What's New?

The past few weeks have flown by in a blur of landing new projects, interviewing, writing, and meeting deadlines; wrapping up an extremely demanding semester of grad school, holding a successful writers’ conference for a 2nd year (more on that in a minute), and basically trying to keep up with the general demands of life. It hasn’t helped that my day job has exploded into a nonstop schedule, which hasn’t left much time to squeeze in any writing-related tasks during the day, so I’ve had to literally do everything either via email or at night or on weekends.

I think the worst of the rush is behind me. Seeing the end of the semester was a huge relief. Not that it’s translated into more time, necessarily, but I have fewer projects weighing on me at the moment.

So here’s a little more specific info on what I’ve been up to lately:

• All 3 of my non-magazine clients have had projects in the last month, which meant more juggling for me, but also some nice added income, which is always appreciated! If my little windfall (and a lot of what I’m reading on others’ blogs), it’s a very good time to be a freelancer, as business seems to be picking up across most sectors.




• Thanks to reading some older posts on Linda Formichelli’s fabulous Renegade Writer blog, I was able to find several assignments for a number of under-the-radar trade and specialty publications. I also connected with a new editor thanks to a “tweep” connection, which restored my faith in social media. (I know that several freelancers have landed work through social media channels—personally, I haven’t gotten a ton of work in this way, but I keep trying and keep my information updated)




• My writers’ group held our 2nd Annual Write It Right Conference in mid-April. Although I was a bit disappointed by the registration numbers initially, it turned out to be a positive thing, as smaller attendance was more conducive to meaningful networking and relationship building. I know there were a lot of emails exchanged between attendees, which is always great to see. We got a lot of compliments on our presenters and the day itself, so we really can’t ask for more than that. Unfortunately, we had torrential downpours that day, and some of our attendees had to drive over an hour to get to the event, so that was a little worrisome. Also, our keynote speaker had been in Texas for the week prior, and he flight was delayed coming back to PA. She arrived in Harrisburg at 3 a.m. and made it to our conference (approximately 2 hours away) in time. Talk about follow through and professionalism!




• This fall I’ll be completing my last semester in the Master’s of English program at Kutztown University. I’m spending my summer reading and researching for my capstone portfolio project. I wish I could just finish the program without having to do anything extra, but I suppose grad school doesn’t exactly work that way (ha ha). I’m really looking forward to getting my degree and seeing what other possibilities in the field might be out there for me.
  

What about you? What’s new and exciting in your respective worlds?