Your Personal Vision Statement

image courtesy of congerdesign via pixabay.com

Hello, there! We are at the top of another month, so it’s time to spend some time together.

With everything in such disruption right now, it’s more important than ever to define our values, our mission, and our vision. Not just for our work, but for who we are. This is a marathon relay race. We all have different roles to play, and we need to step in and step up for each other and let each other rest and restore.

Part of figuring out what you can do and where you fit in is your personal vision statement. This does not ever have to be something you share with anyone else, or you can proudly shout it from the rooftops. This is absolutely for you, your starting point, your foundation.

This is also a living document, and will grow and change as you do.

Why does this matter, especially if you choose not to share it? Because it gives you a sense of what matters to you, a sense of clarity, and that will help you navigate decisions, opportunities, and challenges. The word “authentic” has become overused market-speak. I think of it as connecting to my genuine self. And that self grows and changes, hopefully for the better, though knowledge and experience.

We’ll still make some bad choices, but then we can learn and do better as we know better.

How do you create this statement?

Take time. A few hours, a few days, a few weeks. Write about what your ideal life looks, feels, smells like. Put in as much sensory detail. Nothing is too silly. It’s supposed to be fun, and make you feel grounded and happy.

Once you have that written up, think about what would allow you to live that life. Money is, of course, part of it, and part of our current trauma. There’s a lot of uncertainty around our money right now, and that has a domino effect on other parts of our stability.

The systems we live under have a lot to do with how we live our lives. We like to think we can just ignore them and trot along, doing what we do, but that’s not an option, especially right now. We have the social contracts with the people around us, and then the more systemic contracts. Where are those working, and where are they not? How can we change them?

It’s easy to say, “we can’t.” It’s stronger to dig a little deeper, and find small things that we can do in our daily lives that create a positive ripple effect, and then add up to big changes. There are people who are in a position and have the resources to do Big Things. But each of us has the power to do small things each day to make the world around us better, even in times of chaos, and to progress toward the life we want.

What are you able to do, on physical, psychological, and creative levels? Notice I don’t say “emotional” because our emotions are likely to be all over the place. Acknowledging those emotions, even as they fluctuate, is vital to our well-being. Acknowledge, name, release.

You can remain aware of what’s going on around you, but you also stay clear-headed so that you can make decisions. You figure out trustworthy sources, you talk to your neighbors, and you live your life as best you can, making small adjustment to make each day better. You ride your elected officials, daily, if need be. We all have 15 minutes a day to contact our 2 senators and 1 representative.

All the elements of our lives are connected. How we live our lives influences the way we create, the professions we choose, the businesses we build, or how we fit into someone else’s business. If we are in conflict between our personal values and how we have to navigate the world, that frisson will eventually cause cracks, both mentally and physically. Sometimes we make small concessions that turn us into boiled frogs. Once you realize that, you can turn things in a better direction.

We might long for others to take bold actions to make us feel safe. But we need to show up for ourselves and each other in small, daily increments in alignment with our values. Taking small actions is not passive; it’s building a strong foundation.

Take the next few weeks, and spend time each day on your personal vision statement. Hone it down to be a paragraph of active statements about your values. It will help clarify many details, large and small, and make a difference in how you navigate from here.

Peace, my friends.

Happy New Year, and Re-Set Time!

Hands adjusting photos on an iPad with a laptop showing email in the background.
image courtesy of fancycrave1 via pixabay.com

Happy New Year, my friends!

The first Wednesday of the month was New Year’s Day. Since part of our re-set is to move away from grind culture, no post.

That brings us here, to the third Wednesday of the month.

I hope you had a joyful holiday season. I also hope, in spite of the challenges we face in the next few years (starting next week), that you live your life in defiant joy.

On a practical level, for me, 2024 was about acquiring new skills and tools, and figuring out what’s next. It was about tracking my time and my work better, to see what was working and what was not. While it was solid on a creative level, it was weak on a financial level, but it gave me good information to course correct.

Digital Presence

If you didn’t do a digital cleanse in the fall (and even if you did), January is a good time to assess where you spend your digital life, and how to adjust it.

As far as social media, I am on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Tumblr, Bluesky, and Mastodon. While I promote across platforms, I use each platform a little differently as far as interaction. With Meta moving even farther right, getting rid of fact checking, allowing dehumanizing speech, threatening/promising AI accounts set up to appear like legitimate accounts, I will probably scale back on Facebook, at the very least (although it worked the best for ads for my books, but I doubt that will be true much longer). I do love Instagram, but there are so many ads lately (every two or three posts, sometimes every other post), that I’m getting frustrated.

Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon are very different from each other, and I have very different conversations/interactions on each. I like each of them for different reasons. I am very quick to block and disengage on all platforms at this point. Since Threads is Meta, I may need to pull back from them, too.

I tend to forget about Tumblr, and mostly use it to cross post blogs and to promote my work. I don’t find much interaction there.

Technically, I am still on CounterSocial, but I hadn’t been on it in months. I checked back in there; it’s still plugging along. But it doesn’t support artists talking about or promoting their work, and I can’t afford (in any sense) to spend time on a platform that doesn’t support my work.

LinkedIn is nothing but frustration. CreativeGround.org is solid, and I need to make some more connections there.

However, I’m going through the follow lists on all the platforms this month to clean them out. Especially on Bluesky, there was a surge a few months ago, and some of the old bad habits of follow to raise follower count and then quickly unfollow was happening. So I need to get in there and remove those, along with some bots I may have missed.

I will probably wait until spring to do the twice-annual clean up of the websites. I’ve been good about keeping up with the Devon Ellington site, the Nina Bell Mysteries site, the Cerridwen’s Cottage site, and the Pages on Stages site. But everything will need a cleanup in spring, including this one.

Planning and Implementation

I have my Goals, Dreams, and Resolutions up for the year over on the GDR site here, if you want to take a look. I do need to work on a new template for the site. This one is very frustrating to work with.

I also want to get to work on a new personal strategic plan. In the past few years, I have made decisions about the kind of work I want to do, and the kind of work I no longer wish to do. My personal plans need to reflect that, so that I can then implement them.

We did a personal strategic plan on this site a few years ago. With what I learned last year, through the Capacity Building Program, I’m going to amend how I approach the plan.

Re-prioritize

I want to prioritize the work differently. My creative work has always been the center of my working choices, and that will continue. But I want to get the freelance work I take on around it more in alignment, especially in financial alignment.

I don’t like to compartmentalize my work and my life. I like to have an holistic life, where each feeds the other. There are a lot of different ways to do that. I will experiment this year to see what works (and what doesn’t).

I also want to disengage from a lot of the noise that serves as cover to exploitation. That means less time online and more time with people in person (as long as it’s safe to do so, and often masked). It means having at least one day offline completely each week.

It also means continuing to explore and learn new things, which is always something I enjoy.

How are you approaching the year? I’m tired of feeling like I have to shoot out of the starting gate on January 1. I want a gentler, kinder, and more holistic approach this year.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Dynamic Small Business Expo

image courtesy of rawpixel  via pixabay.com

Many thanks to 1Berkshire for their dynamic and inspiring Small Business Expo yesterday at the Stationery Factory in Dalton.

They had a terrific mix of vendors and panels. There were opportunities to reconnect with people met at other events, meet new people, and start new collaborations.

As always, the staff of 1Berkshire handled everything with a high level of organization, tact, and kindness.

This is one of my favorite events of any year.

Letting Go, Letting In, Building Upon

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We are in the home stretch of the year. I don’t know about you, but I am ready for the year to turn. I was so hopeful at the end of last year; I’m afraid I’m a bit more cynical this year.

The New Year is a traditional time to start with a clean slate. We need to remember that we can start fresh any time we want. We can consider each day a fresh start.

I prefer the phrase “fresh start” to “start over” because the latter feels like taking the same journey, and I’m at a point in my life where I don’t want to repeat, I want to expand and divert.

Over on my Goals, Dreams, and Resolutions blog, I have questions to ask yourself as you prepare for 2022. I also have a post on remembering the joy of the season, and re-shaping your traditions so they have meaning to your life.

Sometimes, you can simply expand your life and work to make room for something new; often, you have to let go of what’s not working so that you can make room for what will.

Letting go isn’t about negating everything you did and were; it’s about releasing the pain and blocks associated with bad choices, or things that didn’t work out the way you hoped.

Part of letting go is letting in.  If we let go and then put up a barricade, how can something new and wonderful come in?

Everything in our past helped get us to this moment. So while we let go of what no longer works (or even actively hurts) us, make room to let in something new and wonderful, we can still build on our pasts to create a brighter future.

We learn as much or more from what didn’t work as from what did.

By learning lessons and applying them, we build something stronger, on both physical and emotional levels.

One of the things that annoys me in some series (be it books or on screen) is characters who repeat the same mistakes. This often happens in comedy, or in comic mysteries. The character always has the same disaster. The first time, we might laugh WITH the character, but from there on out, we laugh AT the character. If, a half a dozen books in, the character hasn’t learned from previous mistakes and CHOOSES to make the same mistakes over and over again, I lose both patience and respect for that character.

That’s not someone with whom I’d spend time in life, so why would I waste time with them in fiction?

Because I believe we can create art that changes the world for the better, I like to put my creative energy into stories that do that; I like to work with businesses that have a vision of creating something wonderful that goes beyond making corporate profits; I like to spend my leisure time with characters who learn and grow.

It gets me out of those stuck places, and reminds me that positive actions and words make a difference.

So let go, let in, and build.

Have a wonderful holiday season, and we’ll catch up again in January!

Happy Thanksgiving!

image courtesy of Jill Wellington via pixabay.com

Let’s face it, no one wants to read a business post on the day before Thanksgiving.

Instead, let me just wish you peace, joy, and rest for the coming weekend!

Ink-Dipped Advice: Grief to Art launched

Instead of the usual advice post, I want to share information about the new Grief to Art site.

One of the difficult aspects of the massive loss of life from the pandemic is that there is no site for collective mourning. I hope this will help start the healing process.

It is currently open to submissions of photos and short anecdotes of lost loved ones, from COVID-19 and beyond. You can find guidelines on the Submissions page of the site.

Please share the links and information to anyone you know who is grieving and might find this a step in the healing process.

Thank you.

Ink-Dipped Advice: Red Flags While Prospecting

image courtesy of Alexey_Hulsov via pixabay.com

I’m back after an absence. I had the second surgery that was postponed due to COVID-19. Probably the best part of it all was that I had to get a COVID test in order to be allowed into the hospital.

With so many millions of people out of work, and more people forced back into work situations that could kill them, because businesses are being reckless and expect their staff to die for them – there are a lot of people looking for work right now.

Which means there are a lot of predators out there, hoping to take advantage of desperate people.

I really wish that businesses would cough up some cash and hire a professional writer to write the ads they put out – even when the ad is for a professional writer. While some of my colleagues see badly-written ads as examples of why the company should hire them, I often see red flags.

They’re Baa-aack! Content Mills Are Still a Bad Choice

As I mentioned several posts ago, content mills are back. They’ve rebranded themselves as “content agencies” or “content producers.” They still overwork, underpay, and provide lousy quality all the way around. Avoid them.

I attended an online writing conference last week, and some of the “instructors” actually advised writers to go ahead and work for content mills in the short term.

Try not to.

I won’t say “never” because sometimes we all have to suck it up and accept a lousy gig at low pay in order to make some immediate cash.

But if you do so, leave it off your resume, and get out as quickly as possible. If you get a decent clip out of it for your portfolio, great. But leave the mill off your resume. It lowers your rate and your credibility if it’s there. Definitely keep it off your LinkedIn profile.

One of the recent, rebranded content mills waxes on how they’re so high-paying with 10-14 cents a word.

AARP magazine, which accepts freelance pitches, pays $1/word. So does REAL SIMPLE.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY is looking for an at-large writer at 50 cents a word, with 4-6 articles per month, plus they pay for any tests they ask you to take.  Which is what professionals do.

If you want breakdowns and comparisons of predatory jobs and legitimate, professionally-paid ones, Lori Widmer does a wonderful series called “This Job, Not That Job” on Words on the Page.

No Free Samples. No Free Tests.

It died down for a bit, but now it’s back in full force. Companies who demand that you write content for them for free as a “test.”

A good portion of these companies take the content, don’t pay anyone, change the name of the company, and then use the content for which they didn’t pay.

Don’t do it.

I now put it in my cover letter that I will not provide project-specific samples without pay, and offer them my rate. I also state that I will not take assessments or any other type of test unless we set up a date and time, and that I am paid for that time.

I will not give up billable hours to take an “assessment.”

Read my portfolio.

If you can’t tell whether I’m a good fit from my portfolio samples, that’s about your lack of analytical reading skill, not about my lack of writing skill.

You want me to do something specific to your company because you “can’t tell” if I can write in your tone? Fine. There’s a price for that.

If you don’t respect my rate, and if you don’t feel that my time is valuable before we even work together, you’ve let me know how little you think of your people.

We are not the right fit.

No Personality Tests. Ever.

More and more companies, both remote and onsite, are telling their recruiters to run candidates through DISC tests or Briggs Meyers personality tests.

I am a complex individual. I cannot — and WILL not — be distilled down and put into a box by type. Saying you need to test me like this to see if I can function as part of a team indicates your company attracts an unhealthy level of crazy. In order to function as a member of a team, I use my skills in collaboration, creativity, and professionalism. By setting people up as “dominant” or “influence” or “steadiness” or “conscientious” you’re stating that each member of the team can only embody one aspect. I embody all of them, and I bring forth what’s needed to best suit the situation.

That’s a huge red flag, and indicates you should run like hell without looking back.

This is always toxic, but especially so for writers. One of the many wonderful things about writers is flexibility and versatility. Not only are we more than one thing, we can communicate more than one thing, on multiple levels, in the same piece.

The last recruiter who argued with me about it said, “All of us have to take this test. I took the test.”

To which I replied, “I am so sorry that you felt you had to accept such abuse.”

She was quite offended. But I meant it.

She then hit me with, “Oh, you’ll see, you’ll think about it overnight and agree.”

I told her that the very fact the test was requested indicated it was no longer a company for whom I wanted to work.

That was that. She got back in touch a week later to see when I wanted to take it, now that I had time to realize what an important part of the hiring process it was. I told her the twelfth of never.

Full-time Freelancer

YOU are the full-time freelancer, unless you choose to work for a single employer. If and when you choose to work for a single employer, on a full time schedule, you are an employee of the company.

“Full-time freelancer” means you are running your own business and working for multiple clients. If you are working for a single company, you are their employee and should be getting benefits. Anything less is a scam.

Ridiculous Hours

The same place that demanded the personality test said they paid for a 35.5 hour week. HOWEVER, because their team was scattered over the country, I needed to be “available” to them from 9 AM to 9 PM. Plus a 2-1/2 hour commute in each direction – they didn’t have their own office, but they had a desk in a co-working space, and I was required to work there (although there was no reason it couldn’t be fully remote). However, I was being paid the “fulltime” employee salary of 35.5 hours and expected to give all that extra time (since it was a 60 hour workweek) without pay.

No.

With distributed teams across time zones, there does need to be overlap. But meetings need to be negotiated to work for everyone, not all the off-hours put on a single individual. And all work time must be paid.

Also, when it states work is  “Monday through Friday” and “weekends” but it’s only 20 hours a week – no.

If I’m a freelancer, I choose which hours I work. We arrange for meetings at mutually convenient times, but as long as I meet deadlines, I pick my hours.

Again, if the employer chooses the hours, you are now an employee, not a freelancer, and should be getting benefits.

A List of Equipment You Must Provide

If the listing contains the equipment they want you to use, or the software, skip it.

If a company wants me to use a specific laptop to them, a specific phone, or a specific type of software, THEY must provide it. I am not running out and buying an extra MacBook Air for exclusive use.

Or, if I’m using my own equipment, you pay me what we called in theatre and film production a “kit fee.”

Nor am I buying a new car because of them. If I have to have “reliable” personal transportation because they’re not near public transit or because they don’t feel it’s “reliable” enough – then they can provide me with a company car.

I’ve noticed that the employers who demand this don’t pay for mileage or gas or wear and tear on cars or other equipment, although they expect their employees to bear the full cost.

No.

What if You Want/Need the Job?

Negotiate.

There’s nothing wrong with asking for what you want. Be polite, be confidant, but don’t just take it.

Know what you’re willing to negotiate back to, and, if they refuse (most recruiters will refuse, and negotiation needs to be with the company itself, not the recruiter), know at what point you will walk away.

Liz Ryan, of The Human Workplace, offers a plethora of negotiating tactics and suggestions. Familiarize yourself with them, and adjust them for your individual situation and comfort level.

Check out Lori Widmer’s Words on the Page blog. She has terrific resources for freelancers; many of them can be adapted if you decide to look for a more traditional employment situation.

Remember that any recruiter or potential client is not doing you a favor by an interview or an initial conversation. It is a mutually beneficial situation to find the right person for the right slot, with both parties getting a positive result. If it’s treated as anything less, that is a huge red flag that there are problems within the work culture, and there’s a good chance you will be unhappy, undervalued, and underpaid.

Move on to the next company on your list.

What are some of the red flags you’ve seen lately?