Sax Secrets of a Successful Freelance Writer

How does the playing of a master soprano sax player tell us something about how to manage a freelance writing career?

Check out a few minutes of this video of Sam Newsome playing a Duke Ellington tune. Pretty unusual stuff. Whether or not you like the music, notice what’s unusual about his playing.

Got it?

He doesn’t pause to breathe.

Newsome practices a technique called circular breathing. He has the rare, but learned, ability to breathe in even as he blows out into his sax. Australian aboriginals practice the same technique when they play the didgiridoo.

It’s called circular breathing. It creates a very cool musical effect. And it’s an instructive way to look at a freelance writing career.

When you first start writing, full- or part-time, you wonder how it can possibly come together. You know you need to pitch stories. But to do that, you need to research stories and publications. But you also need to write. And you need to follow up on queries and payments. It’s a similar process for copywriters, too. You need to pitch clients. You need to work with existing clients. You need revise and rewrite one job while you’re starting the first draft of another job.

So how DOES it all come together? Circular breathing. Another term for a balanced approach to work and to life.

As a freelance writer, you can never afford to neglect any one aspect of your job. And it IS a job. If you neglect your pitching and marketing while you’re busy on a writing job, you’ll find yourself without a current assignment. Fine, you think; I’ll just use the free time to research and pitch.

Not so smart. Because a dead period now means no checks coming in a few months down the road.

ALWAYS work the marketing side of the equation. As much as an assignment can take over your life and brainpower, you HAVE to continually line up work, or you won’t have any.

You have to breathe in even as you breathe out. You have to breathe out at the same time you breathe in.

Time management, or energy management, is the key. I talk a lot about both in WRITE WHERE THE MONEY IS. I talk about what the tasks are that ensure success and how to move them all foward. Don’t let any one task dominate for too long. Keep moving. Keep breathing.

It might seem daunting at first, but the techniques are really pretty simple. Practice circular breathing. Pretty soon you begin to feel like a master musician (or, sometimes, a circus juggler). Checks arrive for old stories as you hit the “send” button on a new story. You board a plane for an assignment the day after you line up another one. It’s challenging, it’s fun, and it becomes like beautiful music.

It might even persuade you to take up the didgiridoo. You could write a story about it.

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