Meryl Street didn’t win an Academy Award for her spot-on portrayal of Julie Child in Julie & Julia. But her performance in the 2009 film marked the 16th time she’s been nominated for the prize.

I’m convinced the reason Streep’s been recognized so many times is because she’s a good picker.

By picker I mean Streep has a good feel for what roles would be right for her, overall and at that particular point in her career. My hunch is she takes into account the script, director, producers backing the picture, amount of time she’ll need to invest in the project, and finally, the money. Whether she’s got a good agent or just a keen sense of what works well for her, it’s made her career.

On Sunday night, Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for her portrayal of a take-charge mom who brought a homeless black teenager into her Southern white family in The Blind Side. Bullock’s a good actress too. Whether she’s on par with Streep is a subject for a different blog post. But Bullock’s been in lots of interesting, if not heavyweight films over the years. She’s also been in a lot of dogs: to wit, she’s the only actress ever to win an Oscar and a Razzie (for All About Steve) in the same year.

It’s taken the actress they call America’s Sweetheart this long to grab the golden statue because she isn’t as good a picker as someone like Streep.

So what does this have to do with writers?

Writers, like Streep, Bullock and other creative types, are only as good as the projects we pick.

Pick a stimulating assignment that pushes you beyond what you thought yourself capable of doing and you wind up improving your writing, your portfolio and your chances of that higher profile publication saying “Yes” the next time you query.

Pick something easy you’ve done over and over again, and you don’t grow.

Pick a publisher that pays peanuts, pays in exposure or can’t or won’t pay at all, and you end up frustrated, and quite possibly, broke.

Figuring out what projects to pursue is something some writers are naturally great at. Others are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Still others have to work long and hard to figure out the process.

If you’re someone who innately knows what projects are right for any particular place and time, hooray for you – I’ve love to hear how you go through that decision-making process.

If you’re not, here are some things to think about the next time an opportunity comes your way or when you’re thinking about which assignment you want to do next. Call them the 5 Ps of Picking a Project:

1. The project – Am I excited to do this? How much time and effort will it take? Does it fit into my writing specialty? Is it an area people are interested in, one that I could make into a new specialty? Do I already have sources I could talk to who know the subject? If not, how easy would it be to find them? Will I have to travel? If so, how much time will it take me away from other projects?

2. The people – Have I worked with the editor or staff before? If so, are they easy to work with or overly demanding, demeaning or rude? Do they make a story better or edit in mistakes? Are they quick to answer emails or phone calls?

3. The publication – Is it a magazine, website, newspaper, company I want to be affiliated with? What kind of reputation do they have? What kind of financial situation are they in: on the way up or down? How do they treat their writers?

4. The pay – Is the compensation worth the number of hours I need to put into the project to do it justice? What rights are involved? Are expenses included? Is it pay on acceptance or publication? If it’s low paying, can I reuse the research and pitch a different story to a different publication? Could it lead to more work or a contract or retainer position?

5. The big picture – How does this fit into my goals for my writing business this year? For my career? Could it lead to more lucrative work? Is it something I’ll be proud of? Can I squeeze this in without sacrificing projects I’m already committed to? How does this fit into my non-work life?

Nobody’s criteria for choosing project is exactly the same. But by going through a well-reasoned thought process you could end up like Meryl Streep, a perennial winner.

Today’s post is written by Pat Olsen, a long-time New Jersey freelance writer who specializes in business and health.

When I interviewed professional skateboarder Tony Hawk for The New York Times, he said he loved skateboarding so much he’d do it even if he wasn’t getting paid.

That’s almost the way I feel about writing first-person profiles.

First-person profiles are stories or columns I report as usual but write in first person rather than in third person, as if I’m the person I’m writing about. I write first-person columns for two magazines and am a lead contributor for two in the Times.

It’s challenging trying to capture someone else’s voice, to find a flow in what they’ve said, and perhaps uncover a theme.

Doing first-person profiles isn’t a matter of simply recording what someone says and transcribing it.  If that were the case, I might write, “Well, um, let’s see, when I was 10 − no, make that 12 — I delivered newspapers up and down the street. They were pretty heavy.”

You might want to write exactly the way someone speaks if you’re writing a novel, but not if you’re writing a profile. People often speak too casually for these types of pieces.  For a profile, I take that stream of consciousness and make it coherent and interesting. It’s not easy, but this type of writing just feels right to me and usually once I’m happy with a piece, others are, too.

If you’re interested in writing first-person profiles, the first thing to do is unlock the stories inside the person you’re writing about. Everyone has stories. The key to finding them is getting the person to talk about the anecdotes, trips, jobs or other events that bring their life into focus.

When I wrote about Peter Wilson’s career change from public relations to teaching, the key to getting him to open up was asking what he missed about his former job. When I wrote about Ray Harris, vice chairman of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, I used his recollection about getting started in the securities industry to tell his story.

Here are a few other tips I’ve picked up after years of practice:

It may take more than one interview to get someone to dig deeper. One of my first editors made me re-interview someone not once but twice to get enough details to be satisfied with what I’d written. Initially I considered it a failure not to “get it right the first time.” Since then, I’ve realized that it takes until the second or third interview for some people to open up. Most top executives are media-savvy:  once they read a sample of the type of article they’re being interviewed for they know what to do. But many people who don’t give interviews all the time may not be reflective enough the first time. Drawing their thoughts out of them could take several conversations.

Ask the same question different ways. This technique is old hat to journalists, but still works. If you try it and still aren’t getting what you need, give the person an example of what you’re looking for. If someone’s having trouble coming up with good details of a trip they took, I might say, “In another profile I wrote, the person talked about almost missing his plane because a herd of cows crossing in front of his taxi took forever to reach the other side of the road.” That kind of prompting usually helps.

I always let profiles sit, even if it’s just overnight. I need to read them with a fresh eye to be able to improve them.

First-person profiles are my favorite things to write so on one hand, they’re easy. But that doesn’t mean they’re not hard work.

Valerie is an instructor at the gym I belong to.

Calling her an instructor is a bit of an understatement.

She’s more like a drill sergeant in a leotard.

Valerie is strong, motivated and incredibly good at what she does. So good people willingly get up at an ungodly hour to make her 5:45 a.m. class. So good, she was recently honored as the 20,000-member club’s instructor of the year.

What makes her so good? She’s a big believer in intention, being in the moment and putting maximum effort into whatever she’s doing right then and there to get the best results. It shows in every crunch and lunge she does in class, in the sweat that pours from her face, and the muscles that grace her frame, the ones everyone who takes her class covet.

In fact, Valerie believes in intention so much she had the word tattooed around her arm.

There are lots of similarities between working out and writing.

In writing, as in exercising, you get out only as much as you put in. Take a half-baked approach to an interview, a story or a rewrite and you end up with dull quotes, a boring read and poorly executed revisions.

But put intention into what you’re doing and you end up improving your writing – and I’d wager your relationship with the publications you work with as well.

You’re going to sit in front of a computer for hours a day writing or editing anyway, why not do it with intention. Come up with a list of the things you need to do that day and focus your energy on executing them, one after the other.

You could be amazed with the results.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent at least part of the last five days watching the 2010 Winter Olympics and wondering how it’s possible for the human body to spin, flip, fly or move so fast.

Olympic athletes aren’t born doing those things. With the rare exception, it takes years, maybe even decades, to reach that level of achievement – something spectators like you and me understand almost intuitively.

Yet when it comes to our work as writers, we expect to come out of the gate a Nicholas Kristoff or Seymour Hersh.

But writing, like sports, doesn’t work that way. To attain a certain level of mastery takes time and effort. While it might not take the 10,000 hours Malcolm Gladwell says it does in Outliers, it’s not something you can start out at and be perfect right away (unless you’re a J.D. Salinger, and face it, we’re not).

Good writing takes hard work. To be an Olympic caliber writer takes Olympic caliber training.

So how do you train like a gold-medal champion?

Specialize. You don’t see Apollo Anton Ohno competing in short-track speed skating and figure skating. Ohno’s a champion because he’s devoted umpteen years of his life to one thing and one thing only, and that devotion’s made him the most decorated American Winter Olympian ever. To get good at something specialize. If you want to be a business reporter, pitch and take assignments to write business stories. If you want to be a copywriter, actively seek out copywriting opportunities. Ditto for any other niche writing market.

Find a coach. Watch the Olympic figure skaters before and after they enter the rink. There’s always a coach there to encourage them before they’re on and critique them once they’re done. Writers need coaches too. You could hire a coach, but you don’t have to. Coaching could come from attending a writer’s workshop, reading books on the craft, or putting some really good writing blogs on your RSS reader (including this one, hopefully).

Practice. Olympic athletes are in the spotlight once every four years, but they practice constantly. Practice is what allows U.S. snowboard superpipe champ Shaun White to do tricks like the Double McTwist 1260, which he invented and so far has been the only rider to have landed successfully. Thankfully, practicing writing is a little easier than doing double flipping, triple twisting maneuvers on a snowboard – although getting a reluctant interviewee to open up sometimes feels like it. The best practice for writers is writing. If assignments aren’t pouring in, aim your writing energies at query letters, keeping a journal, blogging or taking a writing class – anything that helps sharpen your skills.

Use the right equipment. Bode Miller didn’t win a bronze medal in the downhill on any old pair of skis. He used the right equipment and tuned it to the conditions on the mountain that day. To get the most out of their work, writers need equipment that’s tuned to their special needs too: a laptop that has enough umph to be a main workstation yet is light enough to take on the road, a telephone headset and Skype, a smartphone with a built-in camera, software for making podcasts.

Surround yourself with like-minded professionals. Skiers on the World Cup circuit travel, train and live together – U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn’s chief nemesis on the World Cup circuit is also her best friend, Germany’s Maria Riesch. This is a hard one for me, because it’s against my naturally competitive nature to want to share too much with writers who could potentially take work away from me. But the reality is, there’s no way I could write all the stories there are to write about topics I cover. So why not accept that and spread the wealth? And good karma has a way of finding its way back to you.

Visualize greatness. Olympic athletes train mentally as well as physically, picturing themselves performing at their peak. When I was 15 my parents sent me to a weekend seminar led by a local high-school football coach whose specialty was teaching athletes how to visual success. Over two days we learned what affirmations were and how to use positive mental imagery to picture ourselves doing whatever it was we wanted to do. Sounds hokey but it works, especially the visualization. I’ve continued to use some of the techniques up to this day. If you think of yourself as a successfully employed freelance writer, you will be. That doesn’t mean that all you have to do is think about it. You have to do the things that will make you successful – the querying, the interviews, the writing, the rewriting.  But by picturing yourself as successful you won’t be mentally sabotaging everything else you’re doing to get there. And when you’ve got that big interview or have a call with an editor at your dream magazine you’ll be calm, cool and collected because you’ve been there before, in your head.

* * *

If the Olympics inspire you, you might want to check out the Pen Olympics now going on at Edittorent, another blog for writers. There’s a new competition every day – Monday’s was Doggerel Sled Racing.

More evidence that the recession is winding down: writers and editors are on the move.

Last year was all about hunkering down, sticking with what you were doing, or taking the gigs you were offered even though they might not be your long-term dream assignments.

But in the past few weeks, I’m hearing from writers, editors and publishers who’re making major moves, all of them positive:

• An editor friend got the offer of a lifetime to run a new nonprofit news daily covering a major metropolitan area.
• An author, blogger and ex-newspaper editor got an offer to run a start up being launched by a major magazine company.
• A former daily newspaper business reporter and editor who’d gone to work for a college communication department after being downsized landed a job at the same start up.
• A West Coast media company is looking to full a junior-level website editor and production position on the East Coast as work for their clients there grows.
• A Rocky Mountain area freelance writer and editor reports being crazy busy with assignments, including a series she pitched to a national business publication.
• A Midwest freelance writer is beginning a publicity project for a well-known media training company

I know it’s only anecdotal, but it’s good news all the same.

One more thing: although I don’t know the particulars of every situation, I do know that for the most part, this work didn’t just fall out of the sky for these people. It happened because even while opportunities were frozen solid they were preparing for the day things would start to thaw. How? By staying in touch with their contacts, present and past. By working their virtual and real-word networks. By tinkering with side projects to learn new skills, even if those endeavors didn’t bring in any income.

What’s your good news? Is your business picking up? Are you seeing cracks in the ice? And if so, what did you do to make them happen?

The no. 1 reason editors don’t respond to writers right away is because they’re too busy juggling the many other demands of their jobs.

That’s what I found when I started a freelance editing gig, and what I heard from other editors after I wrote that post on the subject not long ago.

So, one freelancer wrote in after reading the post, is there anything that would get an editor to respond to me right away?

Good question. I asked some editor friends for their opinions on what it takes to get them to reply immediately to a writer’s letter of introduction, pitch or completed manuscript.

One says the best way to get a fast response from her is to have a killer story pitch, one “that’s so perfectly honed to the editor’s needs it’s irresistible.” Unfortunately, she doesn’t encounter those very often. “Pitches like that are like snow leopards: hard to spot and in danger of extinction,” she says. “But I get them from time to time, usually from people….who completely understand what the publication needs, and with whom I’ve already had discussions that narrow the topic range.”

Fast Cash Freelance addressed the same topic in this recent post, saying it takes more than a good idea for an editor to bite. According to the post, writers are most likely to hear back from editors if they have access to hard-to-reach sources (think celebrities or CEOs), expertise or first-hand knowledge of a particular topic, or can demonstrate their ability to do tough research to back up a pitch. Dependability, clever word crafting, speed and a contrarian streak aren’t bad either.

In the recent past, I’ve had editors say “yes” to pitches in less than 24 hours on several occasions. Once I started following a high-profile management expert and business columnist on Twitter right before the pub date of her latest business book. After she followed me back, I introduced myself and inquired whether she’d make herself available for an interview about the book and herself. When she said yes, I immediately pitched a Q&A to an editor at a business publication I’d started to write for, and got a yes within a day.

Another time I started following a publisher on Twitter, she followed me back, and based on something I’d seen her tweet, I asked if she’d be interested in a pitch on a related subject. She said yes and DM’d me the name and email of an editor to pitch. I sent a query the same day, and wound up with an assignment less than 24 hours later.

There’s something to be said with being in the right place at the right time, or responding quickly when you get even the smallest opening. But that only works if you understand the publication you’re pitching to, or the subject matter, or preferably both. In other words, do your homework. Then follow through by filing your story on time and error free – so the next time that editor sees an email with your name on it in their inbox, they’ll make the time to look at it and reply right away.

Though it’s still January and spring seems like it’ll never get here, May will come sooner or later and with it the 3rd annual WordCount Blogathon, where writers across the country challenge themselves to blog for 31 days straight.

Last year close to 50 writers participated in the blogathon. In addition to putting up a list of all participating writers on our respective blogs, we had an official guest post exchange day and a real-time wrap party on Twitter to discuss what we loved, hated and learned.

Here at WordCount world headquarters, I’m already hatching plans to make this year’s blogathon the best ever. Already in the works: an official button participants can prominently display on their blogs to show the world what they’re doing. And once again we’ll have an official guest post exchange and a real-time wrap party.

I’d like to take it to the next level – but what is that exactly? Contests? Prizes? Guest posts from editors? Pre-blogathon posts to help you plan how to blog every day in the month of May without going crazy or stopping everything else you do?

Since this is a participatory event, I’d like to hear from you. Whether you took part last year, think you might this year, or just want to have a say in things, I’d love your input. Please take the following poll to let me know what new things you’d like to see this year.

And don’t forget to check back here regularly for more WordCount Blogathon 2010 updates.

When it comes to the media business, the world is flat – and I don’t mean the screens replacing print for reading everything from newspapers to books, though that’s happening too.

I’m talking about flat in the sense that with so many newspaper and magazine staff jobs going by the wayside, publications don’t have as many middle managers or mid-level editors as there used to be. As a result, many publications are farming work out to independent contractors, editors and writers.

With so much in flux, at any given time the hierarchy of who’s working for whom could change, and the editor you wrote for yesterday maybe the writer you edit tomorrow.

It’s happened to me in the past couple months, as I’ve taken on a new editing project. I’ve found myself assigning stories to not one, not two but three freelance writer/editors who at one time or another I’ve written for while they were either staff or freelance editors. Another writer I’m working with is also a freelance editor who may eventually throw some assignments my way.

If it’s happening to me, it’s got to be happening to other writers too.

So how do you act when your boss today may be the person reporting to you tomorrow?

1. Quit thinking of writer-editor relationships as ‘us v. them.’ Constantly pitting yourself against editors because of perceived bad treatment – lousy contract language, unreasonable deadlines, crummy editing or late payments -  makes you a victim. If you’re not happy about aspects of a writing opportunity you have the power to make a choice: negotiate new terms, walk away, or accept the fact that the terms are lousy but you’re taking the assignment anyway. Yes, sometimes the editor you’re dealing with is disorganized, mean or incompetent. But in many situations, problems you encounter may be beyond their control. If you run into trouble the best thing to do is talk, via email or better yet, by phone.

2. Approach the editor-writer relationship as one of equals. One’s not better than the other, just responsible for different things. Editors translate ideas into stories suitable for their audience, sit through a lot of meetings, buffer writers from demands – reasonable or otherwise – of editors and other publication staff higher up the food chain and prep articles for prime time. Writers are editors’ eyes and ears on the front lines, keeping tabs on what’s happening out in the world to come up with interesting, relevant stories. If you think of what editors and writers do as being different parts of the same enterprise, you’ll have more appreciation for what the other does, and it’ll show in your working relationships.

3. If you’re a writer, think like an editor. Editors keep track of multiple details for multiple projects for multiple issues simultaneously. Some go so far as to use Excel spreadsheets or project management apps to keep things straight. If you’re a writer, you can help them and yourself by thinking like an editor. Don’t turn in stories until you’ve gone over them with the eyes of a copyeditor. If you’re responsible for turning in elements that run with the story such as headlines, decks, inks, file art, sidebars, subheads, etc., send everything with your original draft – along with your invoice – instead of waiting for an editor to remind you. If you have aspirations to work as an editor, being organized about those types of details is good practice, gets you noticed, and it could pay off if you ever want to ask for a recommendation.

4. If you’re an editor, think like a writer. As an editor, if you say yes to a query, talk through what your expectations are of the writer and for the story at the very beginning so everyone’s expectations are the same. Because of their status, editors often have access to people and information writers might not. Sharing that information with a writer could help them with a story they’re working on, which helps you in the long run.

5. Be considerate in all your business relationships. I write a lot about workplace issues and in the last couple months have done a few pieces of employee rewards and recognition programs. My take away – you don’t have to give people money or stuff to make them feel good about doing their job, or about working with you. A small amount of courtesy goes a long way – an email to say thanks for an assignment, or a Twitter status update on how awesome someone is to work with. When the holidays roll around, you don’t necessarily need to send gifts to editors you work for – though last Christmas I did send something small to editors I’d worked with over the year.

Do you work as an editor and writer? What advice do you have for getting along in a flatter media world?

It was the year reporters and editors said goodbye to thousands of staff jobs at newspapers and magazines that downsized or folded.

It was the year conferences went digital, Twitter went viral and the bad economy made every writer a business reporter.

It was the year phrases like hyperlocal, meetup and content aggregators entered freelancers’ lexicon.

It was the year of the mobile app, the multimedia story, SEO tags and crowdsourcing.

It’s only fitting that as we say goodbye to 2009, and with it the first decade of the 21st century, we also bid farewell to journalism practices of yesterday and embraces those of the future as the media business leaves print behind (more or less) for an online-only world and all the changes, risks and opportunities that come with it.

With that in mind, here are my picks for the top media trends of last year, and what they mean for independent writers in 2010:

Content aggregators – They’ve been called mills, farms, and in one case even demonic. I’ll stick with the more neutral-sounding content aggregators to describe sites such as Demand Studios, Associated Content, Helium, and possibly AOL’s new Seed.com. All those sites are hiring freelancers to churn out thousands of SEO-enabled how-to pieces and other “articles” a day in hopes the information will show up high in Google search rankings thereby maximizing the proprietors’ online advertising earnings. The debate over the opportunity these sites present for freelance writers has raged on here and on other freelance blogs for the better part of the year, and media industry heavyweights have weighing in with their (mostly) negative opinions.
Takeaway for freelancers: Content aggregators are here to stay, at least for the short term – although recent changes Google’s made to its search algorithm could affect them in the long run. Also here to stay are a contingent of writers happy for the query-free gigs these sites offer, even if the rates they pay are pitifully low when calculated on a piece-by-piece basis. I remain unconvinced of the merit of doing this type of work, though understand its attraction to someone breaking into the freelance business or with limited time or desire to pitch stories.

Hyperlocal – From the everything-old-is-new-again department. Never have so many been so interested in what’s happening in your Zip Code, your voting precinct, your city block or rural postal route. They are to the news business what nanotechnology is to the tech industry. From biggies like MSNBC, AOL and Examiner.com’s billionaire owner Philip Anschutz to tiny startups, hyperlocal is everywhere. According to Knight Citizen News Network, journalists and hobbyists have started more than 800 hyperlocal sites to date. But will they last? Some are already shutting down. The cofounders of one ambitious southern California hyperlocal project – both long-time journalists – opted to shutter their site at the end of 2009 despite accolades, ads and a partnership with their area’s major metro daily. Why? They couldn’t scale the business to make it profitable without taking on more employees – and the cost that comes with them – a step they were unwilling to take.
Takeaway for freelancers: Hyperlocal remains a viable alternative to working for content aggregators. But like aggregators they don’t pay much. Treat it like the experiment it is. Include work for hyperlocal sites in a broader assignment mix so if a venture goes under you’re not stuck. Or if you go on staff, treat it like a stint at a community newspaper – which is basically what it is – and gauge how long you’re willing to stay for the experience and clips you’ll gain. If you’re interested in starting one of these on your own, you can apply for one of 9 grants of $25,000 each that American University’s J-Lab is awarding for community news sites this year. Applications are due March 1.l

Nonprofit news – This year, everybody who wasn’t busy creating a hyperlocal news site was putting together a 501c3 to start a nonprofit news venture (actually, some were one and the same). According to popular thinking, if nobody’s making money from advertising anymore, why bother, just start out as a nonprofit and hunt for financing through grants, corporate sponsorships, subscriptions and donations. So far it’s working for sites such as MinnPost, Voice of San Diego and ProPublica, which have raised hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars respectively. The bigger question: whether it’s a model that dozens, or hundreds of other ventures can successfully duplicate, similar to the country’s public radio stations. As a matter of fact, don’t rule out the country’s public radio stations as a source of nonprofit news innovation, as stations such as Oregon Public Broadcasting are busy working to expand their coverage areas and the news they dish up on their websites.
Takeaway for freelancers: Nonprofits aren’t the backwater they used to be, especially if an organization is savvy or lucky enough to get backed by Knight Digital Media or another source of major grant funding. Most of these enterprises are being started by ex-newspaper or magazine journalists – meaning if you write for them you’re more likely to get high-quality editing, always good for the clips file.

User generated content – Where to begin. User-generated content is old news if you think of it in terms of YouTube and Facebook. But it’s catching on in new ways. For example, in a different type of user-generated content, more companies are choosing to bypass newspapers and magazines and instead of advertising, starting custom publications, especially online. Expect these types of projects to flourish in 2010 (Disclaimer: I started working on one of them not long ago). Is it journalism? Yes, and no. Sponsored content is after all, sponsored content. But some sponsors understand that for their publications to be taken seriously they have to present information that’s reported and presented like the real deal. The more well-known user-generated content trend is of course the reader comments, videos, etc., that more publications are building into what they do. Expect to see newspapers, magazines and websites do even more of this in 2010.
Takeaway for freelancers: If you don’t already do work for custom publications, now’s the time to look into it. Don’t think you have to pitch publishers of custom publications for the work. If you’ve written for corporate clients in the past, why not pitch them on a news site, or even an e-newsletter. Another options: introducing yourself to one of the growing crop of digital media agencies that produce online-only custom publications. As for the other kind of user-generated content – any writer running a blog or specialized social network has to think about ways to maximize reader involvement.

Entrepreneurship - With so many journalists getting laid off, it was inevitable some would go into business for themselves. Unlike long-time solo writers – such as yours truly – these reporters and editors don’t want to identify themselves as “freelancers,” a word that for better or worse still connotes a lower status word worker in some circles. Besides, some portion of these newly unleashed writers are opting to steer their own destinies rather than wait for editors to answer their queries, so calling them entrepreneurial journalists fits. What are these EJs doing? Creating news apps for iPhones and Androids. Working on the hyperlocal and nonprofit news ventures above. Creating technology platforms or providing the training journalists or newspapers need to their jobs better in the future.
The takeaway for freelancers: There’s never been a better time to start something on your own. The tools are abundant and free or close to it.  In cities such as Portland and New York, it’s relatively easy to find coworking spaces dedicated to writers or start ups or both. There’s also a wealth of information online and

Twitter - At the start of the year Twitter was still Facebook’s little brother, a circus sideshow fun for goofing off on but not really anything you could use for business. At least that was the perception. But as the year wore on and more publications and writers opened accounts, it became apparent Twitter could be used not just to research stories but tell them too. Dan Baum drove this point home when he took to Twitter to tell his tale of being fired from The New Yorker. If that wasn’t enough, there was always coverage of the plane landing in the Hudson, the Iranian election protests and Michael Jackson’s death to convince you Twitter had arrived as a news source.
Takeaway for freelancers: If you haven’t hopped on Twitter yet, now’s the time. Don’t worry about how you’ll use it, at least not at first. Give yourself some time to play around with it and see how things work. Then come up with a plan that fits into your writing business. You read more of my advice on how writers can use Twitter on this blog post and this one.

Other trends: the wave of online-only startup publications on all matter of subjects will increase; blogging will remain big; more publications and writers will experiment with mobile apps; and writers will see publications’ freelance budgets increase, though not all will return to pre-2008 levels.

Got your own picks for the major media industry trends of the past year?

Happy Twitter anniversary to me. I joined Twitter exactly one year ago today. It took a little convincing, but once I figured out how to incorporate it into my freelance business I never looked back.

Earlier today, I tweeted the following lessons learned from my first year on the microblogging service, 17 in honor of joining on Dec. 17, 2008. Every one of them is 140 characters or less.

What I’ve learned:

1 – Be real. People can see through a fake, even online. Therefore, don’t use auto–DMs.

2 – One note may work for a samba, but not online. Don’t tweet on same topic 24/7, even if you’re here for work.

3 – Don’t drink and tweet. But if you do, the next day, delete the tweets. (I got that tip from a Twitterati.)

4 – You don’t have to DM every new follower, esp. once you hit 2,000+. But do DM those you want to know better.

5 – Lists are great organizational tools, but if you follow a lot of people, building them’s a bear.

6 – While good in theory, #FF is hard to keep up, especially if like me, all deadlines seem to fall on Fridays.

7 – Twitter is just a tool. It will not find you customers or make you rich. You do that. All it does is help.

8 – As a writer, Twitter forces me to be concise and use colorful words and phrases. It’s my robo-copydesk.

9 – Twitter is not texting. Some people may be OK with abbreviating everything; for me, that’s too hard to read.

10 – Hashtags and conferences go together. There’s no better way to promote one or report from one. However…

11 – …As recent events have shown, Twitter at meetings can lead to mean-spirited back-channel snark.

12 – Saved Search is handy for tracking subjects you’ll be writing about. I use it like Google News alerts.

13 – Trending Topics is worthless, unless you use it as an obituary tracker. Otherwise, it’s too easy to game.

14 – Spam, porn, phishing, malware, scams: as Twitter’s user base has grown, so has its smarmy underbelly.

15 – Twitter is a conversation, which means you can’t do all the talking. Stop, look, listen, and retweet.

16 – Twitter collapses the space between you and that famous publisher or CEO, but you still gotta make your case.

17 – Blogging and Twitter go together like cheese and crackers: you can have one without the other but it’s not as good.

That’s it. If you’ve used Twitter a year or longer, what wisdom can you share?

By the way, I wrote the first draft of this on Twitter in real time. It was easier than I thought.