So you Want to be a Freelance Writer

(( A little bit of a personal rant by yours truly, if you’re looking for game posts skip this one entirely please! )) 

The question comes up from time to time in regards to my freelance writing: How did I get here. How did it happen, what did I do. Sure, these questions are typically posed by family and close friends, but it all counts, right? Without coming across as some egotistical snot, I decided I’d write a few of my own personal hints and tips on the matter. These by NO MEANS imply that if you follow them you’ll start getting paid to write tomorrow – they are just my own personal suggestions for those who may be interested. 

Keep in mind that I’m still VERY new at this. I’ve been writing for Beckett Massive Online Gamer (magazine) since August of last year, and MMORPG.com (web site) for only a month, two at the most. My blog I’ve had for a number of years now, though I’m not directly paid in any form – I do believe that I’ve been indirectly paid (which I’ll get into later). These may seem like pretty obvious things to do, and if you have other suggestions please feel free to comment!

Be consistent, and persistent. This is probably my number one motto. It’s taken me three years to make it this far, I’ve written pretty much every single day for those three years with a few days off here and there. If you want to get into the field you have to show that you can be relied on and that you’re not going to just disappear off of the face of the planet without some sort of warning to your audience (no matter the size). Even on days when I had nothing to say, I tried to come up with a relevant post. I realize that some days it’s better off just to say nothing at all, but I truly do try to write every day. 

Write what you know, what you’re comfortable with. I can not stress this enough. If you’ve read anything I’ve written on this site in specific, you’ll see I have a pretty simple method of writing. It doesn’t typically change from post to post. I write about my experiences gaming on a day to day basis and I write about the games I play. There are times I’m requested to write about something I don’t know a whole lot about – but it’s still focusing on the game industry and there’s always lots of research involved. I don’t consider myself to be very much of (what I term) a journalistic reporter. I don’t write about the ups and downs of industries, or coorperate matters. I do write about the people behind the games, the emotions and feelings games evoke, and other things along those subjects. Does it limit me? Sure it does, but it’s what I know and it’s what I’m comfortable writing. That does not mean that styles don’t change and that my writing won’t evolve over the course of time (it always does) or even that you shouldn’t step outside of your box when you’re thinking of a path to take. If you’re not comfortable writing in a particular style, it will be apparent to your readers and they will (eventually) call you out on it. 

Cater to a niche. This one has good and bad points, and some people may not want to do it at all, but it’s what has personally worked for me. My ‘main’ site (MmoQuests.com) is a site about my exploration through games – MMOs in specific. While I do throw in other posts from time to time (my artwork, rambles, posts like this one) the main bulk of my writing is all about games and very specific games at that, games I’m playing or have played. If your web site covers everything from cooking to gaming to cars and doesn’t settle on at least a general ‘topic’ it is harder for people to notice what you write about, and then contact you based on what they’ve read. Friends, family, and fellow bloggers will of course be eager to read all of that but the general internet audience may not. Streamlining things a little bit is not so bad. I’ve got my main site and my personal site so I don’t clutter too much (of course it happens, I’m not perfect!). 

Network. You may not like twitter (just one example, I know there are lots of social networking platforms and instruments this day in age), and you may not like linking people off of your site but these are the bread and butter of my writing career. You have to get noticed somehow and while it’s great to think that you will be noticed by your writing alone, that is not always the case. I do have a few rules for myself, such as I don’t link anyone off of my site if I don’t read their site on a fairly constant basis. I also didn’t go around asking to exchange links. I’m not saying that either of these things are bad if you do them, but they were just not the path I wanted to take. It also made things much slower for me in regards to networking. People love to read opinions. They love to read news. They love to read all sorts of things. 

Networking is a big deal to me on multiple levels. First of all it’s allowed me to interact and meet some of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. It’s also how I got started writing to begin with, I owe being contacted by Beckett to Tipa from West Karana, she was writing for Massively at the time. MMORPG.com actually contacted me through a friend who saw my facebook status. It’s not always fun being social when you’d rather just be left alone, but it’s how you get your name (and your work) out. I’ve never really cared too much about networking until I started doing freelance. I was always very passionate and wrote for me, and just for me. I still write for me, but I really want to see where I can take this, and what I can do with it. If writing ends up being a huge flop then that’s alright, at least I tried. Without getting my foot in the door I’d have no idea. 

Find your style. I’ve already mentioned that I write a particular way. It’s rare that I’ll rant and rave (though it DOES happen) and I try to be polite and refrain from ‘rage’ writing. I’ve been called a ‘care bear’ before because of my style but it doesn’t get to me since it’s just the way I am. If you find a style that works for you, and you enjoy writing that way, then by all means hone in on it. 

Luck. I personally think a lot of my writing has progressed just through luck. Sure, I did the above things but it just happened to be me writing in the right place at the right time about the right thing. When I think back some times I ask myself ‘wow, why are they paying ME to write?!’ like it’s some sort of joke. I never expected it, and I sort of just fell into it. 

In the end: A few other random things to keep in mind, like the work load involved. If you want to get your name out there you have to expect to do a lot of work for some times very little return. It’s all about long term progress though (at least for me). I feel that my web site has paid for itself in the simple fact that I am paid to write a little now and had I not started that site all those years ago, I would not be where I am. No, I don’t make enough to make a living off of my writing alone. This is a start for me though, it’s my foot in the door. Of course I want more, I want to move up and progress even further. Will I get to? I’ve got no idea. It’s all new to me and I stumble around as much as the next person. I don’t have the faintest idea how to go from where I am to where I want to be. It’s an exciting (stressful) ride. The excitement of working under deadlines (oh gawd how I have learned to work under deadlines) and making yourself available and flexible for your editors is an incredible rush and it may not be for everyone – if it’s not, that’s ok too. There’s no rules set in stone for this line of work which can be both a blessing and a curse. 

When it comes right down to it, it doesn’t matter if I’m writing for anyone else as long as I keep doing what I enjoy, first. It’s not fun to write if you don’t enjoy the basics.

Dragons of Norrath Progression and Missions

Yesterday was all about progression through Dragons of Norrath, which was an expansion that released February 2005, so it’s quite old now. Ultann finished (most) of his unpacking, and managed to squeeze a few hours in game which was nice. My happy little trio headed to Lavastorm, and then debated which camp we were going to follow. Ninga already had his faction with the goodies, while Ultann (who was actually on his shadowknight for the evening) had none and though I’ve done the DoN missions before, I apparently also had not worked any faction. I believe at the time I was advised against turning in my tokens so that I could obtain crystals from both camps and purchase whatever it was I wanted from the merchants.

Speaking of purchases, that was why we were doing the DoN bits to begin with. Not only does the progression reward special unlocked aa (and regular aa of course) and spells, but one of the merchants also sells a pet focus item that I wanted. This lets me cast more powerful pets – and the ‘nice’ ones are super expensive, so this free one that Ninga happened to find was absolutely perfect. 

You can find a fairly clear walkthrough for the progression here on Zam – but keep in mind that once you’ve completed the first tier, you have to earn more faction for the second tier. 

We did missions for the evening, and trapsed through Lavaspinner’s Lair, Stillmoon Temple, The Accursed Nest, Thundercrest Isles, and Tirranun’s Delve, as well as our home base camp in Lavastorm, and The Broodlands. It was a lot of fun, and my two girls earned a lot of achievements. Kameeko managed to finish off the craft aa that allows you to raise more then one craft over 200, so she can now begin to work on all of them. Next I’ll be turning all of those into reduced failures. I haven’t decided the method I want to take yet in leveling them, I was contemplating brewing and baking simply because I dislike purchasing so much food and drink on both of my characters. We’ll see how that goes though. Tailoring and smithing are high up on my virtual list, and pottery near the bottom but still something I want to complete. 

Not sure what this Wednesday evening will bring, but I’m sure it will be fun, and I’ll write all about it tomorrow morning as always. On an unrelated note – EQ2 has some amazing changes and revamps coming in their next update, and I’ll be sure to write about that too. I’ve always loved the original Lavastorm in EQ2 but felt it was sorely neglected from simply being outdated. If the Everfrost revamp was any indication, Lavastorm will be exceptionally popular and players will once again frequent it as they should. More on that later!

Necromancers and Missions

I took a little break from gaming yesterday to play around with some more art pieces, learning (yet another) new program that I’m trying to get the hang of. I’m not that great at it yet, it’s a lot more complicated then the previous one I was using, but the images also come out a lot nicer too (as shown above). I want to do an image with my rendition of my EQ necromancer – she’s Drakkin though and I’d like to add the scales / tattoos that cover her body (in red). There’s no post work on the image above, so it still needs a lot of work, but I decided to scrap it and start over again from scratch. 

I did play for a brief bit last night, Ultann is still in the process of moving, so it was just Ninga and I. We decided to do some more Depths of Darkhollow missions, working on getting more of my spells (and a few other pretties in the process). We did one that involved slaying a lot of mushroom men, annoying ones that liked to path funny. 

I also had two glowing runes to turn in (level 70 spells) as well as two greater runes on Kameeko – she finally obtained her level 69 mez and can take care of creatures up to level 73. The previous one only worked up to level 70, so this is a good thing for me. She earned three more aa, and I unlocked yet another tradeskill to 300 instead of 200. Not sur which it will be yet, as I haven’t crafted in quite some time and the guides on leveling on EQ traders are quite out dated. 

The mission runs were fun and relatively painless, since we had to rely on my one mercenary healing us we just did the easy versions. Normally it would be no problem at all to do the hard missions, but alas my mercenary is not the most reliable of healers even on the best of days. 

As we head into March I’m getting more and more excited about the 10th anniversary of EQ. I think it will be great to see old players return to check out the events (there’s no doubt in my mind that a few will at least), and maybe even drag a few new players out that way as well. We’ll just have to see!

As always, happy gaming no matter where you happen to find yourself, see you in Norrath!

Sixth Screenshot Meme

I don’t typically get tagged for meme’s which is a good thing, I’d end up annoying everyone else who I tagged, but when Peter from Dragonchasers tagged me with this screen shot meme, I decided to give it a go. 

The shot is of EQ2, well before I had a computer that ran it on settings that didn’t make everything look like burlap sacks. I had just purchased my very first three room home, and it was the biggest house I ever had at that time. The duck was given to me by one of my very best in game friends and it was my first house pet ever. It was followed quickly by the dragon who’s roasting the fowl – he comes from the collectors edition of the game. 

The rules to the meme are simple, “The idea is to go into your screenshots folder, then into the 6th subfolder and post the 6th screenshot.” Of course this means I have to tag a few folks. 

I’m not sure who else has been tagged yet, but I’m going to pounce on 

There you go guys, have fun, and if you want to blame anyone for the meme, then by all means, look at Dragonchaser, not me!

Now That’s a Canon

Yesterday was a little bit of everything all done throughout the course of the day. I don’t remember what order it was done in, but it was all fun. I spent the late morning and early afternoon taking my brother out for pho here in the city, which was fantastic. After logging into EQ, Ninga decided I needed to hit level 72 on my necromancer so that she could purchase her newest pet from the vendor in Direwind. While every other spell may have a ‘level’ to it (ie: Rk, RkII, RkIII) the pets do not, so purchasing them from the vendor is perfectly ok. We hung out in the pit of Valdeholm, which is the level 70 hotzone, and it didn’t take too long before I’d managed to collect quite a few aa on Kameeko (the enchanter) and ding 72 on Minxes. Kameeko should be saving her aa to get useful helpful things for leveling up with the group – but instead she’s my crafting character, so after maxing out jewel crafting, I maxed out salvage, and then started putting points into unlocking other crafts above the 200 trivial mark (two to date). Once that is completed I’ll start putting my points into not failing those other crafts, and hopefully I’ll be working on getting them to 300. I haven’t decided if I am going to do the evolving trophies for all of the crafts or not – ideally I’d like to. We’ll see how that goes though. The trophies tend to be a pain in the arse, and they may just take up inventory space, not sure. I wish there were a way to combine all of the trophies into one big mega trophy. For all I know there may be. 

After Valdeholm it was time to do something a little more interesting. Apparently there is a (I want to say ear?) piece that drops from a rare named in Gyrospire Zeka, and when Ultann had a few minutes to log in and play for a bit my little trio headed there.

Heading there ended up being an adventure in itself, you have to get shot out of a canon to start, exactly like you do in EQ2 except it doesn’t turn you into a barrel. You also get flung by a catapult shortly after that to get to specific destinations. It was a lot of fun and a brand new experience for me in EQ. After we hung out around the zone line watching a group continuously die in front of us, we learned a little more about the zone. Turns out, that zone is hard. They hit hard especially when your tank is a monk – it doesn’t matter if they have 1700+ aa or not. We still did amazingly well for what we had (three ouf us + one bot enchanter + one bot healer + one mercenary) but after failing to gain access to the third level of the tower we were climbing we decided to head off to do something else. 

That ‘something else’ would be to do missions for Ultann to try to get him the fancy robe that I am wearing, not for him to wear because I know he has better – but the +400 mana clicky makes it worth while. 

Speaking of which, a huge thank you to Ninga, who gave me a new clicky to add to my collection yesterday. It is not exactly fancy, just summons my pet to me, but it’s still pretty awesome none the less. Love my clickies.

It was a great weekend and I had a lot of fun. Hopefully everyone else had an amazing time as well, and this weekn is off to a wonderful start. See you in Norrath!