NAIWE Board of Experts

Small Claims Copyright Court is Coming!

In years past, writers who found themselves in the unfortunate position of finding their work infringed upon would have only one course of action: to take the infringing party to federal court to pursue damages there. This often would require not only a massive time commitment, but the potential for a great expense in court fees, attorney fees, and damages.

In late December 2020 and as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021[1], the CASE Act (Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act[2]) was signed into law. This new amendment to copyright law is an alternative for writers who have been infringed upon as it commissions a Copyright Claims Board (CCB) made up of three copyright officers specially appointed from the U.S. Copyright Office to hear certain small claim infringement cases. The new claims board is set to be established by no more than a year and a half from when the CASE Act was signed into law (or by June 2022).

The CCB will greatly reduce the costs of taking an infringement case to court (at the minimum, $100 and no more than the costs of filing a claim in federal district court). Writers or other copyright holders who wish to bring a claim before the CCB will be able to do so without the need for legal counsel, and the proceedings will be streamlined.

The CCB’s system will be a completely voluntary process, meaning that those who are defendants in an infringement claim will have the option to opt out of the process completely within 60 days of a filing. That said, one of the great incentives for a defendant to appear before the tribunal is that all damages are limited by design to a total of $30,000. In federal court, statuory damages can run up to $150,000 per instance of infringement, and additional damages could be awarded on top of that amount.

The CASE Act will provide an even playing field as the copyright holders will be required to have their work formally registered with the U.S. Copyright Office[3] prior to filing an infringement case before the CCB. Importantly, this requirement for copyright registration in infringement cases (brought to federal court) was recently underscored in the suit Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation v. Wall-Street.com[4].

The CASE Act was also designed to help prevent so-called copyright “trolls” from bringing frivolous claims, excessive counterclaims, and fraudulent defenses in front of the CCB. The tribunal would be empowered to penalize bad actors by setting limits on how many claims can be filed each year, awarding attorneys’ fees in extreme cases, and even dismissing all claims filed by abusers of the system.

The passage of the CASE Act and its CCB is significant to copyright law in the United States, and writers can take comfort in knowing that they will have an additional—and less expensive—recourse at their disposal should they find themselves infringed upon.

Mary Jo (“MJ”) Courchesne is the owner and principal consultant of Gryphon Publishing Consulting. A publishing veteran with more than 20 years of experience in trade, academic, and direct-response publishing, she has spent nearly two decades specializing in licensing, subsidiary rights, and permissions. MJ is a frequent and polished presenter on licensing and copyright. When it comes to intellectual property, she firmly believes that everyone from authors to publishers to corporations should know their rights. To that end, MJ instructed in the George Washington University’s Masters in Publishing program for 13 years, first for 11 years as adjunct professor for a course titled Editorial Content, Rights, and Permissions and subsequently as lecturer in a course on copyright. She currently serves on the Board of Experts for the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors and is a member of the Independent Book Publishers Association and the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators. MJ has also held memberships with other publishing organizations such as the American Society of Picture Professionals and Washington Publishers.

[1] https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-116HR133SA-RCP-116-68.pdf see page 2544 for the start of the CASE Act in the Consolidated Appropriations Act omnibus bill

[2] original text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2426/text

[3] https://copyright.gov/registration/

[4] https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/03/opinion-analysis-a-copyright-owner-cant-sue-for-infringement-before-the-register-has-processed-it

A Decade of Change

Friday, January Post a comment

Tax Legislation

The effect of 2020 will be felt for many years to come. The personal trials and tribulations alone would take many moons to share; in spoken word, in cinema, and in books – both fact and fiction . . . to say the least. For my purposes, purely now, as a tax professional, 2020 was the year all hell broke loose. Three of the major tax legislations in the past 10 years seemed to be competing for the spotlight.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017

Arguably the biggest change in tax law in over 35 years, the TCJA implemented changes that affected big corporations, as well as individual taxpayers and small business owners. For big business, the most notable change was a decline in the tax rate from 35% to a flat 21% (must be nice). For us regular folks, individual taxpayers saw the elimination of personal exemptions in lieu of increases in the standard deduction. The Child Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credit were increased for families with children. TCJA also eliminated the controversial “individual mandate” for the Affordable Care Act (ACA, a.k.a. Obamacare). For the small business owner, of course, came the Qualified Business Income Deduction (QBID). The QBID was a very real and tangible business income deduction that allowed small businesses to reduce their taxable income and, therefore, reduce their tax liability. And these TCJA provisions are just an overview of this massive legislation, setting the stage for the SECURE Act that went into law January 1, 2020.

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019

The SECURE Act was a much smaller piece of tax legislation than the TCJA. This legislation, in my opinion, focused most of its energies on the individual taxpayer. More specifically, the SECURE Act was all about retirement rule changes!

The age limit for traditional IRA contributions was repealed.

Very simply, beginning with contributions made for the 2020 tax year, age was no longer a limitation with respect to traditional IRA contributions.

Another biggie – the required beginning date (RBD) for required minimum distributions (RMDs) was increased from age 70 ½ to age 72 or the year the taxpayer retires (whichever is later) for an employer-provided plan.
Another provision, affecting beneficiaries inheriting retirement assets, called for distributions to be completed, generally, within 10 years of death.

Note: This might sound like a no brainer. Some would say, “Give it to me all at once!” However, if you are inheriting, say, $1 million, that would be a lot of money to have to pay taxes on all at once.

Not to worry, we are only getting started – enter the CARES Act.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020

Try to keep up here. The massive TCJA kicked off 2018, only to be followed by an admittedly more focused SECURE Act that went into effect in 2020. And then before the paint was dry on the ink outlining the SECURE Act, in comes the CARES Act. A full-fledged five-alarm fire solution for a worldwide pandemic. Mind you, some of us tax pros were still digesting some of the provisions of the TCJA. The most notable provision in the CARES Act were the stimulus payments. $1,200 for single taxpayers, $2,400 for married individuals filing a joint return, and $500 bucks for each (soon-to-be distance learning) kiddo. The questions, in those early days of the news of a stimulus package, overwhelmed the tax office. Are they going to give us money? Do we have to pay it back? Do I have to file my 2019 tax return to be eligible? As for small businesses, the questions were just as perilous. Is there going to be any help with payroll? How does my business qualify for these loans they are talking about? Real-estate professionals, gig workers, those unemployed, all with the same basic question – how am I going to survive this madness?

Poise in a Pandemic

The $2.2 trillion economic stimulus CARES Act would become the largest economic stimulus package in U.S. history. And as of December 27, 2020, there is talk of an extension to the CARES Act. However, before we get bogged down with what could be coming, let’s just drill down into some of the more popular provisions of the CARES Act.

The Recovery Rebate Credit

More commonly referred to as the “stimulus check.” However, on your U.S. Individual Income Tax Return Form 1040 line 30, this year, this credit is referred to as the “recovery rebate credit.” And NO, you do not have to pay it back. And, if you did not, for some reason, receive your full amount when all the checks went out (and have some form of documentation to show as much – proof), you can claim the difference on your 2020 tax return and possibly get that money back, since this is a refundable credit (if you don’t owe more than you would be getting back).

I repeat, “You DO NOT have to pay the stimulus money back!”

Consider it a gift from Uncle Sam . . . that we all paid for first. A re-gift of sorts, lol.

Retirement Plan Distributions

Now let us get into our favorite topic: retirement. I mentioned earlier that the SECURE Act did well to enact tax law changes that benefited the individual taxpayer, and especially with respect to retirement provisions. The CARES Act pushed some of the key provisions even further. One in particular, that a number of my clients, and friends and family as well, have benefited from is the waiver on the 10% penalty on withdrawals from qualified retirement plans or IRAs – for COVID-19–related reasons. Mind you, those reasons are pretty broad. In a nutshell, a COVID-19–related distribution is one made during the 2020 calendar year to an individual who is diagnosed with COVID-19 by a CDC-approved test, whose spouse or dependent is diagnosed with COVID-19, or who experiences adverse financial consequences as a result of being quarantined, furloughed, laid off, or unable to work due to lack of childcare due to COVID-19; having work hours reduced; or reducing hours of a business owned or operated by the individual. And there are provisions whereby you can pay this money back over a three-year period as though you never took it out in the first place. More to come on that later.

Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)

Simple, the CARES Act has waived RMDs for calendar year 2020. If you are currently taking RMDs, you are not required to do so for 2020. This also includes your first RMD, which you may have delayed from 2019 until April 1, 2020.

This too Shall Pass

I know it can feel like this is too much to process . . . because it is. However, we are going to get through this one step at a time. These are the broad strokes.

References

H.R.133 – Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021

Three Big Ways Small Business Would Benefit from the New COVID Relief Package

30 years after the Tax Reform Act: Still aiming for a better tax system

An Overview of Itemized Deductions

Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act

Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act

Kajli Prince (“Prince”) has over 20 years of experience in small business tax preparation; he is the office manager of H&R Block’s Sudley Manor Office in Manassas, Virginia. As a self-published author, Prince holds a special appreciation for NAIWE and its members. One of his passions is sharing relevant information with people and showing them how best to use it for their benefit. Prince is a small business owner of 25 years, and his specialties include emerging currencies (e.g., virtual/crypto currencies), information technology, intellectual property, and business administration.

How to Choose a Good Domain Name

Monday, January Post a comment

Everyone knows it’s necessary to have a strong internet presence if you’re going to be a modern writer. Perhaps one of the most difficult decisions you’ll make is the domain name for your site. Or maybe not.

Domain names are becoming less and less important. Today, people are searching for site links with Google using the name of the company, writer, or book title, and not bothering to remember site names. However, you still want your domain name to be professional so you don’t look like a scammer.

Guidelines

That being said, here are some guidelines to good domain name choices.

Short(< 15 characters)
Descriptive of the company, or individual
Easy to say (and spell)
Fairly unique across the web (org and HerosWay.org are very close and two very different sites)
Avoid punctuation(like dashes greg-smith.com)
Avoid numbers(thai-diner-2.com [Do people spell out TWO or the digit 2 or the words TO or TOO.])

NOTE: Single-word domain names have already been scarfed up by the domain harvesting companies. So “Wonderful.today” is never going to be available without paying a hefty fee on the order of thousands of dollars.

NOTE: DO NOT PAY FOR BROKER SERVICES. Brokers claim to be able to get you a deal on harvested domain names, but they almost never broker a deal for less than several thousand dollars.

Top-Level Domains

Your domain name doesn’t have to end in ‘.com’ or any of the usual suspects. Consider a different top-level domain (TLD) for your website.

.pro
.site
.group
.world
.page
.today
.guru
.info
.fyi
.name (All of the usual last names are taken, so be creative, or use both first and last names.)

I’m stunned and amazed that .writer is not a TLD.

Suggestions & Resources

I’d recommend a domain with two words, both short. Like WritersBounty.com or such. For international, consider “WritersBounty.world”—the domain harvesters haven’t stolen dual-word domains yet!

Here’s an extensive list of TLDS and prices you can expect.

And here’s GoDaddy’s search engine for domain names. Make sure yours isn’t already taken!

Finally…

Regardless of what you choose, be sure to do a sanity check with friends, relatives, and coworkers. Google your own domain name components to see what else shows up and see if you’ve picked something that yields unexpected results (go ahead and Google “writers bounty” from my example, above; you may be surprised). Above all, have a little fun!

Greg Smith is a writing coach, editor, and publisher. He founded the Agile Writer Workshop in 2011 with the mission of finding a method to help beginning writers complete a first draft in 6 months. The Agile Writer Method is based on the writings of experts in mythology, screenwriting, psychology, and project management. His seminars on the Agile Writer Method have informed and delighted thousands of writers, scholars, and university students. Agile Writer authors have written over 50 first draft novels and 10 published novels. Greg is a developmental editor for novelists and memoirists. He also coaches authors through the self-publishing maze. Greg runs the popular Agile Readers Book Club where new writers can get a beta read from a dozen or more readers.

5 Characteristics of an Effective, Catchy Blog Post Title

Wednesday, January Post a comment

A blog post’s title has an important job: to get someone to read the post.

It holds that huge responsibility on the shoulders of about 60 to 70 characters—not a lot. That means you have to get creative to make sure every word, letter, space, and punctuation mark in your headline is totally necessary and carries its fair weight.

What makes a good blog headline depends largely on the context where a reader sees it—as they scroll through social media, search on Google, browse your email newsletter, or peruse your website, for example.

But some characteristics of good titles apply across platforms.

Regardless of the platform where you promote a blog post, the title should:

Be eye-catching: Your first hurdle is to catch a potential reader’s attention on the platform where you promote a blog post. Your article title competes with everything else the reader will encounter on the platform, so it has to stand out—what we call a “thumb stopper.”
Make a promise: What will a reader get out of reading your post? The title should tell them not just what you know a post is about but exactly how it’ll serve them.
Leave a curiosity gap: Now you have to get a click. If your headline gives away—or appears to give away—the main points of your post, readers have no reason to click through and learn more. Make the promise clear enough to pique interest, but leave enough questions in the reader’s head to get them to read more.
Be honest: Whatever promises you make and questions you raise in the headline, you must follow through in the blog post. Don’t be salacious just to get a click; it’ll cost you trust with the reader.
Encompass the post: Consider your blog post a hierarchy with the title at the top—it should be a comprehensive explanation of the post. If the title only teases a single detail from the post, you’ll likely exclude some readers and disappoint others.

Dana Sitar has been writing and editing for digital media since 2011, most recently as a copy editor for fintech and personal finance. She trains journalists, writers, and editors on writing for the web through sessions at the annual ACES editors’ conference, Utah Valley University, online courses, and private trainings. Dana has written about work and writing in digital media for publications including the New York Times, HuffPost, a column for Inc. Magazine, and dozens of writing and content marketing blogs. As a branded content editor for The Penny Hoarder, Dana managed a team of writers, editors, and social media experts to create multimedia branded content to help advertisers reach an audience of 12 million across platforms including social media, email, blog, and video.

What You Need To Know To Write Effective Headlines for 4 Major Platforms

Wednesday, January Post a comment

Unless you write for an authoritative news site or have a rabid audience, you likely rely on external platforms to attract readers to your blog posts.

Whether readers click through to your site and how they perceive your post when they get to it, both depend on the context of that platform where they first discovered it.

What mindset were they in on the platform?
Why did they approach the platform in the first place?
What else did they encounter on the platform before finding your post?

Consider the common platforms and their context and headlines readers will encounter first on those external platforms as you write blog posts.

Social media: Probably the first we think of when we consider platforms for blog post promotion. Social media includes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (Stories), and Pinterest. Readers here are easily distracted and encounter a wide variety of content. They aren’t thinking about your site or the topic of your blog post before seeing your headline.
Search: Search engine optimization (SEO) is a popular way to craft blog posts that show up in Google search results and attract new readers. Readers here enter a query into the search engine and choose your blog post from among up to 10 related results. They approach the search with a specific question or topic in mind. If your headline promises a good answer and the blog post follows through, they’ll likely be highly engaged with your content.
Email: Readers who subscribe to your blog or email newsletter want to see your latest content, so they’re highly engaged and loyal. Your subject line gets them to open the email, and your headlines within the email should entice them to click through to read the articles in full.
Your home page: Readers who visit your website looking for something to read are extremely loyal. But you still have to catch their attention and get them to click on the content! Understand your core audience and what they most want from you, and use your home page content and blog post headlines to demonstrate that you can deliver.

There Is a “Best” Pattern for Creative Work: Find Yours

Thursday, December Post a comment

Creativity is a much-studied activity that no one truly understands. And some of what we don’t understand about it includes

how it occurs
what triggers it
how we can control it.

So in this post I’m intending to write entirely about my own experiences doing—and not doing—creative work.

Creativity Is a Flow

One of the first things I noticed about my own creativity is that it just flows out of me. I can have a creative thought in the shower, at dinner, walking along, chatting with friends, reading a book, watching TV or a film, listening to music, or even falling asleep.

I’m not really able to turn it off. I have given birth to creative thoughts in the strangest places, at the least appropriate times, and in the most difficult circumstances. Over the years, I learned to write down a lot of this stuff, because when the creative fever passes, I often can’t recall what I was thinking while I was in its throes.

I Can’t Force Creativity

Although creative ideas flow out of me with astounding regularity, the flow is not under my conscious control.

As I said, I’m not able to turn off my creativity, and—symmetrically enough—I’m not really able to turn on my creativity either. Although I haven’t ever tried this experiment, I’m willing to bet I can’t meet the challenge of coming up with a certain number of creative thoughts in a certain period of time.

Sure, on demand I can come up with quite a few random thoughts, and you might even be generous enough to call them “creative.” But I wouldn’t honor them with such a highfalutin rubric. Most of them will probably be silly, stupid, childish, crazy, or some combination of all four.

For me, trying to fill a quota will generally not produce creative thoughts that (as they should, in my view):

meet a need
point toward a purpose
exhibit relevant meaning
feel satisfying
spark a lot of enthusiasm in others.

I Can Make Creativity Happen

Nevertheless, I have found ways to set the table for creativity, so I can sit down and wait to see if any ideas show up to feast.

These ways include:

setting forth a clear purpose for the creative ideas I’m anticipating, which could be anything from “selling breakfast cereal” to “explaining the motivation of a character,” and beyond
sitting quietly without distractions and waiting for inspiration to hit
avoiding other activities, such as sharpening pencils or straightening my desk (If I’m there to write, I’m there to write—and do nothing else.)
piggybacking or building on any creative ideas that do show up, as a method of generating more ideas (Maybe the character needs money. [Yeah, that’s a good idea!] Maybe she needs it to pay for her mother’s life-saving surgery. [Yeah, that’s another good one!] Maybe she needs to borrow it from her boss. [Yeah, that could happen!] You get the idea.)
avoiding any judgment of my creative ideas (That process comes later. For now, during the idea-generation process [part of which I described in the previous bullet], there’s no room for negativity, objections, rejections, or rebuffs of any kind.)

I understand that I am very lucky to have some kind of a creativity muscle in me that has performed so well so far. I recognize that many people feel they don’t have one. I hope they are wrong. In fact, I am pretty sure they are wrong.

In my view and experience, most people of average or better intelligence can tap into a wellspring of creativity if only they have the courage to try and the techniques to support their creative efforts.

I Can Exhaust My Creativity

If you will join me in considering creativity to be much like athleticism, as in the metaphor of my having a creative muscle, you will readily see that every creative effort I make is going to require a commensurate effort at recuperation. I breathe in, I breathe out. I exert, I rest. I strain my brain, and then I make an attempt to soothe my brain.

What’s more, as with athletes, the quality of my performance as a creative person has exhibited good seasons and bad seasons, good days and bad days, even good times of day and bad times of day. There are periods when the ideas come thick and fast, then other periods when I have nothing creative to contribute. Of course, there are many periods that fall in between these extremes.

Just like an artesian well that brings fresh water from hidden sources, my flow of creativity seems to exhibit its own pace. I have never tried to plug it up, but I imagine if I did the urge to be creative would build up pressure until it would overflow.

I have occasionally tried to drain my creativity too much, and I have then found myself in a period where my creativity ran dry. Fortunately, this has lasted only for a relatively short period of time. But I have known people who have come to the end of their creativity.

It seems sensible that the creative juices can thin out and even dry up as the creative person ages—not always, of course, but often enough to warrant notice. In the same way that athletes lose a step in the latter part of their careers, creative professionals may similarly find themselves coming up with fewer or weaker ideas. I honestly don’t know if this is happening to me. So far, I don’t perceive any such changes. But if and when it begins to happen, I’m hoping I’ll accept the changes with grace.

You Can Find and Nurture Patterns of Creativity

All of these attributes of the creative flow lead to an inescapable reality: creativity exhibits patterns. I have mine. I would expect that you have yours.

If you can chart and understand these patterns, you have a fighting chance to nurture them. This will allow you to increase both the total amount of creativity you generate over your lifetime as well as your ability to direct your creativity when and where needed in hopes of accomplishing specific tasks and meeting specific goals.

I’m not telling you what your patterns of creativity might be. I’m merely encouraging you to expect that your creativity muscle is probably subject to one or more patterns, with highs and lows, strengths and weaknesses, good and bad periods, and the like. Look for them, and make use of them so you can more fully benefit from the creative flow that emanates from somewhere inside you.

Robert Moskowitz is an award-winning independent professional writer who has written and sold millions of words in just about every format over five decades. He instinctively sees the big pictures, breaks each one down into coherent slices, meaningfully prioritizes and sequences those slices, and then executes the tasks inherent in each slice in very productive ways. Put more simply, Robert knows how to succeed as an independent writer, covering all the bases from soliciting assignments to delivering polished work, from pricing jobs to budgeting and managing personal finances, from organizing a conducive office environment to establishing and following sensible guidelines regarding life, work, and productivity. Having done all this, and having paid attention to how he did it, Robert is now in a position to pass along what he knows to others.

Blurred Lines? Know the Journo Norms

Friday, December Post a comment

We’ve all been there, scampering for sources. Somehow, they usually fall into place. For me, I always over-source, reaching out to many experts at the same time to ensure I receive comments from more than one.

But what do you do when you have too many sources? Obviously, they don’t all make the cut.

This happened to me recently. I spoke to a few people and wound up not using comments from the final interview. One source had pretty much repeated everything that everyone else said, so I left it at that. I already had plenty of material to work with.

That was fine, until the source’s media team contacted me. They were disappointed that I didn’t use his comments.

Do You Have to Publish Responses from All Your Sources?

I didn’t like the “feel” of being told they were disappointed in me. After all, I was a media reporter—I didn’t work for them.

Sadly, a lot of communications folks who work privately think that reporters do work for them. I don’t mind the occasional “let us know when this posts” message, and I try to send a link whenever I can. But they don’t get to dictate which sources we use and which we don’t.

I was very clear about this in my response. I had to explain Journalism 101 style that I can’t possibly use every source I connect with on a story. I do a lot of my less-pressing interviews via email and often get multiple sources. None have ever seemed to get upset when I didn’t use their comments—we just agreed I’d reach out in the future. (And I usually do because I save all my messages!)

Should You Share Your Work Before It’s Published?

There’s another thing that these media teams, or a source, may ask you to do that’s blurring the line. Many want to see what you’ve written so they can approve it. That happens when they push out their internal content, but it’s not supposed to when working with an outside outlet. Many newspapers and media outlets specifically tell their reporters not to share the work until it’s published. That’s just how it’s done.

If you don’t use all your sources, that’s okay. Of course, you value a source’s time, but you don’t owe it to each one to publish everything they said. There are different reasons why sources are omitted or cut during the editing process. It’s not personal.

And in the same vein, remember that it is okay when you are writing for an outlet—and preferred by most—that you not share your article, or even pieces of it with the featured source, until it’s published. I’ve had to explain to many sources that this is the norm in the industry. Some get it, some don’t. I try not to work with those who don’t. Remember, the interviewee may not have actual reporting experience. They may not “know” how things are done, as wonderful as they may be at getting you sources.

Have a source that wants to know if you’ve represented them accurately? I get it, as some are misquoted. In that case, I’ll read back something to the source to let them check it for accuracy. This is why I do a lot of interviews via email—that way, I get things in writing (though there is room for misinterpretation there too if we aren’t careful).

I hate to see journalists beat themselves up because a PR person expects them to follow the same norms as they do with corporate communications. Many journalists are trying to be the nice guy and “do the right thing,” but our norms are different. People need to understand and accept them. Journalism is not corporate communications—we are not working for a certain institution. We are working for the free press.

If they don’t, well, there are always other sources.

Kristen Fischer is a copywriter and journalist living at the Jersey Shore. She worked as a reporter and copyeditor for Gannett before launching her full-time freelance business in 2005. Her work has been published in Parents, New Jersey Monthly, Prevention, Woman’s Day, SheKnows, and Healthline.

The Power of No

Thursday, December Post a comment

One of the methods that have allowed me to accomplish all that I have done so far in my career is my emphasis on focus. Given all the opportunities and temptations that crop up in a typical day, it would be easy to spend time and energy on so many different projects and interesting activities that without focus I would make far less progress toward the relatively few goals and priorities that are most important to me.

Fortunately, to help me maintain a steady focus I have cultivated a considerable amount of what I like to call “the power of no.”

Simply put, I am far quicker and better at saying “no” to opportunities and temptations than I am at saying “yes.”

I suppose this trait originally became apparent to me when it came time to buy my first car. There were a lot of good cars to choose from, but I wanted a convertible. Despite the possible alternatives, I found myself saying “no” to every car that wasn’t a convertible. I discovered I would rather have no car than a hardtop. Eventually, I got my convertible, and it helped me feel happy every time I drove it.

It turns out that this penchant for saying “no” is more than just a trick for avoiding what I don’t want. It’s also a powerful tool for focusing on what is most important and for keeping my time and energy reserved for activities and work that lead me in the directions I most want to go.

I have learned through experience that by saying “no” to the vast majority of opportunities and temptations I encounter, I automatically leave room for what’s more important.

This power of “no” greatly simplifies my life and work and delivers good results in many situations.

For example, when people ask me to give a presentation or attend a meeting planned for weeks or months in the future, my schedule for that date and time almost always appears to be clear. That would make it easy, and even tempting, to say “yes” to the offer.

But I have learned that my schedule fills up pretty regularly with work and activities I’m happy to pursue. So now when I encounter offers to do something far in the future I make a simple calculation: if that presentation or meeting were scheduled for today or tomorrow, rather than for sometime further out, and if I would feel it to be less important or less tempting than what I have already scheduled for today or tomorrow, I say “no.”

I can do this because I feel secure that when that date and time finally roll around, I will find myself heavily scheduled with work and activities that I will judge to be more in line with my goals and aspirations and I will regret having agreed to this less important presentation or meeting.

In this way, the power of “no” saves me from making a great many commitments I will later regret.

Similarly, the power of “no” helps me filter out opportunities and temptations that don’t fall into the top tier of things I’d like to do. Basically, I try very hard to say “no” to pretty much every offer that comes my way. The idea is to say “no” unless I feel so excited or so strongly tempted by the opportunity that I just can’t bring myself to avoid it.

The practical result of my default response being “no” is that in most cases I say “yes” only to those opportunities and temptations that are most powerfully aligned with my desires, goals, and plans. The power of “no” is one of the big reasons my days tend to be filled not with run-of-the-mill activities, but with opportunities and activities that I enjoy on many levels.

Saying “no” more often than saying “yes” also simplifies my life in several ways:

1. First, it’s now a habit to say “no,” so I can do it most of the time without having to think very much.

2. Second, by saying “no” unless I’m deeply excited and tempted by the opportunity, I eliminate lots of complications that would be involved in juggling the personal and practical conflicts usually associated with the kind of commitments that don’t really excite me.

For example, I don’t have to go to meetings or make presentations that I’d really rather avoid. I don’t have to disappoint people by making last-minute cancellations because something more exciting has come up. And I don’t have to spend time with people I don’t enjoy simply because I foolishly filled my schedule with second-tier activities.

3. Third, by focusing on those few priorities and goals I really care about, my choices of what to do next are easier to make. There are only a relatively few items on my plate at any one time, all of them mostly important to me. So boring, irrelevant, and unfulfilling commitments are far less of a distraction and a drain on my time than they otherwise would be.

I’m not sure why I started using the power of “no” to keep my powder dry and focus on what I really care about, but over the years I’ve come to recognize I’m not the only one to think this way, and to appreciate this practice as one of my strengths. I’ve helped others to develop this strength, as well, and no one who has ever learned it from me has ever come to regret using the power of “no” to improve their use of time and energy.

Making the Most of “The Calm Before the (Holiday) Storm”

Tuesday, December Post a comment

For many of us, the few weeks from mid-October through late November are a form of calm before the storm. The holidays are coming up fast, and a lot of clients seem to slack off on work requests, creating a false sense of relaxation for some of us and a feeling of “how will I make it financially through the end of the year?” panic for others.

The storm, of course, is the holiday season itself, with all the fun, stress, and frantic activity it demands; there’s also the end of the year, with its requirements for wrapping up record-keeping and preparing for tax season early in the new year. We have to balance family plans and expectations against client demands and deadlines, and all of that against the needs of our businesses, and that isn’t always easy.

Here are a few tips for making the most of downtime if you don’t have a lot of work in hand at the moment.

Get a head start on organizing tax records. If you’re flush, figure out what business-related expenses you can take care of before the end of this year to reduce your tax burden.
Review your recent income and expenses to see where you need to make improvements, and start working on a plan to generate more income in the new year. Plan on a rate increase, identify clients who aren’t worth keeping, look for new markets to explore, etc.
File stuff!
Update your résumé, website, and promotional material.
Write a few blog posts or articles to build up a bank of material to publish over the next few weeks or months, so you have it ready to go when you’re mired in the holiday or end-of-year demands. (This is something I have to do myself!)
Learn a new skill or program that will benefit your writing or editing business.
Look for colleagues to follow online, especially those with blogs you can comment on, to learn something new and build your online presence.
Plan your professional development activities for the new year: organizations to join or rejoin, conferences to attend, etc. This will help you start putting funds aside for such expenses (think of them as investments in your writing or editing business).
Review past published material to see what you can update and resell or repurpose.
Start writing that book!
Do some holiday gift-buying or—if you’re crafty—gift-making.
Consider taking a refreshing few days totally “off”—a spa day, a weekend trip to somewhere fun, a family trip.

If this time of year is when some of your clients do the panicking about packing a lot of last-minute work into November or December, consider yourself at least somewhat lucky—many colleagues would like to be in your position. Do as much holiday planning and purchasing as possible as you go along, and enjoy being well-employed!

Ruth Thaler-Carter has been a full-time freelance writer, editor, proofreader, and desktop publisher for more than 30 years. She has been published locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally in, and does writing, editing, and proofreading for, publications, associations, nonprofits, websites, service firms, and businesses. She sold her first freelance articles when she was still in high school. Renowned as a skilled networker, Ruth is active in about a dozen professional associations, serving as a newsletter editor, webmaster, publication author, speaker/presenter, blogger, program host or planner, and chapter leader. In 2006, Ruth launched the Communication Central “Be a Better Freelancer” annual conference to help aspiring and established freelancers find greater success and connections with colleagues. Ruth is the owner and editor-in-chief of the An American Editor blog and received the Philip M. Stern Award of Washington (DC) Independent Writers for service to freelancers; the Writers and Books Big Pencil Award for teaching adults and contributions to the literary community; EFfie awards for writing, editing, and newsletters; and the APEX award for feature writing. She was also an IABC/DC Communicator of the Year.

Managing Work and Family During the Holidays

Tuesday, December Post a comment

Related to the idea of making the most of any pre-holiday downtime is the companion concern of balancing work and family demands from mid-November through the end of the year. No matter what you celebrate, the holiday season imposes emotional and practical demands that make a lot of people just wish for it to be done and dusted . . . yesterday. But you can enjoy the holidays and still produce the writing and editing work that must be done.

The first step is to check that you know exactly what is due when. Make sure you have some kind of list of current and upcoming deadlines, whether it’s handwritten, in Word, in Excel, in Google Docs (don’t let anyone tell you how to keep track of assignments and deadlines; do and use whatever works for you). I have a combination of a tabbed Word document with assignment specifics, notes on my paper calendar, and a daily to-do list to help me stay focused on what I need to do when (and when I’ve billed and been paid!).

Consider posting your deadlines in your workspace so you can see them easily and get the satisfaction of checking things off as you finish them—and so your family can see when you’ll be too busy to be interrupted or thrown off track.

Take advantage of any slow time to do some work early. If it’s already starting to feel overwhelming, see if some projects can be pushed into January.

Learn to say no. If clients suddenly want you to churn out a ton of new work before the end of the year and you feel overburdened, find tactful ways to push their projects into the new year. If family and friends expect more than you can handle, be equally tactful, but firm, in saying no. It can be hard to do, but saying no is essential to our mental health and ability to manage stress.

If you can’t get out of doing new work, or projects already in hand that can’t be moved, try getting up an hour earlier for a couple days a week to keep yourself on schedule. That’s often easier than staying up later than usual; most of us are more fresh and energetic in the morning than late in the evening after several hours of work and family time. You also might be able to set aside a couple hours on Saturdays and Sundays to keep the work flowing but still enjoy family time.

Make another list to track your holiday or family commitments—travel plans, meal plans, gift planning. Take whatever spare moments you have to get a head start on those activities whenever you can. In fact, doing some early holiday shopping and cooking can be a good break from a heavy work schedule (as long as it doesn’t interfere with those deadlines). Unless you’re like me and love to shop in person out in the real world, do some of your holiday gift-finding and giving online.

If these tasks feel as overwhelming as an overload of work demands, speak up! Kids and partners or spouses, siblings, even parents, can and should pitch in, but if you don’t ask for help, or even tell them what to, that won’t happen. Some of them may have been waiting for years to be more involved in holiday activities, but for whatever reason, haven’t felt as if they could take a more-active role.

Let go of perfection. Remain meticulous in your work, of course, but don’t push yourself into high gear for meals, decorating, gifts, parties, and outings that could be downsized and still be fun. Most of us don’t need more stuff; let relatives and friends know that you don’t want fancy or expensive presents this year. Hire someone to clean the house. Take advantage of prepared foods for some of the holiday feasts; you really don’t have to cook everything from scratch (or do all the cooking yourself). Skip the lengthy annual letter and just do a card with a couple of photos—and send it electronically instead of by regular mail. Consider not traveling out of town and state for the big dates.

Balancing work and family throughout the holidays requires focus and discipline, but also a healthy dose of flexibility. Try not to get so locked into a 9-to-5 (or whatever hours you usually work) schedule that you miss out on holiday-related fun stuff. It’s good for our mental and physical health to play. To relax. To have a life other than work.

Whatever you celebrate, enjoy—and however much work you have to finish, best of luck.