Kansas City Freelance Writer Liz Craig

Biz sure has been slow this week. Everybody slacking in anticipation of the Memorial Day weekend. So what am I doing? Nothing, income-wise. Ho hum. But there is still plenty to do, even if there’s nothing that makes me money. There’s stuff that always needs to be done, but you’re glad you’re too busy to do it. So do it now, when you’re not busy. C’mon, try it. You’ll like it! I suggest you try the following:

1. Improve your chi.

Some spell it “qi,” which probably is more authentic, but however you spell it, it means “energy.”

Closets, bureau drawers, file cabinets and basements are full of stuff you don’t use, don’t need, maybe don’t even like. Like that godawful avocado-colored lazy susan your aunt Marie gave you for your first marriage. Get rid of it. Or those clothes from a former life that don’t fit (and even if they did, they’d only be in fashion if the 80s came back). Or all those old files in your home office. And books you’ve either already read or never will read (Those you can sell on Amazon.com. It’s easy!).

Excess clutter blocks chi, which means energy in the form of income, opportunities, friendships, and lots more. Think how much more energetic your office and your mind would be without clutter.

Wherever you start, sort your excess stuff into three piles: Keep, Toss, Donate. When you’ve done a box or two, take a good hard look at everything in your Keep pile, and ask yourself, “Is this thing either beautiful or useful?” If the answer is “No,” then move it to the Toss or Donate pile. Be ruthless.

2. Spiff up the yard.

If you own a yard, it probably has weeds. Weeds are symbolic of distractions in your mind, by the way. I’ve always found pulling weeds to be a calming, meditative, useful activity. Gets me out in my little patch of nature, improves the look of my yard, and kills my back when I forget to use a stool instead of stooping over from the waist. That last is not a benefit, by the way. It’s what I call a “stoopid.”

Trimming shrubberies is fun, too. Gives me a chance to express my inner sculptor. It requires just enough mental energy to distract me from whatever big, heavy issues have been worrying or distressing me. For a time, I’m Chauncey Gardener (From “Being There.”) Mindless, happy, content.

Mowing the lawn can be rewarding. It’s a good workout, and I kind of enjoy it. It’s sweaty, honest work. It’s the ritual of getting out the mower, filling the tank, priming it and taking off that satisfies. Then, the hard work begins. There is some mental, as well as physical, effort. I’ve been experimenting for years with various ways to mow around the giant oak tree in the front yard: in circles, in vertical lines around the perimeter, mowing around it a row at a time, then tackling what’s left. It’s these little problems that make life interesting.

3. Write a blog post.

Well, you see I’m taking my own advice.

Happy chi day!

Is it rude to ask a client to sign a contract and pay you some money before you do any work for him or her?
Hmm. Some freelancers seem to think so. They rush headlong into client relationships without even the promise of a kiss, then sometimes end up being jilted and cheated of what we all work for: money.

To those timid freelance graphic designers or writers, I ask, is it rude for Time Warner Cable to ask you to sign a contract? Or a remodeling contractor to have you sign off on an estimate before he gets to work? Of course not! That’s bidness, y’all.

If you’re a freelancer who is scared stupid to ask a client to sign on the line with you for fear you’ll lose him or her, I have three words of advice: Get Over It. Someone who won’t agree to sign onto normal terms of payment is someone who doesn’t see paying you as an absolute necessity. You don’t want a shaky or shady client anyhow, do you?

We freelancers constantly have to remind ourselves that we are a business. And any business requires a contract that cements a legal bond between them and their clients. It should help both parties feel safe, because you’ve agreed on the rules in writing. And freelancers should feel particularly safe, because in most jurisdictions, a written contract is considered binding, even if it isn’t too fancy.

In 10 years of freelancing, I never had a contract. Or let’s say, I never had one I could get clients to sign. I think there are two reasons why.

1. I didn’t project confidence in asking them to sign it.
I felt embarrassed to ask for them to agree to pay me money, a common freelancer disorder. The vaccine against it is a hard look at your income and outgo every month. If the first is smaller than the second, then screw your courage to the sticking point and ask for the signature and some upfront money. Because your time and effort are worthy of recompense.

2. They were not financially stable, so they weren’t sure they could honor it.
They were the wrong clients. You have to kiss some froggy, financially strapped clients before you find the princes and princesses… but heck, you don’t have to go steady with them. Why waste time you could be spending on clients who will sign a contract with you?

Now I have an Engagement Agreement, a one-page document that sets out my terms. It deals with how I will bill the client, how much per hour, what constitutes billable activity, what happens if they don’t pay within 30 days (a 1.5% daily add-on or being strapped down and forced to listen to indie hip-hop 24/7 until they pay–just kidding!), and so on. My last two new clients have signed it and paid me the deposit I requested, too. Will wonders never cease.

If you decide to work a tightrope without a net, okay and good luck. It worked for me nearly all the time (except for the solid year I dunned a client for a measly $400). But there will be times when you’ll wish you’d had one.

And if you’re a client who’s on the up-and-up, you absolutely should expect to sign a contract with your freelancer. It prevents misunderstandings that can ruin a nice relationship.

To contract or not to contract? I say, “Contract.”

Happy Fried Day, everyone! Nothing serious today, just a video of Snoopy, the pet of Eric Chia, a graphic designer/Web person I know, showing how smart he is (Not smart enough to be a copywriter, I hope.) Enjoy!

This time of year, some people are slammed with work to be wrapped up by year’s end, but some people are bored stiff with little to do until after the holidays. Which situation applies to you?

If you’re swamped with projects and wondering if you’ll reach December 31 without going stark raving mad, I sympathize. If you’re twiddling your thumbs until January 1, I can relate. But here are a few things you can do instead of sharpening pencils down to a nub and surfing the Net.

1. Make a To-Do List
Have you neglected some projects around the house? Little, niggly things that kind of bother you but aren’t extremely horrible? Like a loose doorknob or a burned-out light bulb in the garage? Put ‘em on the to-do list. Oh, yes—then do them.

Examples include:
• Clean grody-looking switchplates around the house.
• Organize your bureau drawers.
• Sort through your clothes, and donate things you don’t wear to Goodwill.
• Write a sweet note to your mom or dad, your significant other, your son or daughter, or someone else you love or appreciate.

2. Read
If you’re like me, your coffee table is littered with more magazines than you could possibly read. Pick up one or two and enjoy a few articles. Or how about making it at least to the middle of that library book on your nightstand before you have to return it?

3. Phone a friend
Is it kosher to call a person your “friend” if you never contact them except at Christmastime, with a few hurried lines on a greeting card? Why not renew your friendship with a phone call? Cards are cold; calls are warm.

4. Play mind games
Your brain, like your car, needs a tune-up now and than. Online, you can find dozens of free “Brain Games” that will help you improve your memory. And those games are fun, especially as you see your scores improve with practice. Get thee behind me, senility!

5. Take a walk
When my dad was stuck for ideas, he would do what he called “The Hat Trick.” It meant putting on your hat and going out for awhile. Sitting at a computer all day dulls the senses. Your fingers and eyes are active, but what about your glutes and quads—not to mention your creative mind? When weather permits, go out for a walk, even if it’s only around the block. Your mind will be refreshed, and you may bring back some cool new ideas or solutions to problems, too. G’wan, get out there!

Of course, the Internets (that series of tubes) have made blogging ridiculously easy for millions of bloggers around the globe. That’s what’s new about communicating your thoughts to a large audience, sometimes with the intention of selling them on an idea, a product or a service. What’s old about it is the tradition of communicating with purpose.

Blogging began unauspiciously, with a few isolated souls pouring out their hearts and/or minds in what could loosely be termed “columns” for the enjoyment of themselves and their friends. Suddenly, you didn’t have to get into a newspaper or magazine to have your thoughts blasted out to the world. Wow! The power!

Then, via Blogger, WordPress and TypePad, blogging exploded into a major enterprise. I say enterprise because people began to realize that instead of blogging about “What My Cat Told Me Today,” they could blog about ideas, products or services they could sell. Conservative, progressive, retail, wholesale, IT-oriented and other blogs abound today. Conversations with strangers take place via comments on blogs. Amazing.

Is it all so new, or was there a long tradition of blogging, before the word was invented? Hm.

Take a look at the cave pictures at Lescaux. Why would people 17,000 years ago draw pictures of bison on cave walls? Daniel Quinn, in The Story of B, hypothesizes that the paintings were instructional in nature, created in order to communicate successful hunting strategies. That sounds kinda modern, doesn’t it? Like a blog or a PowerPoint.

How about P. T. Barnum’s postings of the progress of Jumbo the Elephant toward the next town where he’d be appearing? Isn’t that pre-Internet blogging? Of course, meant to whip up excitement about seeing this exotic animal from afar when he finally arrived. Don’t blogs sometimes do that? “Be sure to sign up for our (whatever) Webinar next week! Secrets of successful blogging will be revealed — From the King of Blogs himself!”

Seems to me the new wrinkle is the ability to communicate via Web. But blogs, tweets and other messages are just a newer version of cave painting. Or any other messages distributed widely for a purpose. Hey, even Paul Revere had a message, and he wouldn’t have had to race from place to place on a horse to deliver it if he’d had the Web!

Well, I hope all two of you who read my blog posts have a very happy Thanksgiving and that you take time to express gratitude for all the people, things and events of your life. I surely intend to.

No one needs to tell you that these days, a lot of people are having a hard time. At least one person you know has lost their job, another has had their salary or hours cut. Someone else has lost their company insurance, and still another has had their home foreclosed on. Those of us still hanging onto jobs, insurance, homes and friends (Yes, sometimes you lose those, too.) are feeling pretty darned lucky.

Case in point: a couple of days ago, I had to send a “Late Payment” notice to the tenant in a house my uncle left me a couple of years ago. I’ll call him “John.” He was two months behind in his rent.

John has been in the house ever since it was built, 12 years ago. He has had a steady job with one company for 34 years and always has paid his rent — sometimes a little late, but always eventually.

A few months ago, I was concerned when he told me the company he worked for (a newspaper) had been acquired by another company. Worries started rumbling in the back of my head. Doesn’t a company’s acquisition by another company usually mean people will lose their jobs?

So I was not very surprised when John went a couple of months late on rent. He called to explain that the new company’s accounting department was having a hard time getting on-track with the payroll, and they would be paying him later in the month than the previous company had. He promised that by October 15, he would pay the last two months’ rent he owed. But October 15 came and went, and still, I had no rent payment. John’s home phone number was not in service, and his cell phone number now belonged to someone else. I was more than a little concerned.

Today, I suppose after receiving my “Late Payment” notice, John phoned me to say that the new company he was working for had gone bankrupt. He’d noticed their stock slipping, but he’d hoped against all odds that things would be okay. But they were very much not okay, and now he was out of a job and didn’t know what to do. He was an independent contractor who had paid his sub-contractors out of his own pocket, and now he was out more than $12,000. The new company was not going to repay him, and he wasn’t even eligible for unemployment. His voice trembled. He sounded on the verge of tears.

So what was I going to do? Throw him out of the house? No, I thought, “If I can lighten his burden, I will.” The mortgage is paid off, so I’m not on the hook for a big monthly payment. So I offered him a deal whereby both of us would be okay until he found another job. If he could just pay my tax and insurance expenses each month ’til he found a job, he could remain in his home sweet home.

When John heard my offer, he broke down in tears. He called me a “saint.” I assured him I was no saint, just someone who cared what happened to him. I told him that on top of the worry of finding another job, he didn’t need the stress of finding a new home, too. He thanked me again and again, through tears.

I’m so glad I am able to help John. I’m not doing it for thanks or praise, but because, as someone who once did me a huge favor said, “Sometimes, you’ve gotta be a mensch.” Roughly translated from the Yiddish, “mensch” means, “a good, decent person.” According to Leo Rosten, the Yiddish maven and author of The Joys of Yiddish, a mensch is “someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being “a real mensch” is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous”. [Source: Wikipedia]

I consider the opportunity to do good an honor and a gift.

John had said, “I thought everyone would turn against me.” What an awful thought. Imagine being in the world without friends, people hounding you for money you don’t have, and your family looking to you for answers you don’t have. That’s what John thought he would be facing. One small act of kindness is all I could do, but it was a kind of life-saver thrown to someone who had felt he was drowning. The future may not be rosy for John and his family, but at least they’ll have a roof over their heads as he looks for new employment.

We all need a little help now and then. Today, look around and see if there’s anyone who needs you to be their mensch, in whatever big or small way. Call it doing good, helping your fellow man or woman, “paying it forward,” or whatever you choose. But do it. The person you help will feel better, and you will, too.

Derek Sivers: Weird, or just different?

“There’s a flip side to everything,” the saying goes, and in two minutes, Derek Sivers shows this is true in a few ways you might not expect.

What’s wrong with this picture? Willie Bloomquist grinning and blinking in the glare of TV lights.

Royals third baseman Willie Bloomquist isn’t a star. He’s not flashy, and he doesn’t seek glory or publicity for himself. He’s not very exciting, so you don’t see a lot of fans wearing “Bloomquist” Royals shirts. Willie does a journeyman job in whatever position he’s assigned. He’s the ultimate team player, always there to help his fellows. But Willie isn’t a star.

So it was puzzling when yesterday, Ned Yost pulled the humble Willie out from behind the curtain and pushed him onstage to bat third in the rotation for the first time in his nine-year career. Willie batting third? Huh?

Yost’s unusual decision panned out big-time. When Willie came up to bat with one out in the 12th inning, he homered to left field on a 3-2 pitch from Alfredo Figaro. With that beautiful, soaring hit into the stands, Willie surprised everyone, including — or especially — himself. That homer gave the Royals a 4-3 victory in the last game of their three-game series with the Tigers. And by the way, the win snapped the Tigers’ five-game winning streak. Oh, snap!, indeed.

Willie made the front page of the KC Star Sports section today. The headline reads, “BOOM BOOM POW.” The cutline under the picture of Willie being mobbed by his teammates after the homer aptly describes him as “Unlikely hero Willie Bloomquist.”

Actually, Bloomquist didn’t surprise absolutely everyone. In fact, manager Ned Yost had “guaranteed” that with Willie batting third, he would get “a couple of hits” in the game. After Willie got one hit earlier in the game, Yost reminded him, “You still owe me one.” And Willie came through with that game-winning homer.

Is it possible that after all these years, Ned Yost has “discovered” Willie Bloomquist? Or that Willie has discovered himself?

In the post-game interview, Willie grinned goofily and looked a bit stunned. Until now, he’s been the kind of player commentator Frank White respects because he “doesn’t try to do too much.” Unaccustomed to media speaking as he is, Willie was characteristically humble in his comments:

“I don’t hit too many, but I assumed that one was gone,” … “I got pretty much all of it. That’s probably as far as I could probably hit one.” – Willie Bloomquist, after Royals’ 4-3 victory over Tigers.

He said it was “kind of cool” that he got to bat third. The man is a master of understatement.

So how come Willie Bloomquist was the star this time, and not just a supporting actor? Could it be because someone saw something in him that he didn’t even see in himself, and then gave him the confidence to use it?

If so, it goes to show you — even a utility player can knock it out of the park, if you believe in him and give him a chance.

BOOM BOOM POW!

Ever find yourself nodding as someone droned on and on without getting to the point — or the end of his or her remarks? Apparently, it’s a serious problem that’s cutting Chinese productivity.

Quote from an article in today’s KC Star:

“Chinese officials say they want to clean up a pollution scourge that is fouling the capital and government centers nationwide: bureaucratic gasbags.”

Just read an article on an HR website that said companies don’t want to hire the unemployed. That’s not exactly news; it’s been an unspoken rule for ages. The assumption is that if the person were any good, s/he would have a job, right? No. The world has changed. But HR people apparently haven’t.

At a networking event last night, I ran into three former co-workers, one of whom had just been laid off. Their company, which formerly had 11 employees, is now down to four. Employment status these days is no indicator of employability. Businesses have been shedding employees at a rapid rate the last 18 months just to try to keep the lights on, not because those employees weren’t competent.

Trashing resumes of people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own is not only wrong, it’s dumb. There is a rich supply of candidates who know their stuff and loved their former jobs. HR directors seeking to fill jobs ought to look at qualifications first and foremost. Looking at employment status and deciding without looking further that the candidate is incompetent or disqualified… how do they justify it? How do they sleep at night?