A Helpful Resource for Freelancers

I've gotten lucky recently, having scored two freelance gigs that not only are fun and challenging but also are through respectable companies that pay. Opportunities for paid work don't present themselves regularly; with that in mind, I'd like to share a resource addressing a question that I think burns at the back of many freelancers' minds:

Should I Work for Free?

Flow charts make all matters fun to ponder.

"Why Not Wings?"

While I was talking with a friend, the subject of New Year's resolutions came up, as it tends to do every year around this time.

"I don't like the word 'resolution,'" I told him. "I mean, it should be a strong word, resolve, you know, but because of how it's been used for New Year's, it's gotten all weak and lazy. Now it means that you let the calendar decide when you're going to start being a better person, which, really, just gives you some other external force to blame when you inevitably go back to being a jackass. As if half the world needed another way to avoid that responsibility.

"I like 'goals,'" I said. "I think that's a good word."

"Got any goals, then?" my friend asked.

I nodded. "I'm going to try to grow wings," I said.

My friend raised his eyebrows, shook his head. "Only you," he said. "Okay. What kind of wings you got in mind?"

"Crow," I told him. "I don't think I could grow anything else and be taken seriously. I mean, come on. Imagine someone gets called up for an open mic and they flit up to the stage on these dinky little hummingbird wings. And then imagine they go, 'I've got some poetry I want to share with you tonight.'"

"I see your point," he said.

But that wasn't what I was telling my friend at all. What I was telling him was something that already hung everywhere around us, over our heads and on top of our shoulders, as sharp as the chill in the air, which was that the previous year had been almost absolute crap for just about everybody we knew. If someone had told me at the beginning of the year, in fact, all the details of how bad it was going to be, I would have called bull. Impossible, I would have said. And yet, there it was. There it had been.

So in the face of all that impossibility, why not? Why not wings?

"I think black feathers are the way to go to show I mean business," I said.

"Got any other goals?" my friend asked. "Any that are a little more realistic?"

 "The usual," I said, shrugging. "Career goals, some publishing goals."

My friend let his cigarette hand fall to his side and squinted at me. "I think I see something sticking out of your back," he murmured.

I had no cigarette and so had been playing with my breath, wishing I could trick it into curls and loops as it spread out in front of me against the whip crack of the air. When my friend said that, though, I won't lie--I let a cloud of my breath just go. I bit back a tiny laugh and a little bit of hope, holding those in my mouth in its place. My friend reached behind me and with only his fingertips touched my shoulderblade.

He plucked.

"Just a piece of sweater fuzz," he said, showing me the offending curl of black cotton.

My laugh left me like a vapor trail in reverse. "One time," I said, "I had a piece of fuzz on my arm, right above my wrist. But it was curled up so tightly, and I had never seen it before, and I guess static was keeping it stuck to my skin--I swore I had all of a sudden developed cancer."

My friend laughed.

"See," he said, "long ago when you looked at sweater fuzz, you assumed you had a cancerous mole. Now you hear about it and hope you have wings. Already your outlook is brighter." He nodded. "I think you set a good goal, actually."

I thought about this and smiled.

"What about you?" I asked him. "Got any goals this year?"

"I have a resolution to stop smoking," he said, flicking his ashes down the driveway.

* * *

Happy New Year!

From our home to yours...

An Interview

My friend Bernie invited me to babble at him for a couple of hours about writing and self-publishing. He then edited our talk and transcribed it as an interview for his blog. I feel odd being the subject of an interview and post as I doubt I interview well, but it was very cool to get to talk with him since his move west, and it's a very kind thing he's doing promoting ye olde 'Book of Horrible Stories.'

Give the interview a look-see here!

At the used book store:

Me: I feel bad for resident number fifteen.

Wes: ...or do you?

"The Memory of a Salt Shaker"

My friend Bernie is a writer who does some good work in speculative fiction. "The Memory of a Salt Shaker" is a story of his that was nominated for the Million Writers Award last year and one that he recently made available as an e-book. (It's so weird to me that one short story still gets labeled an "e-book," but I guess until terminology catches up with e-publishing's possibilities, that's what we have.)  Anyway, if you think you might like reading about love, and magic in the real world, and all that fun stuff, consider giving "The Memory of a Salt Shaker" a read. You can find it for free through Smashwords by clicking on this link or for $0.99 through Amazon and the Kindle store by clicking this link.

/shameless promotion of friend off

Larks Fiction Magazine

Heya. Larks Fiction Magazine is a free weekly e-zine that publishes writing with a fantasy/sci-fi/speculative bent. This week's issue features one of my stories. Click on this link right here and scroll down a little if you'd like to read "A Story of Summer and Winter."

Many thanks to Daniel Pool and his team of literary fiends for letting me in on their fun!