writing

A Girl’s Guide to Freelancing

I had my first byline when I was only 19 years old. I pitched and wrote a story for The Birmingham Times, the Southeast’s largest black weekly newspaper, and it was published! Since then I’ve had the honor of seeing my byline in publications all over the country including The Seattle Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, USA Today and a number of national magazines. Today I write for several local publications including B-Metro magazine, StyleBlueprint Birmingham, and Birmingham magazine. 

Today I want to offer a few tips on how you can start freelancing for your favorite publications, too.

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Could Instagram Make You a Better Writer?

I remember posting a graphic on Instagram once that simply said, “Stop scrolling. Start writing.”

As with every admonishment I post on my blog or on social media, it was meant more for myself than my IG followers. So often, I open Instagram, telling myself I’m just going to scroll for five minutes and then get captivated by compelling captions and interesting images or get lost in a loop of IG stories and find myself still in the app 30 minutes later!

But what if we went to Instagram not just as an escape, but also for inspiration? What if we started using images, quotes, captions, and even videos as writing prompts?

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It’s Almost Time to Write and Blog Like Crazy!

Every November I challenge See Jane Write readers and members who blog to publish a new blog post every day for 30 days. I call this challenge #bloglikcrazy. I give participants encouragement along the way by sharing blogging tips and post ideas and if you use the #bloglikecrazy hashtag when you share your posts on social media I’ll help promote your posts, too.

To be honest, I originally started #bloglikecrazy because November can be a lonely time for non-fiction writers. National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is also in November, which means all my fiction writer friends are busy trying to write a 50,000-word novel in a month and no one can come out to play! So, I decided to create a writing challenge for non-fiction writers who blog.

But this year I want to make sure I’m supporting See Jane Write readers and members who are taking on the NaNoWriMo challenge, too. So this month I’m hosting two events — one for my blogger babes and one for my lady writers — to help you prepare for all the writing and blogging we’ll be doing in November.

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