Finally, the e-book for Diving into the Wreck is available on Kindle. You can find it here.

I’m not sure about other e-versions. Readers, please do let me know if you can’t find other formats. I have a hunch they will be available within the week.

Thanks for your patience!

Artwork donated by Pati Nagle.

The Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Groups

(Networking Part Three)

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

After last week’s brief digression on risk–which is a topic I will return to, I promise–I’m back to networking.  And this week’s topic? Groups.

Ah, groups.  This is the topic that I was surprised I missed, and yet when Carolyn Nicita proposed it, I realized the topic itself was a large one.  I put it under the heading “Networking,” but groups themselves will probably have a few posts of their own.

In her e-mail, Carolyn combined online groups with in-person groups.  Under the group topic, however, I’m only going to deal with in-person groups, saving online discussions for the social media and internet sections of networking.  (If anyone has suggestions or insights about that, be sure to e-mail me.)

As for groups themselves, let me share Carolyn’s list with you just because it’s so nice to have insights other than my own.  Then I’ll discuss group dynamics, behavior, and the pros and cons of groups.

She wrote:

“I wonder if the pros and cons of organizations and other support systems would be helpful.  These would include the workshop groups, of course.” Then she lists some other possibilities, including:

•Mentors, unions, medieval craft guilds, farmers co-ops, dental offices that share resources among doctors

•Professional think tanks

•Professional organizations (such as Science Fiction Writers of America)

•babysitting coops for working mothers

•NHEA for tutors/homeschoolers/educational materials authors

•Clubhouses  “What I mean by that,” she writes, (is) “in Provo (UT)’s comic store, Dragon’s Keep, Howard Tayler inks his webcomic Schlock Mercenary for four hours a day while talking to fans.  Other authors have meetings, RPG groups in the basement, using their tables and comfy couches for hanging out purposes.  Dragon’s Keep hosts book and comic signings, and charity events.  Utah NaNoWriMo holds events there in November, and people can post messages on the Keep’s large bulletin board.”

Fascinating stuff. For those of you who don’t know some of the lingo in that last paragraph, RPG is short for role-playing games.  NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month,  in which writers spend the month of November challenging themselves to write at least 50,000 words of a novel.  Last year, for example, many of my friends, including one of my editors, participated in NaNoWriMo.  NaNoWriMo functions as both an online group—the contest is international and people post their results, sometimes daily—and an in-person group, as participants assemble daily or weekly at local coffee shops (and, apparently, comic book stores) to encourage each other.

In-person groups can be extremely encouraging. They can also be highly toxic.  Sometimes they’re both, depending on who you are and how you react to the various personalities involved.  Often they start as encouragement and become quite toxic over time.

First, let’s discuss whether or not you need a group.  Freelancers, who often work alone, generally benefit from membership in at least one group.  It gets the freelancer out of the house and out in public.  Often, the best group when you’re using it as a tool to leave the house is a group that has nothing to do with your work.

My husband, Dean Wesley Smith, is a professional poker player, although he hasn’t played seriously for some time now since he’s concentrating on his writing at the moment. He belongs to a local group of poker players who get together once a week and pass around the same $400.  (One week, one player wins; the next week, another player does.  They have financial limits, and no one ever wins more than $200.  The net effect is that they’re just passing the same amount of cash back and forth.)

The group knows that Dean plays professionally, and invited him anyway. But they don’t play Texas Hold ‘Em.  They play weird table games which sometimes flummox Dean.  For his part, he never puts on his full shark when he’s there—it’s a for-fun game, not a for-profit game.

What does he get out of the evening besides a needed escape from the place where he lives and works?  A lot of contacts.  The other players are a hotelier (who also owns an international computer business), a retired military man who also worked in Hollywood among other things, a local contractor, and a utility worker.  The amount of local gossip that Dean brings home is astounding.  Plus the insights from people outside our usual social circle—writers, writers, editors, and more writers—is crucial.

The guys aren’t really there to exchange information; they get together to relax.  But in their relaxation, they discuss work, they discuss our little town, they discuss politics, and they discuss anything else that crosses their mind.  It has turned into a valuable evening in more ways than one.

Dean could easily have ruined it, however.  He could’ve played in those early games as if he were in Vegas.  He could’ve turned on the skill and played cutthroat poker, making it unpleasant to be in the same room.  This game has gone on, in various incarnations, for nearly 30 years, and the other players have kicked out previous players.  Dean could’ve been evicted if he hadn’t meshed with the group.

He understood the value of that group, and didn’t do anything to jeopardize his position there.  He’s been part of it now for years—sometimes while he plays professionally, and sometimes when he’s not.  He’s not in the group for poker. There are local groups that would probably be better for him as a professional player—groups of other professionals who meet in the various casinos and card rooms in the area.  This group is for relaxation, and that’s how all of the men (yes, men only) in the group use it.

That group started informally and has no real rules—although it has a few unwritten ones. Since I’m not part of it, I’m not privy to those, but I do know one—if you’re unpleasant week after week someone will let you know that you really don’t belong.

Sounds fair to me.

So many groups start informally.  Sometimes they become bigger and then have to build a real structure around the informal one (which can lead to turmoil).  Sometimes they stay small and intimate and continue to function just fine that way.  Other groups begin big and get bigger, and some struggle to survive.

When you decide you want to be part of a group, figure out what you’ll get from that group.  I believe a night of relaxation among friends, in which no real work is discussed, is highly valuable—particularly for freelancers who often do not take a day off (see the post on vacations).  For a while, I was part of a local singing group—until it took too much of my time (I’ll discuss this later).  I was also part of a Masters swim group, until one of our members got elected mayor and kept wanting to co-opt me to join various local committees or run for city council.  I knew that would take too much time, and it grew harder and harder to say no to her. So when she’s no longer mayor, I’ll probably rejoin the swim group.  I don’t want to worry about turning down volunteer political assignments each and every week.

The group worked, and then it didn’t, and it  might work again.  If I didn’t have trouble staying out of public affairs, I’d still be in the swim group.

What groups do I currently belong to? Informally, a group of writers who meet at a local restaurant every Sunday.  I am part of the science fiction community as well—which mostly entails going to the occasional convention.  I am peripherally involved in the mystery and romance communities.  I also have a toe in several writers groups, although I don’t really belong to any of them.

Formally, I belong to one writer’s organization (down from my high of two).  I’m not much of a joiner—partly because I’m such a trouble-maker.  I either get angry at the organization or I become its president, neither of which serves me or the group very well in the end.

I’m much more active in the online communities, because they suit me more.  I can visit them—or not—at any hour of the day or night.  I can lurk (for those of you not on lists, it means read but not participate), which is not an option for me in person.  No matter how many groups I join, I always get noticed and almost always become one of the group’s leaders, whether I want to or not.  (This even happened to me on jury duty.  They voted me foreperson—this group of 11 people I didn’t know.  My only act as foreperson of that jury was to appoint someone else [“You all agree she’d be better, right?”] and then step down.)

I also do very well at conventions because I have no desire to run them, and they only last for a weekend or so.  I can be social that long, and charming, and quiet (if need be), and I learn a lot in those circumstances.

Every time I join a local group, however, I end up leaving within the year—for the reasons I cited above.

I have learned how I am as a group member and what I need, as a freelance writer.  My needs would differ if I ran a local business.  If I still had a storefront, I’d be a member of the local chamber of commerce.  If I were a psychologist, I’d go to the meetings of the local psychological association.  I can get a lot of what I need as a writer at conventions and online, and I can’t get much locally unless I run it myself, (which is one of the reasons Dean and I put on workshops—so that we have new writerly blood come in and out of town on a regular basis).  I have no need, as a freelance writer, to do a lot of group work locally.

However the conventions and seminars are a real godsend for me.

I have learned who I am as a group member.  I’m loud and opinionated; people tend to defer to me (probably because it’s easier than arguing with me), which often puts me in leadership positions I do not want.  I cannot relax in a formal group, and function best in an informal one, like our Sunday meeting.

I have also learned, however, that I don’t need a lot of out-the-house group time, provided I get my occasional convention or workshop.  I’m a more effective writer if I stay home and stay in my routine.

Dean, on the other hand, needs to leave the house every day.  He needs the contact more than I do, and he belongs to more groups—more informal groups—than I do.  It works for him.  We have another friend who also likes the group contact, but so much that we’ve actually had to have interventions to stop her from volunteering one more time.

You need to figure out what kind of group you need (if any).  Do you need one affiliated with your work? Do you need one that takes your mind off work? Do you need a hobby?  (I almost joined the local softball team until I realized that it met nearly every day in the summer, and I didn’t have the time for that.  Dammit.)

Then you need to figure out how many groups you can be in and still get your work done.  Because we live in a tourist town, a lot of writers and publishing professionals show up while on vacation.  For a while, we took every visitor to dinner.  I finally put an end to my involvement in that.  I lost about six days per month to socializing, days I needed in my writing. Often, I’d see those vacationing writers on Sunday anyway.  So I have (mostly) limited my involvement in the informal writerly gatherings to one day per week.

Recognize the difference between formal and informal groups.  In informal groups, you can get away with showing up every once in a while.  In a formal group, attendance at each meeting might be mandatory.  (Like it would have been on that softball team.)  If you miss, you jeopardize your standing with the group.  Go back to the posts on time.  Time is your most valuable commodity.  You can’t let outside organizations eat up too much of your time.  You need to balance the time with the things you get from the group itself.

You also need to recognize if you’re part of an informal group that doesn’t call itself a group.  Some families, for example, operate as an informal group. They have weekly gatherings, and attendance might (or might not) be mandatory.

Figure out how many groups—formal and informal—you belong to, and make sure they are all valuable to you.  By valuable, I don’t just mean in a crass commercial way.  The group may be valuable because it helps you relax or take your mind off your work.  It might be valuable because you have fun while you’re part of it.  (In the U.S., I think, we don’t always put enough value on fun.)  In fact, you might opt to keep one of your fun groups and get rid of one of the professional organizations you belong to.  I’ve known people who have felt guilty about those choices because (theoretically) the professional organization will help their business.

Sometimes the structured night off will help more.

In fact, a structured night off is very valuable to the freelancer.  It helps you keep track of the days (which is a problem for those of us who have no other real structure in our lives), and it also ensures that you will take a night off weekly.  So many freelancers would work seven days a week without a break without some kind of reminder to take a few hours to yourself. And everyone needs that break.

Besides, you don’t know how valuable a non-related (or relaxation) group can be.  Dean has made contacts through his poker group that have come in handy as we’re planning an upcoming remodel.  He also knows (too much) gossip about our little town.  We do our workshops at the hotel owned by his poker buddy.  We both have benefited a great deal from his structured night off, in ways we never would have predicted otherwise.

So, as you can tell from this post, I am pro-group, with reservations.  I think we, as freelancers, need the contact.  I think we, as human beings, are better off when we remember that we are social creatures.

But I think we have to choose our groups carefully.  We have to learn what’s best for us, and I have a hunch that what’s best will change as our circumstances change.

Also, what’s best for us will change as the groups themselves change.  Next week, I’ll get more specific about group dynamics.  I’ll explore topics like infighting and sabotage, emotional investment, and the importance of support.

The guide itself has formed a little reader’s group for me.  I know I’ll hear from some of you at least once a month.  I also know there’s a large number of you who simply read the guide and don’t interact at all—which is cool. That’s one of the advantages of online networking, particularly for the introvert.  If you do want an e-copy of the Guide when I’m done, however, donate a little to fund my work as I finish this thing.  And if you have suggestions for the last few topics—anything I might have missed—please e-mail me.

Thanks for all the support.

“Freelancer Writer’s Survival Guide: Groups (Networking Part Three)” copyright 2010 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Artwork donated by Pati Nagle.

The Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Risks

(Part One)

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

I know, I know.  I had a plan and I’m not sticking to it. This is why I have become more and more unemployable as the years go by.  I can’t even stick to my own plans, let alone plans someone else imposes on me.

Of course, I respect deadlines, which is why I’ve been able to meet this one for 51 weeks running. But last week, I told you I would write a few columns ahead—and I did—but I’m not posting them all yet.

Because a few things happened this week.  First, I read a couple of articles, one a couple of months old.  Then, I watched the Oscars, as I do every year.  And finally, I’ve been dealing with some major risk-takers in my business, negotiating with them, and finding my own footing.

As I took my run today, I realized that the time to write this opening section on risk—one of the topics I planned to cover—is now, while everything is fresh on my mind.  (And while I can find the links.)

Yes, I’m in the middle of the novel.  Yes, it’s going well.  And yes, I am interrupting my day to write this, precisely what I didn’t want to do. But I’ll get a few pages on the novel after this and maybe lose an hour of reading or an hour of sleep (or put off American Idol for another night).  (To see what business reason I have for watching American Idol, check out this post.)  Small price to pay to get this off my mind.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a list of posts I plan to write before I finish the Freelancer’s Guide.  The list keeps growing because of excellent suggestions I’m getting from you guys—I got two good ones just this week—and also because some of these topics are not one-post material.

Taking Risks is not a one-post topic either.  I’m going to write today’s as a kind of overview of the material out there, and then later, when I’m done with the networking posts, I’ll come back to taking risks.

So what happened this week?  A variety of things.  I decided to trust my own instincts in a rather brutal negotiation, something I would never have thought I’d have the courage to do twenty years ago.  Or ten years ago.

As I’ve said in the negotiation posts, I can negotiate quite well on paper and via e-mail, but I have trouble in person.  Or I should say, I had trouble in person.  I’d been avoiding in-person negotiation for so long that I hadn’t done it in nearly 15 years.  Not only did I realize this time that I wasn’t nervous, I was downright easy-going about the whole thing, quite willing to walk away where I wouldn’t have been years ago.  I did everything I said Dean does in the negotiation posts, and more.  And I did well.  I didn’t get everything I wanted, but neither did the other side.

How that fits into this whole topic is the in-person negotiation was quite a risk for me.  I could have passed this off to a third party—an agent, a lawyer, Dean himself—and I didn’t.  I decided that, in this particular instance, I knew better than anyone else what I wanted and didn’t want. Since the situation was extremely fluid, it was easier for me to handle it than to guide someone else through the ups and downs.

The risk paid off, and I learned something about myself in the bargain.  I learned that I am not the person I had been twenty years ago.  I have a lot more knowledge and self-confidence.  More than that, though, I have a longer view.  I know that if I screw up on this one thing, my life is not over.  I won’t die of embarrassment.  I won’t even die from the botched negotiation.  I’d simply not have everything I wanted.

As a character says in my current novel, “Whoop de ding dong do.”

The next thing that happened to me this past week was that I watched the Oscars.  I have watched the Oscars every year since I can remember—even scrounging around to find the telecast when I didn’t own a television set and the internet did not exist so that I could watch highlights on YouTube.  (Yes, I’m old.)  I love the Oscars for a variety of reasons, most of them personal, and some of them to do with my history.  (The Oscars [as well as television itself] was one of the few places where I saw artists talking about their art, even if it was in the artificial environment of an awards show.)

This year, as every year, award-winners talked inspiringly of being true to yourself, becoming an artist, and taking risks.  Three things caught my attention.  First, the mention by someone—Mo’Nique? Oprah? Geoffrey Fletcher (the screenwriter)—about the difficulties they had bringing a hard-hitting movie like Precious, Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire to the screen.  The movie is about a topic that most people prefer not to think about.  Yet several someones decided to make the movie, to finance it, to distribute it, and even more someones decided to see it, and slowly people realized just how special the film was.

Had the filmmakers listened to conventional wisdom, Precious would not have been made.  No one would have considered Push a novel that could become a major motion picture, and Gabourey Sidibe would be attending college somewhere in the Midwest instead of embarking on an already stellar acting career.

The second speech that caught my attention was Mo’Nique’s acceptance speech.  She took several risks, not just the risk of portraying a deeply unsympathetic character in a difficult movie.  She also decided not to play the political award-nominee game.  Nominees go from event to event, campaigning for votes without really ever mentioning their films.  The conventional wisdom is that if the nominee wants to win, the nominee must charm the establishment.  Mo’Nique refused, saying her performance was on the screen, and she should be judged by that.

Her refusal paid off.

The other interesting aspect to her speech was her phrase “doing what’s right.”  Her husband  supported her as she decided to portray this character, to go outside of the Mo’Nique brand—and she has quite a brand as a comedian, and as a talk show host on BET—and try something new.  She could have flopped.  Instead, she became known as a serious actress, one who can go places that more famous actresses refused to travel to.

The final speech that caught me was Sandra Bullock’s.  It wasn’t this speech so much as her Screen Actor’s Guild speech for the same role. But she reiterated part of it in her Oscar speech.

She said she wasn’t happy with her work.  So she took time away from it, to reassess, and decide what kinds of roles she wanted.  Then she took roles that challenged her.  Again, other actresses had turned down the role in The Blind Side that gave Sandra Bullock her Oscar. Would they have won for the same part? Hard to know.  Probably not: she owned it.

Again, she had support.  And while she credits the support with enabling her to make the changes, she might have made them anyway. She did so before, after the disastrous film Speed Two.  She took more control over her career—producing more films, and making sure she had a lot more creative input.  (For more on this, see her interview with Barbara Walters.)

Risk-taking.  Very important to those of us in the arts.  Important in other ways as well.

But risk-taking in the form of making a knowledgeable choice, one that assesses the pros and cons, not in the form of a flyer or a gamble.

I’ve been accused of being quite fiscally conservative—and I am when it comes to money I already have.  I used to think that the way I earned money was risky too, until this economy proved to me as well as to everyone else that my way—as a freelancer—might actually fiscally conservative as well.

Like Sandra Bullock, I prefer to control my career.  I can’t do that when I work for someone else.  I can work with someone else. But working for them is a greater risk for me than working with them.

I think freelancers must identify the one risk they want to take—starting a business, for example, or becoming an actress instead of a 9-5 worker at whatever job will take them, or stepping outside their comfort zone to attempt something that gives them the greater benefit.  Once the freelancers have identified the risk that they want to take, then they research that risk to death. They figure out how to take it in a manner that isn’t risky at all, or that minimizes risk, or that takes the risk into account and compensates for it in another area of the business.

An article that I read this week delves into this aspect of freelance risk-taking in great depth.  Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article for The New Yorker’s January 18, 2010, issue called “The Sure Thing: How Entrepreneurs Really Succeed.”

The article discusses the high-level entrepreneur, the Ted Turners of the world, the guys who have tried something seemingly impossible and who have reaped big rewards.

But Gladwell uses his article, quoting many sources, to disprove the idea of entrepreneur as gambling risk-taker.  Instead, he discusses how the successful entrepreneur finds a way to make the risk into a sure thing—often at the expense of the entrepreneur’s reputation.  (He calls these men—and his examples here are all men—predators.  I’m not sure that’s accurate either, because the entrepreneurs aren’t out to kill their opponents.  They’re out to achieve some sort of success, often by taking advantage of something someone else missed.)

In the middle of this article, he paraphrases the economist Scott Shane, from Shane’s book The Illusions of Entrepreneurship (which, full disclosure, I have not read).

Gladwell writes, “[Shane] says many entrepreneurs take plenty of risks—but those are generally the failed entrepreneurs, not the success stories.  The failures violate all kinds of established principles of new-business formulation.”

He then goes on to list these things that the failed entrepreneurs did wrong.  Those things are:

•They undercapitalized the business.

•They didn’t form corporations (which, Shane says, gives a better chance of success).

•They didn’t have a business plan.

•They underemphasized marketing.

•They didn’t understand financial controls.

•They tried to compete on price.

Shane (and Gladwell) list several other factors, too complex to explain here—but some of which I deal with in other parts of the guide.  Then Gladwell writes this:

“Shane concedes that some of these risks are unavoidable: would-be entrepreneurs take them because they have no choice.  But a good many of these risks reflect a lack of preparation or foresight.” (Emphasis mine.)

I’ve been writing the freelancer’s guide for precisely this reason: I want you all to be prepared before you leap into the freelance lifestyle.  I want you to know—as best you can—what you’re getting into.

I’m not saying that you should become a freelancer, and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t.  I’m simply saying that you should educate yourself before you make that choice.

I had planned to use this article in a post on risk, written much later in the Guide.  And then I came across this article in the Washington Post of March 10, 2010.  Written by Steve Pearlstein, the article, “News Flash for Wall St.: Money Isn’t Everything,” also cites Gladwell’s book, but focuses mostly on a book by Daniel Pink called Drive (again, I haven’t yet read this book either).

The Pink book uses decades of research from various sources to show the limits of money as a motivating tool for employees.  (Which is why you can find this article in the business section—and why it’s aimed at Wall Street, with its high bonuses and ridiculously overpriced compensation packages.)

“The conclusion Pink draws from all this research,” Pearlstein writes, “is that once people achieve a reasonable level of economic comfort and security, they are likely to be less easily motivated by monetary carrots and sticks than they are by more emotional factors.  And in modern workplaces, Pink argues that the most powerful emotional motivators are the desire for autonomy, the satisfaction that comes from mastering a skill or a task, and the need to serve some larger social purpose.”

In his New Yorker article, Gladwell also addresses the emotional side of work, only he discusses the emotional satisfaction the entrepreneur gets from his work.  (Substitute “successful freelancer” for “entrepreneur.”)

He writes, “…people who work for themselves are far happier than the rest of us.  Shane (the economist) says that the average person would have to earn two and a half times as much to be as happy working for someone else as he would be working for himself.”

This all dovetails with my other experience this past week.  I turned down a high-paying writing gig that was mine if I but said I wanted it.  It would have paid all of my living expenses for six months, with more income off and on for years.

I didn’t even have to think about my choice. Once I heard what the project was, I said no. When the editor offering the project pushed, offering more incentives, I still said no.

Why? Because I knew that this project wasn’t worth the price.  Essentially, for that huge paycheck, I was going to have to be in someone else’s employ until the project ended, and I was unwilling to do that.

The no was so automatic, and cost me so little emotionally, that I didn’t even remember the conversation until Dean asked me later why the editor had called me.  When he heard the price tag, he asked why I hadn’t dropped his name into the mix. Then I told him the conditions of the project, and he recanted.  “Good thing you didn’t mention me,” he said.

This interaction fit into one more aspect mentioned in Gladwell’s article.  He writes, “People who like what they do are profoundly conservative.”

He then cites a study by sociologists Hongwei Xu and Martin Ruef.  They asked a large sample of entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs which of these three scenarios they’d chose:

1. A business with a potential profit of five million dollars.

2. A business with a potential profit of two million dollars.

3. A business with a potential profit of 1.25 million dollars.

Business Number 1—with the possible profit of five million dollars—has a 20% chance of success.  Business Number 2 has a 50% chance of success.  Business Number 3 has an 80% chance of success.

The successful entrepreneurs generally went with Business Number Three, “the safe choice.”

He continues, “[The entrepreneurs] weren’t dazzled by the chance of making five million dollars.  They were drawn to the eighty-per-cent chance of getting to do what they love doing.  The [entrepreneur] is a supremely rational actor.  But, deep down, he is also a romantic, motivated by the simple joy he finds in his work.”

What Gladwell misses—or perhaps ignores—is that there is still a 20% chance of failure in that third scenario.  A 20% chance that the entrepreneur—the freelancer—will not make that $1.25 million dollars, no matter what he does.

That 20% chance is too much of a risk for most people.  Most people want the completely sure thing—the paycheck at the end of the week, the schedule imposed by someone else, the benefits paid for by the company.  Most people don’t like to be on a 5% ledge, let alone a 20% ledge.  These are the people who got caught flat-footed by the Great Recession.  People who thought they had a guaranteed income for the rest of their life, people believed their job was secure because they were good employees who worked for stable companies.

As I mentioned in the Day Job posts, no job is secure.  But the illusion of security is often more important to people than the reality of risk.

It’s because of this 20% risk that more people don’t become freelancers.  And it’s because of the lure of big money (that $5 million Number One Choice) that too many people give up their day jobs—and then fail big time.

Those of us who have worked for ourselves for a long time have figured out what makes us happy.  We balance our income with our taste for risk.  We know what we need to survive, and we do that.  Then we figure out how much risk we can tolerate—and what we’re putting at risk.

Are we risking our homes? Our families? Then, in my opinion, we’re taking too much risk.  Are we risking a $750,000 profit instead of a $1.25 million dollar profit?  Is that part of the 20% failure rate?  And in what world does a $750,000 purely profit paycheck constitute a failure?

Assessing risk is one of the most important part of a freelancer’s business.  If you’ve read through the entire guide, you know that risk-assessment is a constant undercurrent to everything.  I’ll get more specific in a few weeks.

Until then, look at these two articles, and maybe do some risk assessment of your own.  Figure out what you need as a freelancer and what you want for yourself and your career.  What are you risking when you step out of your comfort zone, like Mo’Nique did?  A few days of work? An emotional upset?  A flop?  And if you are risking a giant flop, will it have an impact on your everyday work?  In Mo’Nique’s case, I doubt that it would have.  She would have continued her careers as a comedian and as a talk show host.

If The Blind Side had flopped, would it have damaged Sandra Bullock’s career?  All About Steve flopped so badly earlier this year that Bullock earned a Razzie for the Worst Actress of the Year on the same weekend that she won her Oscar.  Not all of her risks have paid off.  And yet, she is taking them.

I don’t know the calculations she made in accepting the roles in these two films.  Since Bullock has proven herself to be a smart businesswoman over and over again, I’m sure she went into both projects with a lot of analysis, looking at the potential upside versus the potential downside.

As freelancers, that’s our job.  We might not earn six months living expenses with one project, but we also don’t have to work for anyone else.  I wasn’t willing to trade three months of misery for six months of money.  Other people make different choices.

But I might miss the brass ring on occasion as well because I wouldn’t have gone for that $5 million/80% chance of failure choice.  I have never taken a flyer like that, although I have failed at businesses for precisely the reasons listed in the Gladwell article.  I’ve learned my lesson in that beloved school of hard knocks.

I’ve designed the freelancer’s guide so that you don’t have to go to that horrible school.  If you think about your choices, do a risk-analysis, and find the conservative route to the best choice for you.

These two articles, and the various studies they quote, show (yet again) that money does not buy happiness.  True happiness comes from doing what you love.

And that, my friends, is worth the risk.

The Freelancers Guide has been a risk for me from the beginning.  As I mentioned in the early posts, I decided to write something on spec—without an upfront advance—something I rarely do with book-length work.  I trusted my readers to fund the project, which is why I have a donation button.  I also decided to risk putting this up for free on the web, and to give people permission to forward the posts, so long as I get credit.  Finally—and more recently—I have decided to organize the entire Guide into an e-book that I will give to anyone who has donated, just as soon as I write the final section of the Guide.

I didn’t expect to enjoy the Guide, nor did I expect the interactivity.  This entire experience has paid off in more ways than one.  In my risk assessment of this project, I figured I’d give it a month.  If I got no feedback and no compensation, I would at least have three chapters so that I could send out a proposal to nonfiction houses, hoping that one of them would give me an advance to finish the book.  The risk, for me, was a loss of several day productive work with no promise of return.  That was on the outside edge of my risk tolerance.

While I haven’t earned a standard advance yet, I’ve gained a lot in intangibles. The risk has paid off in more ways than I could count.  I couldn’t do this project without you readers.  Thank you, each and every one.

“Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Risks (Part One)” copyright 2010 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Promise me that, when you look up this essay on the SmartPop website, that you’ll read the essay all the way to the end. And promise me that you’ll remember that I wrote it a number of years ago, so some of the references are out of date.  Okay? Now that all of that is out of the way, check out “Batman in the Real World.”

Drabblecast is holding Women Writing About Aliens month and has decided to air my story, “What Fluffy Knew,” as part of the celebration.  ”What Fluffy Knew” has been reprinted a few times, but has never been in audio before.  You can listen here. And visit Drabblecast for more stories here.