Content Farm Writing

There is always room at the bottom

   If you agree to write for next to nothing – novelists excepted, because they are a special case of crazy - you might be in the wrong profession.

   This has always been my belief, and an opinion I read this morning on something called Story Board* about something called content farm writing only reinforces my stand on this.

The Indefinite Article (Episode II)

Just because it’s heavy, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t lift it

   I once met a man. His name was J. Richard McEwan, a Micmac Indian (back before it was spelled Mi’kmag) from the Bear River Indian Reserve in Nova Scotia. I sat in his living room with my Uncle Everett, and Mr. McEwan told me how his father bent and bundled ribs for the birch bark canoes he built.

   This gentle man and my good uncle reminisced about Bear River in its heyday. My host was 81 and my uncle was 65. Talk gradually, perhaps inevitably, turned to the feats of strength of its men.

The Indefinite Article (Episode I)

Open-ended assignments can be bad medicine

   I got an assignment, the thirteenth, from one of my European editors one day. He wanted me to do a global review story. He had a fetish for round the world pieces and baby, did I get screwed.

   “Geographically, I'd like the environmental piece to be as global as possible and cover the full gambit of environmental issues (noise, air, water, energy saving initiatives etc),” began his assignment note. Never-say-no freelancer that I was, I agreed.

256 Days to Go

... or how to finish a book

   I’ve made a pledge. I’ve been chipping away at a book project since 2004 and this feels like the year I should tie off the big bow. I’m determined to work on it for at least 60 minutes a day till December 31 or until it is finished.

   Nine days into the year I am up 415 minutes, a mere 125 minutes off of my new pace. Today I even made up 15 minutes of lost ground. I’m optimistic. My mind feels ready. Made up. Determined.

Stranded (in Halifax)

… and no way to make deadline

   I should have been back at my desk by 1000h Monday morning to hammer out my already researched article and email it to my editor by noon. Instead, I was stranded in the Halifax International Airport with an 11-hour wait for the next available plane to Montreal, with no laptop, no cell phone (I don’t own one) and no possible way to write that article.

   I had flown out of Montreal the previous Thursday morning – destination St. John’s and a late-February hiking trip. I was not carrying my mobile office or copies of work in progress. After all, it was just a weekend getaway. What could possibly go wrong?

Flex Time

Carving up the day

   I abandoned my office at three o’clock last Friday. I bought a couple of things at Mountain Equipment Co-op and then headed across the Champlain Bridge for a supper date with my daughter. “What should I write on The Mercenary Pen this week,” I asked her as we chilled in her apartment after our evening out. “Why don’t you write about how you used to walk me to school every day,” she suggested.

   One of the great pleasures of being a freelance writer is that, within certain limits, I can usually slip out of the house most any day if something or someone needs my attention. Don’t get me wrong though. This is a full-time gig. I have a full plate and many schedules to respect. However, to cite one of my favourite examples, if I want to pay proper homage to a sunny summer day with a bike ride by the river, I can.

Tick-Tock-Tick Talk

The virtues of tracking office hours

   “Now how do you know that?” my father in law asked me. We were digesting our Christmas turkey and I had just mentioned that I worked eight hours more in 2010 than in 2009. “I can tell you to within five minutes how much I’ve worked every day since May 2005,” I replied.

   In the one office job I ever had, I was paid to be there and was always “working”, whether I was at my desk, propping up the water cooler or twiddling my thumbs in useless meetings.