Laurie Winslow Sargent

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Childcare Trades with a Work-at-Home Friend

Have you ever considered childcare trades with other moms who write or otherwise work from home?

Here’s how it worked for me, with a few tips on how to make it work out well:

I found it very helpful, when my kids were preschoolers, doing childcare trades one or two days a week with another self-employed mom. That meant, of course, that one or two days a week I took care of someone else’s child, in exchange. But this had its perks too.

On days I had my friend’s child, I devoted myself to playing hard with both kids, which benefited us all. And when the kids played together without me, I got caught up on household tasks.

On days my daughter was at her friend’s home, she got to try different fun things I wouldn’t have thought of. I think I got more writing done on those days than I do now, even with my kids all grown and the house quiet all day. There is something about being pressured to get writing done in a shorter amount of time that can be very motivating. I think I sold more articles and wrote more book chapters during these times than any other, because I knew I needed to produce writing during those precious workdays!

I traded childcare with both my daughters, at different times (they were born six years apart). My first daughter, Aimee, was in preschool with Eric, and really liked playing with him. It turned out his mom worked from home doing drafting and art. (See this recent article about my friend Joanne and her artwork!) Since the kids loved being together anyway, and we had similar parenting styles, it was a win-win. Free childcare at least one day a week was wonderful for us, and the kids had a blast. We did the trades until the kids entered elementary school.

Six years later I thought it would be fun to do this again, with my youngest daughter Elisa, so I prayed for a good match. We started a church small group and a couple came who had a daughter the same age. As the girls had fun together, and my friend was also interested in writing, we then traded a day a week too, for several years. I also had the pleasure of seeing that friend’s own book published! (See my friend Barbara’s fun book, Growing Toward God: Life Lessons Inspired by the Wonderful Words of Kids.)

With both families we retained long-term friendships, and it is fun now seeing what’s happening with the kids now they are grown.

If you do the math, one day a week of free childcare for several years adds up to quite a savings, considering typical childcare rates. But the trades also gave me a bit of extra joy each week.

I have so many fun, fond memories of my playtimes with the kids and seeing how my daughters interacted with their buddies. I still remember how Alexandra loved it when I got out the vacuum and I pretended to be a vacuum monster. I got housework done and she would giggle as I periodically swiped the vacuum at her, growling. She would ask me to get out the vacuum monster when she came over! We also had fun making cornstarch goop. Cheap fun, and easy to clean up. We have many fun videos of the girls playing together.

My other daughter’s friend, Eric was adorable. Funny how some of his little words and phrases stuck in my mind. He called Tyrannosaurus Rex “Meteors” (meat-eaters) and I still do that now sometimes and laugh. He also called bad guys “bad doyes” and that also became part of our family’s vocabulary. The kids are now all out of college yet I caught myself yesterday calling a villain in a movie a bad doye! And I have the cutest videos of our kids dancing together at three years old.

This kind of arrangement can work out great if/when you:

1)      Pray for a good match of parenting styles and kids’ personalities.

2)      If you have more than one child and so does your friend, consider whether or not you can handle four instead of two kids. Two (my child and theirs) was perfect for me.

3)      Be willing to take a day of the week to play hard – it benefits all. But know too if you play hard and the kids still take naps you can wear them out, then get a little work done during their nap times.

4)      Be realistic about how many days you trade would be right for you without adding stress. One day a week might be perfect, two, too much. But you can alter how much you trade depending on how busy you and your friends’ workloads are at any given time.

5)      Think ahead a bit about activities to do with the kids. I had a double stroller (a Runabout I could add a second bike seat to) and we often went on walks to town. At home I had fun things handy for the kids to get into, including an ever-expanding dress up box, art supplies, and kids’ music.

6)      Be honest about any issues that come up – keep lines of communication open. If one parent does not approve of certain types of movies, honor that. But it’s ideal if the kids aren’t plugged into the TV all day anyway. You will also want to be sure both kids are safe in each others’ homes, which could be impacted by other family members in the household. It helps to become friends with the families first and become familiar with their parenting styles and family dynamics.

7)      Let it bring out the child in you on the play days! Then on your workdays, work hard!

8)      Honor your commitments, of course, so the relationship doesn’t become lopsided. If it’s not working out, you can always stop the trades while ideally retaining the relationships.

Write on!

Laurie

[Image by greyerbaby]

March 18, 2015
Freelance Awakening and Article Sale Dances : Writing for Magazines

Wonder how to start writing for magazines? Here’s my story:

I still recall, back in 1988 when my son was a toddler, the moment I heard that anybody who put their mind to it could write for magazines. Even me? It was quite a revelation – for some reason, I’d thought all magazines were staff written. Or at least written by famous writers. What an eye-opener the truth was! I picked up magazines on newsstands with a fresh eye.

Of course, my next question was, “How?”

How do you know what content magazine editors want? How do you approach them in a professional way? How would I learn to write well enough? And of course: What do they pay?”

I read market listings in the Writer’s Market (updated annually, usually available in library reference areas, but also available from Writers Digest Books). What a marvel! I found — under each magazine title — what editor to contact, best contact method, and pay rates: 10 cents to a dollar a word, depending on publication and author experience. (Sorry to say, rates haven’t changed much in two decades. But they still pay better than free blog posts, right?) Some publications give clues about content they need most.

The Writer’s Market is a great tool for finding publications currently purchasing articles. Listings include editors’ names, contact info, themes, and pay rates for articles. The Kindle version may be a good start for you, but if you want to keep up with updates to listings, I recommend the book+online edition. Bear in mind the WM is written the year before publication, so do check to be sure info is current. It helps to visit a publication’s website to verify their current writer’s guidelines.

Still I wondered: although anyone could submit, what were my chances of publication? Some writer’s guidelines tell you your odds of getting in if you are a newbie or mention short sections in their magazines that are most open to less experienced writers.

I was excited to learn that you usually don’t usually submit an article – you submit a query (article proposal), then write the article after you get a contract for it, with a deadline date and expected word count.

Some magazines pay on publication (which could be up to a year after you send in your finished article, but is often four months or so). Others pay after the editors have accepted your article. A few, if they decide not to use your article after all, pay a “kill fee” giving your rights back. (It’s a merciful death, at least with a consolation prize. And not really a death at all, because you can sell first rights to the article again.)

I tried my hand first at a personal experience story about an answered prayer, and submitted it to Power for Living. I still remember the day I pushed my son in his stroller to the post office in our tiny town, opened up our PO box, and in it was a check! For a whopping $100! I was so thrilled, I jumped up and down screeching. My son shouted “Yay!” too, although he had no idea what had gotten Mommy so excited.

I wrote more queries. Bombed out a few times. Overshot to big publications with a lot of competition. Got some standard, generic, rejection slips. Ouch. THAT wasn’t fun.

But I think I handled it better than most, because I’d run a different kind of business for the previous dozen years. As a crafts-person, I had created and sold a thousand of my off-loom weavings, to art galleries and via art shows. I’d learned not everyone had the same tastes, and that was OK. So I tried to look at my writing as a product, not an extension of my personality. A product I could improve on, but might not fit every publication or season or theme.

Here’s one analogy: some customers loved my weavings, but ordered colors and designs different from my samples. I figured some magazines might like my writing style, but prefer a different topic or treatment of the topic, or the timing might not be right.

So I pressed on.

I kept hearing from writing sources to “write what you know”. To me, that included what I had learned or was in the process of learning from others. One frustration for me at that time was that my toddler son was outgrowing his clothes WAY too rapidly (within months). I realized it was due to the styles I’d chosen or had been given as gifts. So I informally interviewed other moms to figure out what styles a child could wear for the longest periods of time. I fired off a query to Baby Talk, telling them what I was researching and how I’d present the results. I just figured that if I as a mom had questions, so might other moms.

I was right! And ecstatic when a contract arrived in the mail, offering me a nice per-word rate and a deadline. I had an idea for a second article at the same time, and Baby Talk decided to run them together, in the same issue. The day that glossy magazine arrived in the mail, with my articles illustrated and my own byline, I was over the moon!

I’m a bit sad to say I miss those moments when I danced with excitement on having articles accepted. I must be getting a bit jaded now that I’ve been honored to have 100+ articles sold over the years. I opened an envelope recently with a check for $1100 from one magazine, and shame on me, I just breathed “Whew.” I was just glad it had arrived in time to pay off a bill. I did not dance in the least.

So excuse me. I need to take a moment to relive that moment. To think about how hard it still can be to make those sales, and …

JUMP FOR JOY!

Have you had a recent success in writing for magazines that made you burst with excitement? Tell us about it in a comment, below! Give some hope to all those new freelancers looking forward to the day they can dance at the mailbox.

[Image courtesy of stockimages/freedigitalphotos.net]

March 17, 2015
How to Avoid Confusing Your Readers

In both fiction and nonfiction stories, as a writer avoid confusing your readers from the start. Keep their momentum and absorption in your story.

So… maybe I have too active an imagination. Or I jump to conclusions way too fast. But the moment you, as an author, introduce a person in your story, I immediately picture them as a certain age and with other character traits … unless you tell me otherwise. Not necessarily an exact age — but I at least imagine a middle-aged person, or a teen, preschooler or toddler.

If a few sentences to a few paragraphs later you clarify their age, and I have to radically correct my original perception, I feel dumb as a reader.

What did I miss? I feel compelled to go back and reread from the beginning. That distracts me from your story and frustrates me a bit.

For example, in the opening sentence of one story, in an otherwise excellent chapter in a very good book, I read something similar to this:

Cindy ran across the lawn at full speed. “Sam!” she yelled.

So…I’m picturing Cindy around my age, for lack of other info. Middle aged. A bit overweight but in OK shape. Then I read:

Sam, her grandfather, turned just as Cindy took a flying leap and landed in his arms. They often played this game.

Then I read that he flings her high over his head. I’m thinking, Wow! That is one strong grandpa! And I can’t recall the last time I took a flying leap!

Oh, wait, this must be a younger person. Then I read, four paragraphs into the story,

“’Gin, ‘Gin!” and “Whee!”

OH. This must be a preschooler.

I reread the story from the beginning. Now makes sense, but the author lost my momentum as a reader. Worse yet, I kept a lookout for similar problems in other stories in the book, since I didn’t want to feel dumb again. An unnecessary distraction.

This is a common problem for writers, with natural causes. The writer fully pictures the character/true person in his or her head from the start, in at least a general age range. So it’s assumed the reader will too.

This is where critique groups come in so handy! Your pro-writing friends will catch potential hitches with character traits. That’s because they, too, are readers, and if they themselves feel momentarily confused can tell you so honestly.

And as you become sensitized to this, you’ll be less likely to do it ‘gin.

Grins!

Laurie

(Image courtesy of potowizard / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

August 5, 2014
Answering: “What is Paperli?” for Authors

Pro authors ask me: “What IS Paperli (paper.li)? An online newspaper or magazine? If I see myself mentioned in a Twitter link, what should I do?”

Are people sharing your links on Twitter? Here’s how Paper.li helps.

They’re confused even further when they click a Paperli (paper.li) link on Twitter that includes their author Twitter handle, then can’t find where in the paper they were mentioned and why.

So let’s clarify what Paperli (Paper.li) papers are, and aren’t, including:

* how a paper like this is created, including how editors choose content,

* how to locate a link in a Paperli to see how and why you were mentioned,

* if, how and when to thank Paperli editors for mentioning you,

* whether or not to Retweet paper.li links on Twitter that mentioned you.

HOW a PAPER.LI PAPER is CREATED

Understand: paper.li is an AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED link collector. It simply collects links posted on Twitter. The “editor” of the paper (a Twitter user) sets parameters for his or her paper, then lets paper.li do its thing.
For example, my Family Faith and Writing Friday Post is set to automatically collect links I posted on Twitter the previous week on my Twitter page, @LaurieSargent. My goal is to offer a weekly summary of great links I shared. It shows in a newspaper style format, with headlines linking directly to the articles at their original sites.

Editors can control what links are collected in these 3 ways:

1. Editors can set Paperli up to only gather links directly posted on their own Twitter pages, by them.
2. AND/OR: The paper.li site is is given a list of specific Twitter handles to auto-follow and post links from. That means any link that person posts. I, personally, only link my Paperli to a few Twitter handles: literary agents who pretty much always post items of interest to my writing audience.

So, no, author friends: I won’t automatically have Paperli automatically add all your links to my paper via your Twitter handle. Here’s why: if you are like me, you tweet all sorts of links that may not fit the theme of my paper and my particular audience. My paper would begin to lose focus. HOWEVER, if we are mutual followers on Twitter, and I see great links to your articles, I WILL tweet those links, which WILL end up in my Paperli.

3. AND/OR: The paper editor tells paper.li to automatically find tweets on specific topics, identified by hashtags. This too much of a wildcard for me personally, for my own Paperli, unless I can quickly edit out any oddball stuff paper.li picks up for me. I don’t want readers to think I’m endorsing something I’m not. But if I get more active with editing my paper I may add a few hashtags.

Editors also control how often the paper is “published”. I choose weekly, so I can take a few minutes to edit/clean up the paper before it travels too far. Many with daily papers simply can’t keep up with that.

HELP! I SEE I WAS MENTIONED, BUT CAN’T SEE WHERE!

Be sure you are reading the right edition of the paper. If it is a daily paper and the paper.li tweet that mentioned you was from three days ago, go to that day’s edition. Click the Archives link (next to “Read current edition”), then the right date.

Also helpful, once in the correct day’s edition, is to click the ALL ARTICLES or STORIES links. There, the articles appear in list view; you might see your Mention more easily.

Note, authors, that your name may show up in a paper ONLY because you shared a link you found interesting. If the link you shared does not go directly to your website, but instead goes to an article on a different site, that’s where a click will take them to read the article. It will include a note that it was “shared by” you. This can still be nice because readers of the paper may then realize you have a tendency to share interesting stuff, so may click to your Twitter handle (linked to your name in the Shared by). They may then Follow you, and click on your website address in your Twitter bio to read about all your great books.

Just remember that Paperli’s focus is on the article shared, not the author of the tweet. If you see articles about other authors mentioned far more often than you, it’s because those authors are active on Twitter, posting great tweets that multiple people like and want to Retweet. Or they are such interesting people, many folks on twitter are tweeting about them. You can’t force this. Get active on Twitter, interact with others, post great stuff, and Paperli papers are bound to pick up your links naturally.

SHOULD AUTHORS THANK A PAPERLI EDITOR BY HITTING REPLY TO A PAPERLI TWEET?

Well . . . remember that tweets from paper.li are auto-generated. You are thanking the editor for something they may not even realized they did. Since my paper is a weekly (always on Fridays), I usually know who I’ve mentioned and why. But many papers are set to default to daily recreation, and even the editors don’t know what appeared what day. I suggest that you DON’T hit Reply on Twitter asking them why you were mentioned unless it’s a close friend. You will simply be making them do what you can do: go to the paper to find out. Honor their time.

HOWEVER: If someone regularly Retweets your links in their Paperli, it’s nice to send them a direct tweet or message, thanking them for getting your name out there so often.

Or if you find a link directly to your website in their Paperli, yes, thank them! ( If you’re smart, in your thank you, say “Thanks, XYZ for mentioning my article (include link) in your Paperli – I appreciate that. Friends, do Follow & visit XYZ (include their website).” The best way to thank someone is to direct others to them.

SHOULD AUTHORS RETWEET PAPER.LI TWEETS THAT MENTIONED THEM?

Maybe . . . if you trust the content of the paper, trust the editor, and think your followers might be interested in many of the articles in that paper. For example, one paper that often mentions me, which frequently contains other articles I like, is FAYL Parenting Ideas. Retweeting is a nice favor to the editor. Also, if a bunch of your author pals are also mentioned in the same automated paper.li tweet you are, a Retweet is a nice way to introduce your Twitter followers to them. But I suggest you check the paper first to be sure you truly want to lead your own Followers to that issue of that paper, which may have accidentally picked up a bizarre article via a hashtag.

And yes, do Retweet if the mention of you in the paper connects directly with an article link leading to your site AND you like the rest of the paper’s content. But frankly, it can be laborious to take time to see if my handle @LaurieSargent was in the paper because I shared a link to my own site or elsewhere. So if mentioned somewhere, I am simply grateful, say a prayer of thanks, and let God do His thing to let that Mention of me connect me or help others. I may get to know the editor of the paper, and if we are like-minded, I’ll do what I can to periodically shine the spotlight back on them.

Have you had a positive experience with a paper.li paper? Or have a lingering question about this? Leave a Comment below — I’d love to connect with you.

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June 10, 2014