Natalie Burg's Blog, page 2
June 17, 2015
Taking Advantage of Freelancing: Going on location
It's easy, when you're buried in emails and to-do list tasks, to focus on all of the stressful parts of freelancing--running your own business, paying tax estimates, pleasing all the clients, marketingmarketingmarketing--and forget to take advantage of the amazing parts. And there are so many amazing parts.
June 1, 2015
How to Be Whatever You Want When You Grow Up, or, How Lois Became a Dog
Lois has recently become a dog, an aspiration neither she nor I knew she had.
May 27, 2015
SorryNotSorry: On motherhood, marriage and not being a new person.
The other morning, I posted the following status update on Facebook: "I was sincerely committed to not letting parenthood change me, but now that I see 'buy photo paper' on my to-do list, resistance just seems futile." I know. Funny, right? I live to amuse myself.
Soon after, a friend very sweetly and genuinely commented about the joy he felt in the way his son has changed everything about the way he thinks and feels. My immediate reaction was to jokingly reply, "Yeah, but I was already awesome before having a kid." I didn't, partly because I didn't want to imply that he wasn't (he was!), but mostly because of another reason the joke might not land: It's a little too close to how I really feel about myself.
Soon after, a friend very sweetly and genuinely commented about the joy he felt in the way his son has changed everything about the way he thinks and feels. My immediate reaction was to jokingly reply, "Yeah, but I was already awesome before having a kid." I didn't, partly because I didn't want to imply that he wasn't (he was!), but mostly because of another reason the joke might not land: It's a little too close to how I really feel about myself.
May 23, 2015
A Time for Big Ideas: Freelancing & the 3-day weekend
Having grown up in a small tourist town in Northern Michigan, Memorial Day weekend has always been a different experience for me and mine. Tawasians don't leave town for three-day weekends. Not only are we already in the kind of place most of the country is escaping to, but often, we work on Memorial Day. A town can't close down when half the state is visiting. Plus, there's invariably some parade of indiscernible tone happening that you have to be in or organize or attend.
May 19, 2015
No, I do not want to join your moms group.
In my third trimester, a delightful woman from my prenatal yoga class asked me if I wanted to join a …
May 15, 2015
Oops: Cash Flow for Freelancers
If you pay tax estimates, you know it's currently the worst time of year. While everyone else is planning to blow their tax return on a Memorial Day excursion, we have just paid our tax bill for last year and our first quarterly estimate in April, and for some infuriating reason, the second quarter is about to be due in June. So if you made more money last year than the year before--which is everyone's goal--three huge tax bills are due in a two month span. Hey, IRS, that's not how you divide 12 into four.
May 12, 2015
Story Ideas: I hate you; I love you; I need you; where are you? Confessions of a lazy writer.
Story ideas: They are the hardest part of writing for me, with no close contender for second place. I wish this was due to that mystical concept that inspiration is elusive, requiring a muse or divine intervention or some such nonsense. No, I confess, in my experience ideas abound when you work hard for them. They escape you when you're being lazy.
May 1, 2015
Freelancing With a Tiny Freeloader: Everything is the same and everything is different
Well, I had a kid. And here I am, back behind my desk, working on the new challenge of keeping a tiny person fed, clothed and housed with the same old task of typing thoughts into the internet. We could segue into the miracle of childbirth here, but everyone has heard that before. Plus, I personally found the experience less miraculous and more a sciencey. Very cool, life-changing, intense science, but it definitely fit more into the scientific marvel than mystic miracle category for me. Not sure why that matters, but there it is.
To me, the real mystic happening is how parenthood changes this, the state of being a freelancer. I am doing, or getting back to doing at least, the same thing I was doing six weeks ago. Filtering my inbox, reaching out to sources, setting up interviews, researching and crafting stories from the results. But my motivations, methods and philosophy around all of it have shifted. Not drastically, but still dramatically; the way a silver of sunlight in the corner of window changes the lighting in an entire house. Here's how.
To me, the real mystic happening is how parenthood changes this, the state of being a freelancer. I am doing, or getting back to doing at least, the same thing I was doing six weeks ago. Filtering my inbox, reaching out to sources, setting up interviews, researching and crafting stories from the results. But my motivations, methods and philosophy around all of it have shifted. Not drastically, but still dramatically; the way a silver of sunlight in the corner of window changes the lighting in an entire house. Here's how.
March 25, 2015
Being a mammal on the internet
Over the last several days, I've spent an inordinate amount of time with my curser blinking helplessly in Google's search field and my mind in the same condition. I can't think of the right search term. I've tried them all. Nothing is giving me the information I seek. Mostly because I know better than to directly ask Google the question I really want answered: When, exactly, will I go into labor?
March 18, 2015
Maternity Stay: Freelancing and parental leave
It's almost time: I'm about to "go on maternity leave." Accept I'm not "going" anywhere. I'm not "leaving" anything. My work, rather, is leaving me, at my own request. Essentially, I am becoming voluntarily unemployed for several weeks, hoping that when I'm ready, the work will return, like a boomerang I've never thrown before. It's supposed to return. There's no reason to suspect it won't. But that's assuming I executed the throw correctly. On my first try. 
