This past week had to be of my most challenging since I started freelancing. My plate has been overflowing with writing projects (that’s the good part) thanks to putting my nose to the grindstone and marketing my you-know-what off. I’m also trying to stay on top of my personal writing projects, make arrangements for my four kids to stay busy and productive this summer (school will be out in just 3 weeks! UGH!). Add to that an unexpected illness and suddenly having to shuffle my work schedule completely around to attend the funeral of a very dear loved one, help host traveling family members and meet client deadlines - I wound up completely exhausted, frazzled and wishing I could get three days of bereavement time off to pull it all back together.
But the show must go on. In hindsight I’m sure I could have delayed a couple of deadlines without much trouble. Thankfully it all worked out and everything’s returned to “normal.”
This summer I’ll be traveling periodically, so I’m in the market for a new laptop that will allow me to keep working without missing a beat. I’ll be looking to expert traveling writers like Yuwanda Black and Jennifer Williamson for much needed survival tips. When I tell friends and family that I’ll be spending some of my travel time working, they think I’m crazy. I have to gently remind them that this is how I pay the bills. Besides, I actually LOVE what I do so if it’s wrong I don’t wanna be right! :)
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About Kimberly Ben...
Kimberly Ben is a versatile, freelance writer with 15 years of professional experience writing just about everything - from web content, blog posts, white papers, brochures, resumes, magazine articles and more!
Kimberly is truly an "avid writer" who LOVES the freelance life and enjoys helping others reach their freelance writing goals. She shares tips and her own personal experiences (the good, the bad and the ugly) with others interested in building a thriving, lucrative, freelance writing business.
Kimberly is truly an "avid writer" who LOVES the freelance life and enjoys helping others reach their freelance writing goals. She shares tips and her own personal experiences (the good, the bad and the ugly) with others interested in building a thriving, lucrative, freelance writing business.
5 comments:
Sorry about the loss, hon.
I have an older laptop that does the trick. What I've found is with this "temporary" workspace, I need only the basics - Word (Office in general), Adobe Acrobat, an anti-virus (Avast is great), and a long-life battery. Still working on that last one. My current battery lasts a whopping 90 minutes, which leaves me fighting with the other coffee shop hounds for the one outlet that's usually available for 20 surfers.
So yea, the most important is that battery. :)
Thanks, Lori. Also, thanks for the heads up about the long-life battery. I never really relied on the battery with my old laptop because it was so freaking unreliable. Duly noted.
My condolences on your loss.
Get a Macbook with Word for Mac and a mobile me account. That way, you can access anything you put on your iDisk from your "cloud" even from a different computer. You can work in any PC format you need, Once you start working in Pages in iWork -- so much better for a freelance writer. You can then save as .doc or .rtf or pdf -- no worries.
The Macbook paid for itself in 3 months, and has been a real workhorse. It's worth the bigger outlay of cash upfront.
But wait until mercury goes direct to buy a new computer, or you'll have problems.
Good point, Devon. The mobile storage and workspace is essential, too.
Kim, whether you decide on Mac or PC, they both have mobile applications that allow you to work on your Word documents and save them to a virtual desktop - access them from anywhere at that point. Devon's given you great advice on Mac. For PC, Microsoft has Office Live, which is a freebie and is terrific.
Thanks, Devon for the writer's view on getting a Mac. I've usually only heard the benefits from a designer's perspective.
My last laptop was a PC I had for about 5 years and when she died it was a sad day indeed. :(
Lori, thanks for the head's up about Office Live. I've seen it but never used it before. But free is a deal too good to pass up so once I make my purchase I'll be checking it out.
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