#Freelance Daily Post:

Today in Freelance Fingerprints

Women Hold Up Half the Sky
by: Arthur Buchanan

Women and Mental Health Research

Mental illnesses affect women and men differently. Some disorders are more common in women, and some express themselves with different symptoms. Scientists are only now beginning to tease apart the contribution of various biological and psychosocial factors to mental health and mental illness in both women and men. In addition, researchers are currently studying the special problems of treatment for serious mental illness during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Research on women's health has grown substantially in the last 20 years. Today's studies are helping to clarify the risk and protective factors for mental disorders in women and to improve women's mental health treatment outcome.

To read more please go Freelance Fingerprints
================================

#Daily Writing Tip :
------------------------
Tight Lines, Writers!
by: Jenna Glatzer

“Tight lines” is a good luck wish among fishermen. When you’ve hooked a fish, your line tightens up.

I was musing on this expression as my husband critiqued my lousy casting skills on our latest fishing expedition. Anthony’s as accurate a caster as they come. He can pinpoint a particular far-away reed and cast an inch in front of it.

We were going for bass, and he explained that bass like to hide out on the perimeters of a lake, under rocks and in between plants. Problem is, I can’t pinpoint anything. I aim my pole right and the line somehow flies left. I aim fifty feet away and it somehow shoots straight up in the air and plunks down five feet in front of the boat.

Fishing is part plain luck, but there’s a lot of strategizing to it, too. You have to pick the right spot, the right time of day, the right bait, the right rig, the right technique. You could just toss a worm out and hope something hits, but your odds are a lot better if you make the effort to put a tasty-looking treat right in front of the fish’s mouth.

Kind of like querying.

Oh, you knew there was a writing reference in here somewhere!

As I aimlessly hurled my plastic worm into the middle of the lake, I got more and more frustrated watching Anthony pull in fish. Smug show-off! But really, he was doing a much better job of appealing to his target than I was.

When you have a great idea, write a query, and toss it out to every editor you can think of, you’re the Jenna fisherwoman. You figure that if you just toss that line out there enough, some smart editor is going to come snatch it up. And sometimes you’ll get lucky, but more often, you’ll come up empty. What you really want is to be the Anthony fisherman.

So let’s go over those editor-luring techniques.

The Right Spot:

This is the most important part of the equation. You have to know where your idea will fit. Don’t assume that just because your topic is about weddings, it’ll be right for every wedding magazine. Pick a magazine genre and get to know it well. Read at least five or six wedding magazines, cover to cover, and jot down the names of the sections and columns. How long are the articles in each section? What is the tone? Is the magazine targeting brides on a budget or no-expense-is-too-silly ones? Which topics seem to come up in every issue? Know exactly where your article would fit within the magazine and be prepared to tell the editor.

The Right Time:

Magazines have long lead times (the time between an article’s acceptance and the time when it’s published), sometimes a year or more, but typically more like four to six months. Your great Christmas pitch is not going to get accepted in October. Think ahead and pitch ahead. Want to pitch an article about picking a flattering swimsuit or how to choose a summer camp? Do it in the early winter or you might as well wait until the following year.

The Right Bait:

This is your query itself, and it has to be irresistible. A small weed stuck to your lure will tip off the bass that it’s fake. Every sentence of your query has to reek of professionalism. Mimic the tone of the article in your query. The first paragraph of the query should read like the first paragraph of your proposed article. Include samples of your research and names of those you plan to interview. Throw in a juicy quotation from one of them if possible.

The Right Rig:

These are your clips. If your query doesn’t work, the clips probably won’t even be read. But if your query is good, your clips can make or break the deal. Don’t blow it by including samples from your blog, Epinions, WriteforCash, your high school newspaper, or an e-zine that runs anything people send in. This will automatically tell the editor that you have no professional experience. Even if that’s the case, you don’t want to flaunt it. Build up those clips any way you can, preferably in print (community newspapers, regional magazines, and trade magazines are less competitive than national consumer magazines, and all respectable places to earn clips).

Understand that if you’ve never proven yourself in a particular area of writing (health writing, let’s say), you probably won’t get a plum feature assignment that requires heavy research. Either write the article on spec to show you can handle it, or start by pitching shorter, front-of-the-book items to prove your chops.

The Right Technique:

Some editors prefer longer queries, some prefer shorter. Some accept reprints, some don’t. Some are okay with simultaneous submissions, multiple submissions, e-mail queries, and informal letters of introduction – some aren’t. You’ll learn some of these things in the writers’ guidelines that you find on a magazine’s website or in the Writer’s Market or the American Directory of Writer’s Guidelines. Others, you can find out by networking with writers on message boards like http://absolutewrite.com/forums/ and www.mediabistro.com/bbs, or joining groups like www.freelancesuccess.com and www.asja.org. And some you’ll learn along the way through trial and error. There is no one-size-fits-all technique that’ll work for all editors. About all they seem to agree on is that they hate it when their names are misspelled!

My biggest mistake as a beginning freelancer was the same as my biggest fishing trouble: I didn’t target well. I’d come up with an idea and send it to every editor I could find in the Writer’s Market who sounded remotely appropriate for my topic, whether I’d read the magazines or not.

Now I know that it’s a sign of respect for my profession and my industry if I take the time to study the detailed guidelines editors provide every month: their magazines. Before I can figure out how to bait my hook, I first need to find out what the fish are biting. And if I’m feeling strapped for cash, I don’t even need to buy copies – I can head to the library and spend my afternoon reading and taking notes there.

Part of the thrill of fishing is that you don’t catch a fish every time you throw your line out. It wouldn’t feel like an accomplishment if you did. Sometimes, you can do everything right – the perfect cast, the perfect spot – and not even feel a nibble. When this happens with a query, there may be something going on behind the scenes you don’t know about: Maybe they’ve recently assigned an article on your topic, or the section is about to be redesigned, or the editor’s budget for freelancers just got slashed.

What matters is that you get that line back in the water fast, and target your next mark just as carefully. Soon, you’ll reel in assignments with ease.

Tight lines, writers!

About The Author

Jenna Glatzer is the editor of http://www.absolutewrite.com (pick up a FREE list of agents looking for new writers!) and the author of 14 books, including MAKE A REAL LIVING AS A FREELANCE WRITER, which comes with a FREE Editors' Cheat Sheet. She's also Celine Dion's authorized biographer. Visit Jenna at http://www.jennaglatzer.com

jg@jennaglatzer.com

=============================

#Freelance Daily Post:


Today in Freelance Fingerprints
---------------------------------------------

The Simple Secret for Making More Friends
by: Royane Real

When you meet new people for the first time, do you usually like most of the new people that you meet?

Or do you find that you usually dislike new people, unless they can eventually prove after a long time that they deserve your friendship?

Perhaps you have never thought about this before. And you may even wonder if it’s really important. Does it really matter very much if you like most people when you first meet them, or if you decide to like them much later, after you get to know them better?

To read more please go Freelance Fingerprints

========================

#Daily Writing Tip :
------------------------

How to Write a Great Combat Scene - Advice for Fantasy Writers
by Will Kalif

A great combat scene is a memorable event in your reader's life. It is a microcosm of the struggle that is contained in the book itself. And good combat scenes are often dog-eared by readers and returned to over and over again. You can give your reader a great combat experience if you follow a few simple guidelines.

A combat scene is something that may take up only a few minutes of your character's time but will take up significantly more of your reader's time. In a combat scene the reader's sense of time changes and because of this he or she is very sensitive to the details and the flow of the scene. This affords you the opportunity to write something very special that your reader will remember. Here are five tips for writing great combat scenes.

1. Do Your Research - You write fantasy, which means you can write anything you want. After all, it is a genre of imagination with few boundaries. But, today's fantasy reader is very savvy when it comes to the genre. He or she has access to books, movies, websites and all sorts of sources of information. And this means that he or she probably knows a bit about the weapons, armor, and combat techniques of different cultures and periods. He or she probably knows the difference between a Claymore and a Cutlass. And even though your writing is fantasy it still has to make sense to your reader. Research weapons, armor and combat techniques as they apply to your fantasy writing. This research will not only make your scenes more realistic it will also generate interesting and memorable ideas that you can incorporate into the scenes.

2. Take advantage of the Dilation of Time - A combat scene may take a minute or less in real time but in your writing you have the freedom to expand on this and absorb much more of your readers time. This ability to take up time will make a memorable impression on your reader. Be more descriptive in the motions, thoughts and reactions of the combatants.

3. Writing style and exposition - Above all else you have to pay close attention to the way you write combat scenes. A combat scene is a microcosm of your novel in that it describes something that often involves only a few minutes of action, yet the actual exposition can last several pages and take up quite a bit of your readers time. The most important rule of the actual writing is to avoid passive sentences. The sword was not thrust into your Protagonist's thigh; your Antagonist thrust it! Remember this rule and always edit your scenes to eliminate all passive sentences. The very nature of a combat scene is that it is active and not passive.

4. Handle Strange Creatures Realistically - When writing a creature into a combat scene whether it be a Troll, Ogre, Goblin, Orc, or any other type of exotic fantasy creature it still must follow the rules of flesh and blood. You probably don't have a real fantasy creature to model combat motions after but you will have a familiar creature that you can use as a template for motion. Fantasy creatures are almost always distortions of real creatures. Trolls become very large men, Goblins are wiry and quick, and Centaurs follow the template of horses. What you can do is to transfer your thinking about the creature in terms of what it is similar to. How would a horse move in this situation? How would a very large man move in this combat scene? These transferrances of physique work well and make the combat realistic.

5. Give your reader something Extra - In researching and thinking about your combat scenes you will come across some great ideas that will take the scenes to new levels. Here are three examples of what I mean. A Samurai sword is sharp on only one side but was that the only side of the weapon that the Samurai Warrior used? No! The blunt side was also a very effective weapon when the warrior wanted to subdue an enemy without killing or maiming. An observation like this can add a very strong distinction in the scene and can give you an interesting angle to think about and to have your characters think about. Many hand weapons of the medieval period had a spike or metal cap on the bottom end of the handle. This was a very effective means of striking an enemy when the fighting got real close and it became difficult to swing the business end of the weapon. An observation like this can have a dramatic effect on the flow of a fight scene. The Flamberge was a large two-handed weapon that was swung much like a baseball bat but the bottom portion of the blade was often wrapped in leather so when the fighting got close the wielder could choke up on it and swing it in a tighter and more controlled arc. Adding a detail like this lends a note of authority to the scene.

Just because you are writing fantasy doesn't mean you can write implausible and over the top fight scenes. Even fantasy worlds have rules of body and weapon to follow. If you know a little bit about weapons, armor and the rules of body motion you can write some truly memorable combat scenes that will give your reader an experience that will be fondly remembered and oft returned to.


About the Author

Will Kalif is the author of two self-published epic fantasy novels. You can download free samples of his work at his personal website: Storm The Castle - Creativity and Fantasy with an edge

Or you can visit his blog devoted to all things medieval at: The Heroic Dreams Medieval Blog

===========================