Ask any writer how their writing is going and they will usually mumble something non-committal. Most of us sweat blood when it comes getting words from keyboard to monitor, and many love "having written" - but the actual writing part "not so much." For my part I love the re-writes, but hate getting that first draft - the puke draft - up on the computer screen. Until I get to that "aha, I think I've got it", I am in a very bad place. I pace the floor, do some administrative work, go online to see how meagerly my meager stocks are doing- anything to avoid that blasted keyboard.
Like all writers, I am a procrastinator.
The fact is most of us can't physically write for eight hours a day. Our brain cells won't stand for it. Mores the pity. I find I get my best work done if I am working on three or four speeches at the same time. Well not exactly the same time, but having various projects in various stages of completion can help prevent getting hopelessly bogged down on a single project. It's hard to get writer's block when you have multiple projects on the go.
A writing colleague of mine has quite a tranquil view of the matter. She believes that most of the writing goes on during all that stuff you do before you actually put pen to paper so to speak. She says "give yourself permission to procrastinate." So luxuriate in your down time, rejoice in your relaxation knowing that you are in fact "pre-writing". Now if you can just figure out a way to your pre-writing hours billable hours. Or maybe you do?
At what stage does the billing clock turn on for you? And when do you turn it off?
2 comments:
Regarding procrastination, there comes a time in a writer's life when you know that it is time to turn off the TV.
When do we start billing? As a writer who has spent years writing novels that were not published, I am used to working for nothing. However, for a paying writing assignment I would say that the brilliant ideas in the bathroom or walking the beach are free ideas and part of the creative process. Research, yes, and then bill according to the writing time, not idea time. I think that a client deserves excellence and that our insight learning time should be done on our own dollar.
Happy writing,
Jeanne Ainslie
I'm on the same page as Jeanne, right down to the unpublished novels languishing in my closet.
Most of my writing is for corporate magazines and intranets, and I treat the think-time exactly as Jeanne suggests. But I was recently asked to write an ad to promote an employee program that the client was launching.
For a couple of days, while I cooked, cleaned, went for walks, and all the other little things one does when one isn't strapped to the keyboard, I thought about concepts. The one I came up with was solid, and the client loved it. But after I had hit on the idea, the actual words took me all of a measly two hours to write.
Who in the world of advertising would charge $200 for an ad? No one. That walking-on-the-beach time should count, don't you think? A client asking for advertising copy must expect to pay for at least part of the creative process.
Of course I can't charge for the entire time I spent ruminating, but I think I need to charge more than just the time it took to poke at the keyboard and get the words down.
I'd be interested in learning what your readers do in such cases. Do you charge a separate fee for developing concept? I believe that's how ad agencies do it -- and we're talking thousands of smackers.
It's a tough call for organizational communicators -- we just don't have the cojones to bill like ad people!
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