Eighth in a series: Read Part Seven or Go to Beginning The late Jamie Buckingham was a prolific author who used to write a monthly column in Charisma. (I’ve been reading the magazine for 35-plus years—and wound up writing for it for 23 of them). So when I received a flyer in the mail about a…
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Seventh in a series: Read part six Among my fondest memories of my early freelancing days is the time I tried to help our pastor get published. He had seen an issue of a military-oriented magazine and wondered about submitting an article. “Well, don’t spend a lot of time working on it,” I said. “Let…
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Sixth in a series: Read the fifth post A mission statement is the mother’s milk of any endeavor, be that for a business, a church, a nonprofit or other organization. At least, that’s what I heard at several workshops I attended while trying to establish my business. Yet for the five years I did primarily…
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Fifth in a series: Read the fourth post In my last post, I mentioned the value of having a vision. But years ago, when I found myself pushed out of a job at a large public relations agency, I struggled to find one. I finally decided that taking a similar position would be a sideways…
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Fourth in a series: Read the third post A leading challenge for freelancers is lining up enough work to keep the lights on, the rent paid, and food on the table. How I made it while rarely having that kind of guarantee the past 35 years is almost beyond me. I say “almost” because I…
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Third in a series: Read the second post About 30 years ago, I attended a meeting where a man spoke about a very meaningful personal experience. Since I did some ghostwriting for a national magazine, I contacted him later and asked for more details, telling him I would write something and see if they were…
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Second in a series: read the First Post. Rejection is a fact of life in any creative pursuit, be that writing, speaking, music, teaching, preaching or other endeavor where you have to put yourself in front of the public. I would tell any aspiring freelance writer or editor (to paraphrase Harry Truman’s old saying) that…
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First in a series November 2, 1987, fell on a Monday. The reason I remember that particular detail so well is it marked the first day after the loss of the last remaining retainer of my public relations business. As if the stock market crash a couple of weeks earlier weren’t bad enough, just before…
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Growing up in northern Ohio and watching fullback Jim Brown rip through defensive lines every week gave me a lifelong fascination with the Cleveland Browns. So, I can’t promise to root for the Cincinnati Bengals in this Sunday’s Super Bowl. However, I will be pleased for the friend who adopted them after they formed as…
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While new car prices have skyrocketed to new levels during the pandemic, we’re content to ride along in a seven-year-old vehicle that cost less than one-third the national average. Because of continuing car inflation last year, we had hoped to nurse our even older car into 2022 in hopes things would settle down when the…
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