Once upon a time, I hung up from a conference call for a month-long writing project and absentmindedly shut my laptop without hitting “Save” – losing an hour’s worth of notes.
Another time I turned in a whitepaper project so late I voluntarily did edits and other revisions for free, costing myself hundreds – if not thousands – of dollars in unbillable work.
One editor I worked with made me go through multiple rewrites before deciding exactly what she wanted the story to be about.
I’ll bet plenty of other freelancers could share similar horror stories of computer glitches, missed deadlines and awful editors.
Come and share your freelance nightmares and other spooky tales from the writing life at this month’s WordCount Last Wednesday, which takes place appropriately enough on Halloween, this Wednesday, Oct. 31, at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
Use the hashtag #wclw to join the chat.
Freaky Freelance
For the 60-minute chat, we’ll start with introductions, then move to a couple pre-set questions. We’ll leave plenty of time for other questions and discussion.
Here are the questions:
- 1. What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you in your writing career?
- 2. Has there been a time where you’ve been really afraid? What happened & what did you do to fix it?
- 3. No need to name names if you don’t want to, but what’s the worst thing an editor or publication has ever done to you & how’d it end?
- 4. If your freelance horror story was a cautionary tale, what would be the lesson learned?
Join the #wclw chat
To join the #wclw chat, you need a Twitter account and free time from 10 to 11 a.m. PDT on Wednesday, Oct. 31. Use the hashtag #wclw to follow tweets related to the chat.
It’s possible to use the standard Twitter interface , but you might find it easier using a Twitter application such as TweetGrid, TweetChat or HootSuite. Of those three, my favorite is TweetChat, which you can log into using your Twitter account.
You might want to alert followers that you’ll be tweeting more than usual during the chat, and suggest they use Muuter.com to temporarily mute you if they don’t want to tune into the conversation.
If you can’t join us, look for a complete transcript of the chat on Wednesday afternoon.
Got an idea for a #wclw chat? Would you like to participate as a guest speaker? Send your idea or bio to me at wordcountfreelance@gmail.com.