Book Review: 52 Tips for Freelance Writers by Karen Banes

ASIN: B00DWHWXDU
Published: July 13th, 2013
Publisher: self-published
Read from September 7th to 9th, 2013
Synopsis from Goodreads:

This freelance writing guide is for writers who want to organize and simplify their writing life. Learn the tips and tricks experienced freelance writers use to help them run their freelance writing businesses and still leave time for getting the writing done.
In this writing guide you'll find tips that will help you:
Find time to dedicate to your writing.
Get more writing done each day.
Find markets to sell your writing to.
Improve your writing style.
Learn more about the craft of creative writing and the business of freelance writing.
Edit and proof your work quickly and effectively.
Run your freelance finances.
Make a difference with the writing you produce and publish.
Connect with other writers both online and off.
Organize your online life so that you can promote your writing business and still have time to write.

Review:

This book offers some great advice for freelance writers and even people interested in becoming freelance writers. As someone who has thought about becoming a freelance writer, I thought it was a good book that was full of some great advice.

A lot of it is information that you will find other places, but the book is well organized and a quick read. I definitely recommend it to anyone with even the slightest of interest in becoming a freelance writer, but it's especially helpful to those who are just starting out. Some of it you may already know and some may make you think differently. If you're planning on becoming a freelance writer, this book will help you understand a bit more about what you need to do to be successful.

Lazy Weekends and OVC

I wasn't feeling too well yesterday, but luckily, today is looking better so far. I really just plan to be lazy today anyway. I have some homework to do, but other than that my plans consist of watching Ouran and stuff.

I actually thought today was Monday last night, and when I remembered that today was Sunday that didn't seem right because the weekend had been to long. It's really weird because that never happens to me. The weekends always fly by. I'm not complaining though because a longer feeling weekend is appreciated at the moment.

There are only a handful of people who know this, but I spent a significant time for several years in my childhood watching QVC nonstop. Yeah, it's weird. I know. Eventually, I stopped watching it. (I've never actually bought anything, just so you know.) It was kind of a gradual thing where I just watched it less and less until I didn't at all. Well, yesterday I randomly decided to turn it on for some reason. It's now been on nonstop since yesterday morning except when I was asleep or left the room. This may be a problem... I don't know what started this. I don't even know what it is about me and QVC in the first place. I hate shopping. (Also, it's crazy because it's been years and good deal of the hosts from when I used to watch are still there. For some reason that kind of surprised me.)

I'm going to go get some work done so I can spend the rest of the day relaxing. Let's hope it doesn't take too long.

Sentimentalism and Old Cartoons

I get TV theme songs stuck in my head all of the time. It's a problem. Oddly enough, the longer it's been since I've seen a show, the more likely I am to realize that I'm singing the theme song. It happens most often with cartoons that I used to watch as a kid. I may not have seen that show in years, but I'll just start singing the theme song out of nowhere. From there, other cartoon theme songs start popping into my head, and it continues for the rest of the day. I'd say this happens roughly once a week or so at the very least.

The worst is the rare occasion when a theme song gets stuck in my head, and for some reason I decide that I'm going to look up the theme song on Youtube, even though I know what will happen. Then I spend at least an hour going through theme songs of old 90's cartoons. Sometimes this eventually turns into watching theme songs from live action shows as well or even newer shows. However, that may be worse than the other option, which is it turning into me watching actual whole episodes of these cartoons if they're on Youtube. I can waste an insane amount of time if I get sentimental.

Netflix got rid of all of the old Nickelodeon cartoons a few months back, and I was insanely disappointed. It was probably more of a positive than a negative though, since I don't really need Netflix making these sentimental moments even more time wasting.

One thing that I do get from these type of moments though: I need to stock up on DVDs of all of these old shows. Both just for myself, but also for my future children. You better believe that I'm forcing them to watch every single show I liked as a kid.

Embarrassing Baby Pictures

You know that stereotypical storyline in movies and stuff where a teenager is getting ready for a date and the parents (or mother at least) brings out baby pictures and embarasses their kid? Am I the only one that doesn't see that as being all that realistic?

It seems to happen in fiction all the time, and I just don't get it. Not that I have much experience for this sort of thing, but I can't see my parents bringing out photo albums out for that sort of thing.

Even if they did though, I wouldn't really be embarrassed. I mean, maybe I would be a bit awkward about it since I'm a bit awkward about everything, but I don't find my childhood pictures to be embarrassing. There's one picture that I know exists somewhere of my sister and I in a bathtub together as toddlers that I would prefer for no one to see, but other than that, I don't really care who sees my baby pictures. Yeah, I'm acting really goofy in a lot of them, but none of them are anything worth hiding for some reason.

This was just something I happened to think of the other day. I've never really questioned it before because it was everywhere and I just kind of accepted it. After thinking about it though, I realized that I just couldn't relate to that. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that are embarrassed by their baby pictures. I'm just not one of them.

Friday and Midnight Memories

I'm so thankful it's Friday. This entire week has felt off since the three day weekend last week, so I'm hoping that come Monday my days will actually feel right again. It's looking like I'm going to be packed with homework this weekend though, so I don't know about relaxing or anything.

One Direction's new album title and the release date was announced today! I wasn't expecting it, so it was a nice surprise. The release date is around the time I was expecting, but the title (Midnight Memories) was a bit of a surprise. I wasn't really expecting any sort of title, but that title just kind of struck me as unexpected. I'm wondering if it's a song title (like Up All Night was) or just lyrics from a song (like Take Me Home was) or what. It's supposed to go on pre-order Monday, and I really hope I'm able to order it. I'm not actually sure how much money I have in my checking account at this moment though, so it may or may not happen. I could use PayPal, but I try to avoid that option as much as possible.

I still have a decent amount of homework I want to finish today, but since it's Friday and I'm done with classes, I think I'm going to relax a bit before getting back to that. At least I can stay up late tonight if I need to without regretting it tomorrow.