In this edition of Freelance Friday I want to highlight freelance writer Angela Swanlund. Angela has been around the Internet for many years and published on many websites. Her best work has been for places like The Encyclopedia of Arkansas, where she did extensive research into the gruesome killing spree of Ronald Gene Simmons. She’s also been published in Cuckleburr Times and Ozark Farms and Neighbor Newspaper.

Angela is a prolific writer with a style that is uniquely hers; sometimes extremely serious, sometimes light and funny. No matter what topic Angela tackles she handles it with panache and professionalism.

Last year she did something almost unheard of in today’s society; she unplugged for an entire year. Yep, that’s right. She disconnected her phone service and her Internet service and devoted the entire year to writing her first full length novel. Actually, she went a bit overboard and it ended up being the length of two novels. She is now in the process of trimming it down and getting ready to send it off to publishers. She’s also begun working on her second novel. This one has been a bit difficult due to that fact that she’s contending with the Internet this year. She may have to unplug to see it’s completion.

Most writers would never dream of walking away from their freelance career for a year to pursue writing a novel. Many try to juggle the best of both worlds and end up frustrated in the process, never giving due diligence to either project. Angela is living proof that you can go off the grid, write a novel, and survive life without the digital age.

Many of us need the income we receive for our freelance work. Angela just buckled down and lived frugally for a year so the loss of income would not be such a strain. You have to decide which is more important; ordering pizza every week or getting your novel out.

When asked why she took such extreme measures, she admitted that self-control can be more difficult than actually unplugging. Without the tease of getting online for just a few minutes, she was able to focus her sole attention to her novel.

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Well my new section “Freelance Friday” is here and I’ve got nothing. But since it’s my blog I guess I can highlight myself and tell you a little about what’s in store for some upcoming features.

Mayhem & Madness: I’ve recently started a weekly event specifically for fiction writers called Monday Mayhem & Madness. This is a Monday event where writers can share what they are working on, what they’re putting their characters through (or their characters are putting them through), plots, schemes, frustrations–anything the fiction writer goes through and wants to share.

This event is to help fiction writers meet others through comments and camaraderie. It’s a lot of fun to share and mingle with other writers.

Wednesday Writing Sprint: This is also a weekly event but it’s for all writers–fiction, freelance, poets, etc. The scope of this event is to get as much writing accomplished in this one day as you possibly can. Turn off email, Twitter, whatever you use to network during the week and just ignore it for one day a week so you can concentrate on your writing.

Drop in each week for the Wednesday Writing Sprint and share what you’re working on. I know it’s a contradiction since we’re supposed to unplug–but it really is a great motivator to share with other writers.

And then of course, we have Freelance Friday. I’m not completely sure what I want to do with it yet. I do know since I love fiction and freelance, I want the best of both worlds here at The Scribe and I want all writers to feel welcome here.

Freelance Friday will have some guest posts from great freelance writers around the Internet. I don’t know how soon that will happen, but it’s in the plans. I could call this Fun Friday instead. Any thoughts?

I want The Scribe to be informative, but also a fun place for writers to hang out and share their passion.

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Recently, Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today had the honor of being interviewed for a segment of KTVB.com news regarding political plagiarism scandals; specifically in reference to the Vaughn Ward case where “Ward was accused of plagiarizing President Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.”

I have followed Jonathan for several years now. It is a great honor, to not only share this video segment with you, but to share in his joy of such a well deserved achievement. Congratulations Jonathan! You did an Awesome job!

Jonathan is The Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today, which he founded in 2005 as a way to help Webmasters going through content theft problems get accurate information and stay up to date on the rapidly-changing field. He is also a consultant to Webmasters and companies to help them devise practical content protection strategies and develop good copyright policies.

He can also be found at CopyByte, a consulting firm that specializes in copyright and plagiarism matters in regards to the Web.

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We’ve got some great weekly events scheduled here at the Stafford Scribe, trying to revamp a few things we’ve been involved in before. One of them is the Wednesday Writing Sprint; a time to devote each Wednesday to getting as much writing done as you can. Turn everything off and concentrate on writing only. Get all other tasks done before this day. If you need to contact clients or whatever–get it out of the way so you can spend Wednesday writing. You are allowed to check in here and share your progress or frustrations with the rest of the gang.

Wednesday is devoted to any type of writing you do; freelance, fiction, poetry—it’s just about writing!

Another weekly event is Mayhem Monday. This day is devoted to fiction writers. Hop on board and share the mayhem you’re putting your characters through or even the mayhem they’re putting you through. It’s a day to devote to fiction and share with other fiction writers.

Please note that July is a trial month for these events. We hope to keep them going but it really depends on you and your interaction with the events. Please spread the word.

These are great opportunites to meet and communicate with other writers.

Please leave comments on your thoughts.

Happy Writing!

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We will be adding some new features here at the Stafford Scribe. One of them being Freelance Friday where we will cover many topics in the world of freelance writing. At times we will even showcase some of the most talented freelance writers on the web.

Other features will be announced soon. Look for The Scribe’s Scope in an upcoming post.

If you feel you have something to contribute to our Freelance Friday section, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’d love to hear from you.

Be sure to check out the Guest Blogging guidelines. Don’t worry, they are really easy.

Happy Writing!

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I recently signed up at Booksneeze.com. If you love reading, you may want to check this site out. They give away free books–the only catch is–you have to write a review on your blog.

As of right now, the available book is Lead Like Ike by Geoff Loftus. The book is about 10 business strategies using the knowledge that Ike used to back his decisions and execution of D-Day.

I haven’t decided if this book is for me yet. It sounds like a great read, and I am interested in the business material, but I can’t decide.

I just wanted to share this with readers in case you’re interested in reviewing books for free as well.

The site is well set up and has many top reviewers. This indicates the site is legit and these people are enjoying the books they receive for free.

Check it out and see what you think. This is not an affiliate link. I gain nothing from sharing this information with you.

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I’m as open to change as the next person; in fact, I know that life is transient and the only thing that is permanent is change itself. But if there’s one thing I can never get used to or bring myself to use is what we now term “text lingo” – the fashionable language that allows you to delete the vowels from words to shorten them and mix them with numbers that sound that parts of words to form totally unrecognizable words, all of which are fully accepted by anyone who uses a cellphone or is familiar with instant messaging. Apparently, if you frown at this usage, if you’re so focused on grammar and spellings, you’re not current or living in the present.

But, even at the risk of sounding like an old fuddy-duddy, I beg to differ from this point of view. While I think it’s each to their own when sending personal messages on your cellphone or when chatting online, when it comes to email and writing for websites, there are certain rules that need to be followed, even if you think they’re not “hip” and “relevant” to the times. No one likes to read emails that are grammatically incorrect and riddled with spelling mistakes. And believe me, if you’re getting away with the same kind of usage on your blog, it’s only because you haven’t noticed the drop in your readership.

You may think that language is a form of communication and that as long as you’ve included all the relevant information and facts in your missive (be it a letter, a blog post or a website page), it doesn’t matter that it’s peppered with grammatical and spelling errors. But what you don’t realize is that even a simple mistake like the misplacement of a comma or the transposition of words can change the meaning of whatever you’re trying to say. So because your knowledge of the language is poor, you may end up misleading your readers.

Some mistakes are just plain annoying – like the wrong placement of an apostrophe (saying you’re when you actually mean your) and the usage of I instead of me and vice versa. But there are others that could end up confusing your audience – like the placement of the world “only” in a sentence. For example, the sentences “John was only trying to help Jane” and “Only John was trying to help Jane” have totally different meanings. The first sentence is a sort of explanation for what John did because he somehow messed up while trying to help Jane, while the second praises John as the only person trying to help her. As another example, consider these two sentences – “Only children are allowed to play here” and “Children are allowed to play only here”. The first one has the word “children” as the subject and restricts the playing to children while the second has the location as the subject and restricts the location where the children are allowed to play.

So if you don’t want to end up making such mistakes when writing for your blog or website, it’s best to brush up on your language skills by including your vowels, cutting out the numerals from your words, and reading through what you’ve written to ensure that the meaning is loud and clear.

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of degree online . She welcomes your comments at her email id: anna.miller009@gmail.com

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This blog is about the writer’s passion, writing what you love and loving what you write—or it’s supposed to be. Writing should also be fun.

My passion is not to write about writing. I do enjoy it, but there are so many great blogs out there about writing—fiction, technique, freelance, style, non-fiction—the topics are endless.

After a lot of soul searching (and putting it off for years) I’ve finally decided to go with my passion—health and well-being. I’ve spent the last few weeks getting the site ready for launch. There will be some crossover between this blog and that one. How can you keep up with your passion for writing if the body, mind and spirit are not in alignment?

What does all of that have to do with the Law of Attraction? Well since I’ve decided to go with my niche passion, the comments I’ve been getting from my posts at BloggingTips and here as well, have mostly been from people who are in the same niche—something related to health, well-being or personal development.

I didn’t actively set out to start attracting these people—yet, but we do inadvertently attract those things that we desire. When The Law of Attraction is set in motion and on purpose—just imagine what it can do. I’ll probably have more on that in another post—at a later date.

Since this blog is about writing and passion, I want to hear from you. I invite you to write a guest post about your passion. Tell us why you write, what your favorite topic/niche is. You can write this as a story, or as a bio type post. Just share your love of writing with us.

You can read the guest guidelines at the Guest Blogging page. Don’t worry—they aren’t too strict.

Oh, I’ll announce my new blog soon—so check back in!

Image courtesy: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2133/2442969107_54f77a8f3c.jpg

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