job listing of freelance writing opportunities. But when I compare it to bidding sites I find that the effort and patience required to search is much more. When you visit a freelance job marketplace you know for such that the listings there are current. You find all the suitable jobs listing neatly and under each category. But when you are searching out for opportunities across on the Internet, it can prove to me a rather difficult task. In fact there are a few aggregation websites which try to assimilate all the freelance oppoortunities and list the together for you. But my experience with them has not been very happy. I find that many of the have outdated listings as the creator does not care to keep a track of the posting and continues to display it on the website even for years. However, I must agree that I have been lucky with some of these sites and have found that clients tend to reply much faster requesting for samples when compared to bidding sites. In this category, I will also include webmaster forums. I landed my first freelance writing assignment through a webmaster forum. In webmaster forums, chances are that you will find webmasters and site owners placing request for freelance content writers. I must agree that this place is equally crowded with mostly Indian writers trying to undercut and quote really low. One also needs to be careful to see if the opportunities are current or something outdated.
3. Article Publishing Sites: The world wide web is loaded with all types of article publishing sites many of them with different payment models. Some of them are very popular. The offer different payment models for writers. With most of them based in the US, I have found that they have a few very advantegous offers for US and European writers. If you are logging in from India, these offers may not be available. But still these sites are an option that you can definitely consider. Typically, these sites work on a revenue sharing model. There are other sites that sell your articles to content managers and webmasters. These sites allow you to quote a price for your articles. Once the article is sold they keep a certain percentage of the amount received.
Broadly speaking these are the three categories under which you will find that most freelance writing jobs are available. However, I must agree that it is indeed difficult to actually divide them into any proper schematic listing. Some may be overlapping in there offering. But it will definitely help in understanding these three broad categorisations.
What is it that I must do to launch my freelance writing career? What is the strategy I must adopt for breaking into freelance writing and get some good paying client? Where are the opportunities that I must tap? I will address these questions in another post.

Need for Mind Management

As I venture out to set-up my career as a freelance writer, the most difficult bit that I realized is mind-management. I must agree that it is not easy as it might feels. As I began hunting for freelance writing opportunities, I did land up with a few of them. But I soon began to feel that, that was not what I was looking out to do. I wanted something different. But what exactly was I looking out for – I didn’t know. During this initial period, I must agree that I was not flooded with lots of orders and opportunities which I couldn’t handle. It is just that I was looking at building up a niche area of writing – I had thought about one- but could not find opportunities in those areas. I began thinking that I would work better and harder if I get opportunities in my line of work in the areas that I am looking at. But that was not the case to be. Soon I realized that I was doing nothing but procrastinating about my work. Every time I used to sit in front of my computer, I would merely end up searching for more opportunities on the Internet. I could not maintain the consistency of writing. I could have easily have built my profile upwards as a freelance writer taking up jobs as they came by, earned some money off them and kept looking for more and more opportunities in my area of interest. But I failed to do that. Now, as I am looking at a more focused approach to building up my freelance writing career I need to rebuild my portfolio of work. Through the coming days my intention would be focus on developing a mind management mechanism which will help me focus my energies with renewed vigour. I have spent some time thinking about the mechanism that I need to build up. The primarily most focus must be on managing my time as a freelance writer. I will keep updating my blog on my experiments!

My Blog: Finding Misplaced Objectives

I have been struggling with my blog for sometime now. I realize now that it is not as easy as it may look. Start a blog – write about what you like – and begin earning money. They make it sound to easy.
For me, blogging was a rather late endeavor. By the time I set up my blogs the space was already crowded. It essentially meant that I was not sharing any new knowledge with anyone across the globe. What I had to say was already known. I could not claim to be the sharing anything more with my readers. The feeling that I was not able to given anything original and new to my possible readers made the whole exercise seem futile – making the whole blogging experience more of a burden. Every time I scribbled a few thoughts I used to think what use is this for, people may already be knowing about this or what am I writing this for, who is interested in reading this after all.
Through the past few months, I have been thinking about this blog and even considering that it be closed down – laid to rest rather that live a truncated life. I have not found it creating any value whatsoever neither for others nor for me. I could not garner the energy and enthusiasm to continue writing here till one day….
As I was rummaging through some of my old papers and I came across a few scribbling notes on which I had written my thoughts before I actually began this blog.
Whew! I had spend days deciding whether I should be blogging after all. Way back then months before I actually began the blog, I had decided that my blog would first and foremost be for me. I would be the primary target audience of this blog. If I write a blog it would be to tell myself of my struggles, my aspirations, my dreams and desires to give words to my thoughts. I realized that there would be many more like me who had similar aspirations. Anyone else who reads my blog would be nothing more than a secondary audience. I would definitely be interested in building up a residual visitor base of people who has aspirations like me. People who were looking at creating a career of their own – trying to build up their life – nurturing an idea – working on a thought. But the primary objective of my blog would be to write for myself. To write the way I wanted to, to make the mistakes I wanted to, to write as long or as short as my thought were.
Soon I realized that blogging today is a different game altogether. The more you search for blogs the more your search lands you in some site which tells you how to make money from blogging. Working on my desire to build up a full time freelance writing career, I got drawn into the excitement around.
Somewhere, somehow my desire to build a freelance career and my objective of blogging merged and then everything got confused.
I began wondering if this blog could ever earn me any money. Earning money from a blog would mean that I had to produce unique material, speak from my experience or be already earning thousands of dollars in revenue from my blogs and writing. Neither was the case. Why would anyone then visit me or read my blog.

And them a whole process of introspection – atma manthan (as India’s former Prime MinisterMr. Atal Bihari Vajpaee would have called it) began. It was enlightening, a sort of nirvana for me. I realised that I was procrastinating primarily because I was not letting the writer in me to be free. I was more worried about what my non-existent readers would think rather than gratifying my thought process and given words to them. I realized that I had to look back at my blogging objective again – outline them better before I decided to continue or close down my blog.

Importance of Research in Successful Freelance Writing

The importance of research for developing a successful freelance writing career cannot in the least be underestimated. As freelance authors and writers it is very important that we keep building our skills on a continuous basis. It is important that we identify a niche, an area in which we want to develop our knowledge skills and then keep hammering on it till we develop expertise in our chosen field.

To think that one has to do a lot of reading and research on topics is in itself an abhorring thought. We are here to make money and our mind is limited in that focus. Many freelance writing guides tell us that as freelance authors and writers we need to be open to accepting writing assignments on any subject and write on it if our intention is to make money from writing as a career. To achieve this objective, a oft heard (and read) advice is that we should research only to the extent we are required to to complete an assignment. Understandably, one cannot be expected to know everything under the sun. Freelance writer guides are right to that extent. However some of us will sooner than later realize the desire within us that we develop some specific areas of writing in which we can earn substantially higher incomes and with a much faster turnaround time. It is here that the importance of doing continuous research comes to fore.
We may not have an immediate writing assignment in that area of interest, however a bit of research will tell us what is the world looking for or what are the areas that are picking up in the global Internet search environment. If we begin to start researching on these topics we have a much higher chance of landing up with high paying assignments sooner than we think.
What better way than research, to be prepared to bag newer writing assignments and deliver them at a much faster turnaround rate.