Could your freelance business ride out a storm?
Freelancers and other types of writers had a chance to find out over the past few days as Hurricane Irene wrecked havoc on its journey north up the Eastern seaboard.
Writers from North Carolina to Vermont who live in the storm’s path have reported power outages, flooded basements and yards filled with branches and other debris that will take weeks to clear.
It’s hard to concentrate on story deadlines when your rec room’s ankle-deep in water, you’re worried about what the insurance adjuster will have to say, or you have to schlep to a friend’s house because you’ve lost power.
With Hurricane Irene still on everyone’s minds, I’ve dumped the topic I was originally going to cover in the Aug. 31 WordCount Last Wednesday chat for writers, freelancers and bloggers to talk about disasters and how to prepare for, work through and recover from them.
Timeline for Wednesday, Aug. 1 #wclw
Please join us on Wednesday, Aug. 31, at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Use the Twitter hashtag #wclw to participate.
Here’s the agenda for the chat:
10 a.m. – Sign on and introduce yourself.
10:05 a.m. – I’ll throw out a few questions to get things started:
- How did Hurricane Irene affect your physical surroundings and your freelance business?
- What actions did you take to minimize physical or financial damage?
- If you’ve worked through a natural disaster before, how did it affect your business?
- What man-made disasters have you experienced – hard-drive crashes, accidentally deleting a story and so on – and how did you cope?
- What’s your best advice for avoiding disasters?
10:45 a.m. – We’ll open it up to a general discussion.
11 a.m. – The chat ends.
Although it’s possible to use the standard Twitter interface for the chat, you might find it easier to follow along with an add-on application such as TweetGrid, TweetChat or HootSuite. Of those three, my favorite is TweetChat, which you can log into using your Twitter account.
If you’re unable to join us, I’ll post highlights from the chat on Thursday, Sept. 1.
In September, I’ll jump back on the topic I’d originally planned to discuss this month – how to increase comments and reader interaction on your blog. If you have a blog you won’t want to miss it: mark your calendars for Sept. 28 at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
Got an idea for a future #wclw chat, or would like to participate as a guest speaker? Send your topic idea or bio to me at wordcountfreelance@gmail.com.