Freelancing Adventures

After 15 years of writing for Winds of Change (WOC) and loving every minute of it, we finally had to let it go to another publishing team. Our last issue will be out in a couple of weeks and the cover by Pawnee and Ojibwe artist Raymond Nordwall is extraordinarily gorgeous. The new magazine will look entirely different, I imagine, and I am sad that we (our staff) are all going our separate ways. These people have been such a big part of my life. But this shift in my work world opened some interesting new doors. I was offered freelance work from the Tribal College Journal (TCJ) and have been interviewing and forming my first article for them regarding several groups of students representing many different nations and their travels to Chiapas and New York City. The groups, obviously, had different intentions and goals, but the one thing tying the article together was how travel changed their perspectives in one way or another and has encouraged them to continue seeking higher education. This was not a difficult transition for me, as WOC has had ties with TCJ for many years.

My freelancing journey has not stopped there. I have been ghost writing for a "handyman's" blog for awhile now and he recently asked me if I would do SEO writing for him for several other blogs he has started. The blog I have been writing for him lately covers topics like: how to install interior doors; how to patch drywall; how to choose replacement windows; how to choose the right color paint for a room; and deck maintenance. Since I have a husband who can give me tips on all of this and I have followed him around for years as he does all of the latter, these blogs have been fun and relatively simple to construct. One thing I did find amusing was talking to the handyman from his Long Island home and hearing his wonderful accent. Then I really loved when he said, "I just want to make sure these blogs don't sound like a woman wrote them." I guess they don't because he has loved all of them so far!

In addition to the TCJ and the handyman blog, I found another ghost writing firm where I am writing short web articles on topics like: Why is bitterroot the Montana state flower; What is Kundalini; and What is Water Aerobic Therapy. They pay quickly and pretty well too. I am finding web writing fun and I am learning how to compress and fine tune my writing into very tight formats. It's so very different than magazine writing. This is why I have enjoyed reading Virginia Tufte's book "Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style." You can read about it here: http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/003977.php

Tufte's chapter on Adjectives and Adverbs includes a section on using adjectives and adverbs in short sentences!

I have not completely abandoned my literary side of writing either, as I was kindly asked by the wonderful and wise Marilyn Krsyl to write a review of Cherokee poet and fiction writer, Ralph Salisbury's new book, The Indian Who Bombed Berlin. I have to get started on that review which will definitely call for a shift, bringing me back full-circle to reading and thinking about really fine literature. So I guess what I'm saying is that the world did not completely fall apart like I thought it would when I was first told that WOC was not going to be there for me. WOC was a touchstone—a steady, lovely touchstone in which I felt safe and sure of myself and what I was writing about—STEM areas. Yet when that rug was pulled out from under me new adventures in writing came pouring in and I am finding that freelancing is not that scary. Tricky yes, and there is a learning curve for me, but I think I'll land on my feet. Yep.