We’ll be discussing what we achieved, where we messed up and what we hope to accomplish in 2012.

Use the hashtag #wclw to join the conversation.

For the 60-minute chat, we’ll start with introductions, move to some pre-set questions and leave lots of time at the end of discussion.

What were the highs and lows of your freelance business this year?

We’ll be discussing what we achieved, where we messed up and what we hope to accomplish in 2012 in a special Almost New Year’s Eve Party edition of the WordCount Last Wednesday writer chat.

The chat takes place on Wednesday, Dec. 28, at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Use the hashtag #wclw to join the conversation.

Freelancing Highs and Lows

Thinking back on my freelance business during the past year, the highs included:

• Producing a whitepaper series for the first time and having the client like them so much plans are in he works for more next year
• Doing more work for a long-time client that I hadn’t written for very much in 2009 and 2010.
• Traveling to see editors and other clients in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
• The continued success of the WordCount Blogathon

Some of the lows:

• Spending more than a week finishing up a major report that I couldn’t bill for because I was making up for being terribly late on an earlier deadline for the same client.
• Working too much and not working out enough
• Getting behind on the non-writing aspects of running my business
• Not producing the ebooks that I’ve been talking about for the past two years (due to all of the above).

Where were you on 9/11?

On Sept. 11, 2001, I couldn’t have been farther away from the event that changed the course of modern U.S. history and the biggest news story of the decade.

I was still living in Fullerton, Calif., a SAHM of three and still asleep when the first plane struck the World Trade Center. We didn’t know anything had happened until an hour later when my father-in-law called from the hotel where he and my mother-in-law were staying during a trip to visit us. My husband was getting dressed to take them to the airport to go home and I was getting our two oldest ready for school when he called. “Turn on the TV,” he said. “Something’s happened.”

Like That, Everything Changed

And just like that, what had started out as a typical school day became anything but.

My 9/11 experience was similar to that of a lot of people outside of New York, Washington D.C. or Pennsylvania. We spent the day glued to the TV, radio and Internet, trying to absorb the incomprehensible details of an unprecedented terrorist attack that left thousands dead and a nation devastated.

I’d worked as a newspaper reporter for years and lived through disasters, riots and other major events – good and bad – from inside the newsroom. I quit when baby no. 3 came along. It was strange to experience 9/11 so indirectly, far away from where the physical events were occurring and as an observer rather than as someone who’s job it was to report on what was happening.

Feeling Disconnected

That feeling of being disconnected from the events stuck with me. Because I had a family, house, volunteer obligations and such, I couldn’t drop everything and pick up the phone to report on the events, or even fly somewhere to help like some people did. Instead, I cried and prayed at church. I participated in a peace rally. I saved the now famous issue of The New Yorker with the black-on-black images of the vanished twin towers on the cover.

And life went on. A year later I was back working part-time, teaching online news writing to a room full of grad students that included one young man who’d been to Afghanistan with a nonprofit group and was motivated by his experiences to become a journalist. We discussed President George W. Bush’s campaign to get the United Nations to invade Iraq as part of his 9/11 response, events that by spring 2003 would escalate into a full fledged a war on terror that’s still going on.

Visiting Ground Zero

By 2008, my kids were grown up enough that I was working full time again, and I booked my first trip to New York in years to meet editors and writer friends. When my travel agent suggested staying at a hotel by ground zero, it seemed like the right thing to do. By then, the area where the twin towers stood was a construction site cordoned off by a high barricade, but I could see inside from the window of my 17th-floor room. The rubble we’d seen on TV was long gone, replaced by dirt, cranes, i-beams, cement forms and hard-hatted construction workers. I spent a lot of time during that trip watching them and walking around the area, reading commemorative plaques, visiting a temporary memorials, standing in front of the 9/11 cross. Seven years had passed, but the incredible sense of loss remained.

I’ve been to New York several times since then and whether intentionally or not have been to ground zero every time. The sense of loss is still there, along with the crowds of people going about the business of the day, which seems fitting: we remember, but we move on.

Going back as a journalist was fitting too. I don’t cover disasters anymore. But once again I relish that I can watch, listen and learn and report on what I observe.

What’s your 9/11 story?

Congratulations new freelancer. While this might not be the best time to join the ranks of independently employed writers, we realize you may not have had much of a choice.

But when it comes to how you conduct your freelance business, you do have lots of choices. Well, OK, maybe not as many choices as you used to, given that newspaper and magazine freelance budgets have dried up quicker than a mud puddle in August.

But there are choices, in the genre you pursue, the subjects you specialize in, the clients you work with, even how you get your work done.

So how to get started? I’ve compiled the following list of Freelance 101 helpful hints gleaned from 18 months of posts on this blog and 12+ years of  freelancing I’ve done for international wire services,  daily newspapers, geeky tech magazines and Web-based publishers. You’ll find information on writing basics, finding story ideas, working with editors, blogging and other resources.

Writing Basics

• 10 great places writers can find story ideas – Tune in to your surroundings and story ideas are everywhere.
• Prepping for the big one – A dozen ways to ace a VIP interview.
• Keeping sources on the subject – Get in, get the quote, get out.
• A few words about writing short – 500 words is the new 1,000.
• How to write fast. – Setting the timer is just the start.
• Why good writing is all about context – Putting in the why.
• When the words won’t come – Dealing with writer’s block.
• 7 steps to cutting a story that’s too long – Why let someone else hack away when you can easily trim that extra graph or two yourself.

Plugging In

• A writer’s guide to getting the most out of Twitter – After avoiding it forever, I finally caved – and boy, what a difference.
• Delicious and Google News Alerts – Web-based research tools even non-techies can understand.
• Top 10 Web tools for freelancers – Firefox, WordPress and more.
• HARO rescues writers stuck for sources – Crowdsourcing meets journalism.
• How to be a blog star – Take a class or teach yourself.
• The secret to my LinkedIn success – Hint: it’s not the number of connections, but who you’re connecting with.

The Business of the Freelance Business

• How to write queries that sell – Know who you’re pitching to, and other helpful hints.
• Just say no to assignments that aren’t a good fit – If they make you miserable, even well-paid jobs aren’t worth the money.
• Why freelance queries get rejected – It happens, even to the best of us.
• 10 ways to promote your freelance writing business – Writing’s just the beginning, you have to sell yourself.
• You may be desperate for work, just don’t act like it – Editors smell fear.
• Writing for free is not a business model – Giving it away ain’t gonna get you anything but poor.
• 13 warning signs a magazine may be in trouble – Checks slowing to a trickle? Uh oh.

In Their Own Words

• How to build the freelance writing career that you want – Words of wisdom for newcomers from long-time freelancer Gwen Moran.
• Sometimes all it takes is saying ‘I can do that.’ – Being in the right place at the right time is just the start – to get the good jobs, you have to ask for them.
• Going freelance in a down economy – Bad times didn’t stop former copywriter Susan Johnston from pursuing her dream to freelance full-time.
• One writer’s journey from print to online – Reporter Michelle Nicolosi got the online news bug back in the 1990s. Today she’s executive director of the now online-only SeattlePI.com.

The editing work I’ve done this year has made it clear how common a struggle this is. Time and again writers turn in stories with too many quotes or quotes that ramble, aren’t relevant to the subject or restate what they’ve already written.

There’s a good reason to go after good quotes.

Dull quotes make dull stories.

But good quotes make good stories even better.

Quotes are to stories what spices are to food. Carefully selected and placed, they can add flavor and character to an otherwise pedestrian effort.

Getting good quotes is a multi-step process. It starts with finding the right people to talk to and asking the right questions – without those, you won’t have the right kind of material to work with.

The raw material is just the beginning. Once you’ve got a source’s words down, you’ve got to cut out the extraneous stuff, while remaining true to their meaning, so only the best remains.

Sometimes you get lucky and run into a quote machine, the way Roger Ebert did when he interviewed Lee Marvin in 1970 for this Esquire piece that the magazine re-published online after Chris Jones’  February 2010 profile of Ebert went viral. If you read Ebert’s Marvin piece you’ll see it’s a seemingly stream of consciousness monologue, essentially one long quote. But slowly details emerge. Ebert turned his tape recorder on and left it on, picking up all sorts of little gems. But he also used his reporter’s training to describe, as the magazine describes it, ” a beer-addled, expletive-laden day with the actor.”

You may know in advance if someone you’re schedule to interview is known for their bon mots, in which case make sure you’ve got plenty of batteries for your recorder or smartphone.

Sadly, there aren’t many Lee Marvins around, and most of the time, getting good quotes involves a lot more hard work than just turning on a recorder.

When it comes to quotes, here are some recommendations gleaned from my years on the job:

Ask the right questions. You won’t get information worth quoting if you don’t ask the right questions. You can’t ask the right questions if you don’t prep for an interview. First, make sure you’re talking to the right person – a media relations, publicist or public information officer will do in a pinch, but the CEO, inventor, mother of the murder victim, officer involved or Army general are always the preferred choice. Next, read everything you can about the person or situation. The more you know going in, the better, more probing questions you can ask.

Take detailed notes. It doesn’t matter if you take shorthand, type on a laptop or record everything and use a transcription service – one way or another, you’ve got to take down verbatim what the person says.

Organize the story. Some stories don’t materialize until you’ve done enough reporting to know what the subject really is. But for other pieces, you know the outcome going in, either because it’s simple, short, a Q&A or you’re writing based on your own pitch. If you know how you’re going to shape your story from the get go, you’ll know what questions to ask and the kinds of quotes you need. When that’s the case, don’t leave the interview without what you came for, even if it means asking and re-asking a question until you get an answer.

Be selective. Once you’re in writing mode, use only what you need to. Chances are you’ll have a lot more than you can use in a story. Regardless of how tempting it is to stick all of them in the piece, use only the very best – or if you’re doing a short piece – the best of the best. I learned this the hard way. In my first job after journalism grad school as a health care trade magazine reporter, I loved filling stories with quotes – so much so my editor said I wasn’t writing as much copying the contents of my notebook. Ouch. That taught me to be more sparing with my words, and quotes.

Paraphrase instead. Writers think they have to quote someone to share what the person has to say. But paraphrasing is another way to do that, especially if the story you’re writing is short and you’ve got to make every word count. People tend to ramble, so paraphrasing a concept they took 45 words to state in a more succinct and understandable 10, 15 or 20 is doing everybody a favor: your source, your readers and yourself. When paraphrasing, however, take care not to changing the speaker’s meaning, and always include an attribution so your audience know whose thoughts they’re reading.

Double check the material. If you’re working with sensitive material of any kind, and even if you aren’t, make sure the words you’re attributing to another person are accurate. Double or triple check everything, including the spelling of a source’s name.

Want to learn more about the proper care and handling of quotes? My all-time favorite resource is William E. Blundell’s classic writing guide, The Art and Craft of Feature Writing. If you can find a copy, look at Chapter 6, “Handling Key Story Elements,” especially at a section entitled “Handling People and Quotes.” Blundell is of the less-is-more camp. In the section he discusses a Wall Street Journal story he wrote about cowboys that he interviewed 35 people for but quoted only four.

Got your own secrets for getting good quotes? Please share.

In honor of Mother’s Day, today’s edition of Best of WordCount is about juggling a freelance writing career with family life.

Making life work as a writer and a mom – I’ve been a mom a long time, but I’ve been a writer even longer. This guest post I did for  The Urban Muse, Susan Johnston’s popular freelance writing blog, explains how I try to make life work as both.

Outsourcing – Companies regularly offload non-essential activities to a third party that can do it better and faster leaving them free to concentrate on core activities. Freelancers can do it too.

How to celebrate the season and write too – Self-employed people like writers don’t get paid holidays, so we’ve got to be even better than usual when holidays roll around at balancing work and non-work commitments. This post gives 10 tips for doing just that.

5 reasons freelancers need vacations – You work hard to support yourself and your family, so make time to enjoy the fruits of your labors with the people closest to you.

WordCount Q&A: Making new money from old queries – Writers Terri Cettina, Kris Bordessa and Jeannette Moninger not only capitalize on their parenthood by writing about parenting topics, they squeezed extra cash out of their efforts by packaging queries that landed them work at national and local parenting publications and put them into an e-book, Cash in on Your Kids: Parenting Queries that Worked.

You’ll be shocked at the answer – though if you’ve been in the freelance business very long maybe you won’t be.

I posed that question last week to the members of Freelance Success, a subscription-only message board for independent journalists, paid bloggers and other professional freelancers.

Of the 20 or so writers who answered, only one had three or more clients who paid invoices via direct deposits into her checking account. A couple others had two clients who made direct deposits. The majority had one or none.

Me? I have one – and they started making direct deposits only last month, although before that they paid via wire transfer, which is even faster though my bank charged a small fee for accepting them.

It’s not like direct deposits are all that innovative. When I worked at a daily newspaper some 20 years ago, my twice-monthly paychecks went straight into my checking account.

So why are publishers so reluctant to keep up with the electronic times?

Could it be they want to hang onto their money as long as possible, including the time it takes a check to get from the accounting department to their contributors’ mailboxes? Are times so bad they need the float on what amounts to a blip in the overall scheme of publishing industry expenses?

Are they do behind the times they have yet to automate expense management?

What other reasonable explanation could there be?

Or is my sample bad, and most writers are being paid this way?

For all the grousing I do about content mills like Demand Media, they do have one thing going for them – they use PayPal and other online payment mechanisms to pay contributors, though in many cases writers must earn a minimum amount before they see a dime.

Given what I think of content sites, you know things are bad when I’m siding with the Demand Medias of the world.

The next time you’re negotiating with a new publishing client, speak up. Ask to be paid via direct deposit. Strike that. Demand to be paid via direct deposit. It’s time we freelancers took a stand and dragged publishers into the electronic payment age.

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?

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.

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?