Making It Personal

Making It Personal Forging links with individuals who have an idea for a story but lack the writing skills to complete the task can be a lucrative income stream for writers. Personal writing support and advice is immensely satisfying and offers regular, immediate payments. I’ve written for several clients who lacked the writing skills to complete important, highly personal writing projects. One was a hilarious woman who would have provided great scope for a fiction writer as the basis for a character in a chic lit novel. She’d been married twice and had stories of romance, mystery and intrigue that made my hair curl. As well as helping with paragraphing, sequencing of her story and considerable editing, I also advised her about laws to protect individuals from slander, and suggested she should be careful making unfounded and serious allegations about former partners, no matter how true they may have been! She paid me $45 per hour for around 20 hours work in total. Another client wanted help to edit his already complete life story. We worked through several chapters at a leisurely pace, both enjoying the relaxed process of editing and discussing his story. He was happy to pay me $50 per hour for editing, consulting and formatting and layout advice. One day the phone rang. It was his son, telling me his father had been diagnosed with cancer and had only weeks to live. The race was on to get the story finished and fast! There was suddenly no time for planning and conferencing – the book had to be finished and printed now. After several late night editing sessions, the book was done and delivered. He read through his life story book on the last day he was able to sit up alone, and enjoyed seeing his project completed. A deadline has never been quite so critical and a project has never felt quite so important as that one. One client wanted help to adapt her African children’s stories for an English speaking audience. She paid me $50 per hour to suggest changes to her stories so they were readable for a young audience and appropriate for the age group. This called on my skills as a writer and also my experience as a teacher. I was able to suggest how to make the stories marketable for an educational audience as well as a general fiction one, and so increase her chances of publication. Personal writing support for private clients is a three-step process. You need to advertise or seek out clients who want to engage your services. This could be through a small ad in a magazine such as ‘The Genealogist’ (Australian) or Family Tree magazine (USA) or in your local or regional paper. Offer a workshop in your local area about writing a life story and spin some free advertorial in the local paper from this. Workshops on life writing are also good sources for finding potential clients. Next, meet with potential clients to discuss their needs and work out a writing plan. Explain your payment requirements, such as an hourly rate or flat fee for a project. Be clear that you will not be the author of the work but you will provide writing advice and consultation. Explain copyright and plagiarism rules and the importance of thinking carefully about anything they publish in a formal sense. Take care when meeting new clients and always consider your personal safety. Lastly, complete the project with regular updates on progress. Establish an easy invoicing arrangement that suits you both, such as direct payments into your bank account or through Paypal or similar.

Eating Humble Pie

Eating Humble Pie Eating Humble Pie Eating Humble Pie By Maeve Maddox The old expression eating humble pie remains alive and well in cyberspace: From a father who had to cope with his wifes duties when she was ill: I am once again reminded of all the little things my wife manages so well and how I really should make a better effort not to take her for granted. Humble pie is definitely a dish I should eat on a regular basis. From a sports fan: And then we played Florida at Gainesville today and they beat us by the mercy rule with a score I am not going to report. Oh me. Oh my. Talk about eating humble pie. I am trying to digest it, but it does not taste good. From the host of a website dedicated to some esoteric subject: After a lengthy discussion with Peter Kriens and BJ Hargrave, I have to eat some humble pie and admit that I gave incorrect advice about concurrency in my latest OSGi book chapter. The expression eating humble pie conflates two words: humble not proud or haughty; ranking low in the social or political scale. The word humble entered English c1250 by way of an Old French word that derived from L. humilis lowly, humble, lit. on the ground, from humus earth. umbles the edible inner parts of an animal, from Middle English numbles, offal. From the 17th century onward, recipes for umble pie appeared in cookbooks. Many people, usually the poorer sort, literally did eat umble pie. During the 17th century scholars began messing with the pronunciation of English words beginning with the letter h. Up until then, the h in French borrowings, like humble, was silent. Initial h was pronounced in words that had been borrowed directly from Latin or Greek. Some scholars promoted the idea that the h should be pronounced in humble and other French borrowings. Not everyone went along with the improvements. The expression to eat humble pie came into the language about 1850 with the sense of: submission, apology, or retraction especially made under pressure or in humiliating circumstances Its a pun. The speaker or speakers with whom the expression originated had to pronounce umble and humble the same way for the pun to work. Eating umble pie was something that an upperclass person would not willingly do, just as a person whod made an ass of himself would be unwilling to admit it and apologize for it. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:What is the Difference Between "These" and "Those"?45 Synonyms for â€Å"Old† and â€Å"Old-Fashioned†48 Writing Prompts for Middle School Kids