Organizing your office – The right writing space

 Is it time to clear the decks?

 Writing requires a clear head and a clear desk. Is creativity-killing clutter driving you to distraction?  Are piles of paperwork threatening to topple your technology in your office?

 

Here a few simple ways to make room for more writing:

•  Remove everything from your office counter or desktop. Neatly bundle all computer, peripheral and accessory cords with rubber bands. Rubber bands are the best, because they do not conduct electricity. Tuck these tidy bundles out of sight. (I keep mine behind my desk.)
•  Empty out all desk drawers. Sort working pens and sharpened pencils into cups or drawer-dividers. Throw away dried-out markers and pens.
•  Toss all non-office-related items into three or four small boxes or baskets, so they may be carried to the appropriate rooms (kitchen, garage, kids’ rooms, school, etc.).
•  Realign printer cartridges, and resupply printers with paper.
•  Dust around and under all electronic equipment.
•  Put stacks of books into bookshelves. (Most writers have hundreds of books.) Install inexpensive wall shelves, or purchase economical shelving units.
•  Sturdy wood folding bookcases are widely available. These tend to go on sale at the end of the summer, as college students head for the dormitories. Why not grab a few bookcases when you spot a deal?
•  Install a bulletin board or corkboard over your desk. Place a calendar on it for deadlines, appointments, editorial queries, and manuscript submissions.
•  Sort through all of your loose papers and files. All paperwork should fit into one of these categories:

 

NOTE: Written by this author, this copyrighted material originally appeared on another publisher’s site. That site no longer exists. This author holds all rights to this content. No republication is allowed without permission.

 

Are you ready to share your work with the world?

 If you have been collecting clips and tidbits for new article ideas, why not whip up a query letter today? Place your notes and research in file folders, assigning one for each potential piece. (See below.)

 Have you been intending to revise and send that manuscript or article draft, based on an editor’s favorable response to an earlier query? This is the time to do so.

 

Save your best samples.

 If hard copies of published items need to go into your professional portfolio, then grab the rubber cement and page protectors! Get these items off your desk and into your portfolio. You never know when an editor might request writing samples.

 

File resources for future use.

•  Article ideas: Create a separate folder for each article, story, or book you plan to write. When you are ready to compose a query letter, this will be invaluable. Even better, once an editor expresses interest, you will be ready to write!
•  Clients & contacts: If you don’t keep addresses and contact information online, you will want to obtain a Rolodex or business card file. Contacts are the bedrock of a writer’s business, and these must be updated often!
•  Financial items: Check stubs, invoices, receipts, and other documentation must be filed where you can find it. Stashing such items in a box or basket atop your desk is distracting and dangerous. Timely billing, accurate tax filing, and audit preparation are vital for a freelancer.

 

Get rid of the evidence.

 Be ruthless here. If you don’t really need a piece of paperwork, then toss it. If the file is on your hard drive or online, toss the hard copy. (Often, I will even scan a receipt or invoice and keep it on my computer, rather than create clutter piles in my work area. In a pinch I have even snapped smart phone photos of documents to save them digitally and toss the hard copies.)

 Most freelancers receive dozens of periodicals each month. If we kept all of these issues, we could build room dividers in our homes with the stacks. Consider donating these to your local library or to a school, especially if they are recent.

 Old drafts of published items, outdated financial papers, and other irrelevant materials should be destroyed. Shredders are affordable these days, and they make a wonderful therapy for writer’s block! Kids love shredding items as well. Maybe the loud grinding noise makes us feel powerful, but there is something inherently rewarding about running the shredder.

 Write on!

 

Related Items:

• 10 questions to ask before hiring an editor for your book manuscript
• 12 great ways to clear mental clutter for writing
• 25 writing-related careers ideal for aspiring authors
• Can you write well with rocks in your backpack?
• How taxing is tax prep for freelance writers?
• Writer resources: 10 books I keep on my desk

 

Image/s:  Image by upklyak on Freepik

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How taxing is tax prep for freelance writers?

 

Ugh. It’s tax prep time again. (Hey, I was a literature major.) But I’m ready to dig in.

 

Paperwork can be problematic for wordsmiths.

 That sounds contradictory, but it is absolutely not. Writers tend to be creative sorts. Many of us do best with our verbal skills, even in writing. We may generate pages and pages of material on tons of topics. But when it comes to filing our taxes, we generally come up with a collective shudder.

 

We’ll do it, because we have to, but we don’t have to enjoy it.

 It’s a lot like job estimating, time-sheets, and billing. It's not why we got into this gig, even though it must be done.

 (Sure, financial and technical writers are usually great with numbers and formulas and concrete matters of tabulations and organization. But those of us who lean more towards feature writing or even poetry find tax prep considerably more challenging.)

 Here are a few steps I take to try to stave off the tax prep headache each year.

 

A tisket, a tasket. Throw them in a basket.

 Honestly, that’s how my tax prep begins. And it starts at the beginning of each brand-new year. Every little receipt (from business lunches to postage stamps, parking fees, and even reading materials) goes into a big lidded basket. (It’s actually an old picnic basket, but it fits the bill. Some of these slips amount to puny totals, but they will have to be included when my taxes are filed.

 

Scans are super for quick saves.

 A little scanner sits atop my writing desk, right next to my computer. Before cashing any check I receive, I scan it (the whole sheet, including the info side and the actual check). The same goes for any other business-related hard-copy statements or receipts, as I accumulate them.

 I save them as PDFs and drag them into that year’s tax folder on my PC.

 

Screenshots are lifesavers for self-employed pros.

Sure, freelance writers may receive official tax paperwork when we write for actual companies, even if we’re counted as contractors. We may also draw royalties from publishers, who are likely to provide annual statements we can include in our tax filings.

 But plenty of our work generally comes from a variety of news outlets, websites, and publications. That’s where screenshots enter the picture. In any given year, I might include a pile of these screen captures to support the numbers I will enter on the spreadsheet I prepare for my tax accountant.

 

• Sold a few articles via an online writing community? (Screenshot the earnings.)
• Received a stipend for teaching a writing class or workshop? (Screenshot the earnings.)
• Earned ad revenues through a website or blog? (Screenshot the earnings.)
• Collected an honorarium for presenting a lecture? (Screenshot the earnings.)
• Racked up some royaltied merchandise sales? (Screenshot the earnings.)
• Gained commissions for promoting products? (Screenshot the earnings.)
• Paid for page views on a contracted website? (You get the picture.)
• Done any writing projects pro bono? (Yes, Screenshot the timesheet.)

 NOTE: In some cases, earnings may be documented annually. Often, online publishers list them monthly or quarterly. That requires additional documentation and computation. But it still works.

 Screenshots are also handy for online orders, emails, and other tax-related documentation. As these arise, they go in the current year’s tax folder on the computer (along with the aforementioned scans).

 

The annual spreadsheet is the stuff of nightmares.

 This annual project fills me with dread. It’s usually a single Saturday in February. I clear the calendar and push back the furniture in my home office, so I can sit on the floor in a flurry of paperwork. I print out the screenshots in the year’s tax file on my PC. I sort the piles of receipts.

 Next, I set up my spreadsheet, which I create by using the previous year’s one as a template. I fill in the blanks (income and expenses).

Then I generate the totals. (And perhaps I cringe.)

 Finally, I pack the whole thing up and send it off to my accountant, who excels at picking up the pieces (including me). I know tons of freelance writers who file their own taxes without enlisting accountants. Some have become extremely adept at this. Others swear by tax prep software programs, apps, or other tools. I’m willing to shell out accounting fees, both for the expertise and the peace of mind.

 

My tax accountant is worth her weight in gold.

 She has definitely saved me dollars – and my own hide – more than a few times. She lets me know what I can and cannot claim as business expenses. She prevents me from overlooking deductions I can legally take.

 So hold the phone. I’m digging in.

Image/s: Public domain image

 

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Xenophon: Famous writers from A to Z on writing

Writing trends and practices may have changed considerably throughout history, but some of the basics remain the same. For example, working writers must often juggle deadlines and the extra work it takes to create quality reading. 

Xenophon (430 -354 BC) was a Greek historian, as well as a soldier. His most well-known works included Anabasis, Conversations of Socrates, Hellenica, The Art of Horsemanship, The Persian Expedition, and The Symposium. Here’s how this Classical wordsmith described the tension between timing and true writing:

“Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.”

Fact-checking and proofreading take time. Today, many writers ply their trade online, frequently publishing tons of content efficiently and promptly without the safety net of any editors. Producing clear, factual, timely material can be challenging.

What happens (at least in an ideal world) when a skilled writer does deliver well-crafted work on time? Hopefully, those who read it will recognize the worth of what they have been offered.

That’s when the truth of this additional Xenophon quote kicks in.

“The sweetest of all sounds is praise.”

Real writers don’t write simply for rave reviews. But they sure are rewarding when they happen.

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A to Z Blogging Challenge promo logo – fair use

Graphic adapted from public domain image

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Thoreau: Famous writers from A to Z on writing

Wordiness is a dead give-away of the beginning writer, except when an expert wordsmith intentionally exercises extreme verbosity. (Some writers call this Faulknerian style.) Long-winded writing is usually regarded as somewhat sophomoric. Remember writing high school essays and padding paragraphs to fill the required word counts?

Here’s an example:

Today is a very special day of the week. This weekly occasion, which comes after a full five regular workdays and before the blessed weekend day known as the first of the following week, presents me with an opportunity to rise later than usual from the furniture on which I tend to recline and slumber overnight.

Why not simply say it this way?

Today is Saturday, and I’m sleeping in.

Wordiness is not wordsmithing.

Sure, an author might allow a character to talk thusly in a story, as a means of painting that person’s personality. And long descriptions may add color and clarity to a story. It’s not the sheer volume of words that matters, as much as the economy of usage.

Rambling redundancy rubs readers the wrong way.

We may slip into circuitous speech. Our personal editing skills seem to slip in everyday conversation. In written works, this usually indicates inexperience.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American Transcendentalist writer and philosopher, had a little to say about this idea, as it pertains to storytelling:

“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.”

Author of Walden, Civil Disobedience, and tons of essays, Henry David Thoreau likely knew that firsthand.

It’s tough to write tight copy.

The writer has to possess a firm grip of the facts to communicate tersely and directly. Circuitous descriptions and explanations frequently aim at concealing informational gaps.

Where do writers find the most telling and compelling stories? How about real life, as Thoreau pointed out in this pointed statement?

“How vain it is to sit down to write, when you have not stood up to live.”

Perhaps the most famous Henry David Thoreau quotation of all is this one, which may pertain most poignantly to aspiring writers:

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

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A to Z Blogging Challenge promo logo – fair use

Graphic adapted from public domain image

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