Staying Healthy

Health (Photo credit: 401K)

Staying healthy is an important aspect of life. It can be difficult to do this when you have a solitary freelance career, depending on your concentration. A writer spends a lot of time sitting. A photographer may not be placing themselves in enough social situations.

There are many areas of your life that contribute to your overall health, and you will want to concentrate on each regularly.

Physical Health: This includes regular visits to a doctor. Set up an appointment now, just to be sure all is well. Be sure to discuss all the ways to stay healthy with your caregiver.

Mental Health: Your mind is important, so you will want to keep it working well. Be positive. Be happy. Learn the skills necessary to do this, and seek help if necessary.

Spiritual Health: Whatever your beliefs, you have to stay true to them. Figure out what you believe, and what you don’t believe.

Family Health: Keeping your family, and your interactions with them, healthy is just as important as keeping yourself healthy. Be sure that everyone is working on the areas where they need help.

Fitness: Being an active person is important to your overall health. Fitness routines help your body to remain strong. Talk to a doctor about how you can best be active.

Nutrition: Eating healthy is also important, and a nutritionist may be helpful in teaching you how to eat healthy for you.

Look at your lifestyle and figure out if there are things you can do to make yourself healthier.

Do them

For more information: National Women’s Health Week

Shannon L. Buck

Welcome to Year 4!

Last year was a big year for me, in many ways. I am very pleased with my accomplishments, that have set me up for a great Year 4

This year I start off being used to working with the two factors listed in the Year 3 Wrap Up

“Writing”, 22 November 2008 (Photo credit: dr_ed_needs_a_bicycle)

post, so I have a (somewhat) schedule and will be able to schedule more time for the writing of articles. Most of these will be written ahead of time, so they are ready when the time comes to publish them. For example, Halloween articles will be written in September and Thanksgiving ones in October. This puts me a little ahead of the game.

Most of my freelance income will likely come from revenue share opportunities around the web, starting with the many, many articles that have already been published. I will also add to the growing number of these articles each month.

I am looking to expand my opportunities for writing articles, and possibly eBooks, for others.

I want to concentrate on getting that first book of short stories published, as well as resume work on the next two books, and to look into what it takes to sell photographs online. I have much to do for both ventures, and am very excited.

A marketing/promotional plan for the first book of short stories (finished last year) will also be necessary, so I will be doing more research in how to go about those tasks. I am getting more and more excited for this, the more I learn.

This blog is another aspect of my freelance career that I will be working on. I am planning more eBooks, etc., as well as posts and challenges. I hope you will all enjoy what I put into it.

Have a great freelance year, no matter what it is that you do! I know I will

Shannon L. Buck

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• eBook: Greening Your Freelance Business (howtolivethefreelancelife.wordpress.com)
• May Starts Year 4 (howtolivethefreelancelife.wordpress.com)

May Starts Year 4

May 2012 starts year 4 of How to live the freelance life. As you can see, I have deleted all posts except those from the recent Write Your Own eBook Challenge, which can be completed any time. These posts will remain on the site through at least, April 2013.

This month I begin adding new content, starting with a year end wrap up for year 3, my new goals and a welcome post for the current year, then moving on to new topics.

This is going to be a great year!

Shannon L. Buck

April 2012 E-Book Challenge: Editing and Publishing

Image of a now obsolete hardware type word processor. ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬: Teksthandsamingsmaskin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And the fourth and final week of the 4 Week Write Your Own E-Book Challenge begins…

Are your ready for yet another productive week?

Remember: Productivity is key.

You have come a long way in this challenge, and you will finish up by the end of the weekend. How do you feel? Are you happy with your accomplishments? You should be.

All of the writing should be done at this point, and it is time to move on. Time to finish the project and get it published. Here we go!

Edit

Before you can publish anything, you must edit. Many people will be able to accomplish this with one read through, changing anything necessary. This may take an evening, a day. Others may need to read through twice. I suggest doing this second read through tomorrow to give yourself a break. This will make it easier to catch the last few typos. Still, others may wish to have someone else read over the material and make suggestions. This person may catch things you do not.

You should only need a day, possibly two, for the publishing process,

so spend this week editing and save the rest for the

weekend if possible.

What are you looking for when editing? Start with the obvious. Use the spell and grammar check functions in your word processor. Be careful, though. These functions are not always right. Punctuation is another important factor. Be sure to use question marks appropriately, and eliminate or seriously restrict the use of exclamation marks. They are rarely needed. Be sure that apostrophes and commas are used correctly as well.

Before finishing up, read the manuscript aloud. Be sure that each paragraph, each sentence, flows naturally when read this way. You do not want your manuscript to sound broken, disconnected.

Now is also the time to make sure you have gotten your point across.

 Publishing

After your manuscript has been edited, you will want to create an e-book. This can be done in the form of a PDF document, which is easy to create within your word processing software. For instance, when using OpenOffice, simply click on the PDF icon in the tool bar. For me, this is the second tool bar from the top, the sixth icon in. Using this icon will aid you in publishing the manuscript.

There you have it, the finished product. Now you can sell manuscript on your site and elsewhere. I will elaborate on this a little in Fridays’ challenge wrap up.

UP NEXT: Challenge Wrap Up

Happy Writing!

Shannon L. Buck

http://thefitnessjournal.wordpress.com

http://frugalrecipes.wordpress.com

http://livingthelowincomelife.wordpress.com

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