Online Writing Tips for freelance writers

The question I got recently was- I only write fiction, can I apply for online writing jobs? And an accompanying article that got me so intrigued I suggested the writer send it to Magunga.com.

 So can you write about other topics if you only have experience in one topic?

The writing police will tell you to focus on one form of writing, so that you can become better and eventually become an expert. True;that works for  print media, where they require you to write on a specific topic every month and your cheque matures on the 10^th of the next month just like that.

For five years I wrote about ICT and Agriculture for Business and Finance magazines. It involved visiting farms, Agricultural shows, Veterinaries, Productin Units. Places I didn’t mind very much. Farmers are generous. One farmer gave us a basket of broccoli, beet root and spinach. Another let us pick mushrooms from his farm.

That is print media. The work is alright, the pay is alright but it can get repetitive if that’s all you are doing. You need to changamka a bit and mix in a little online writing.

What do you need to become an online writer?

Two things: 

•   Love the internet
•   Have an imagination.

Writing is just about arranging words to fit into the desired outcome. Remember, words are like fabric in a tailor’s hands. The fabric can become anything when handled right. Handle words right and you will come up with anything.

handle words like fabric

 

What I do:

Say you are only good at writing health articles, then out of the big blue sky you are asked to write five articles about condominiums in the Bahamas.

I arrange my research into three parts, by thinking of titles I can work with. This is where my imagination comes in. I come up with titles like;

•   Why you should get a Condominium that doesn’t offer lift service in the Bahamas.
•  Two bedroom Condominiums available for small families!
• Will moving to a Condominium in the Bahamas improve my physical health?

I then search my keywords around these. The last two articles will be easy to write, you just need titles like;

• Consider Bahamas Condominiums for your retirement
• Beach Condominiums in Bahamas, 2016.

  So you see you can still throw in something about health in all the above titles.

(pictures all google imaged)

Socializing the introvert- 5 reasons we are avoiding you and no, we don’t hate you.

Did you just have two Red-bulls?

No? Well, why are you screaming, cheering, jumping, spinning?

 I cannot understand what you’re saying. You are an explosive, and we are afraid if you ask us to go bungee jumping we might just say yes.

 If we are avoiding you it doesn’t mean we hate you, or we got another bff. It just means we cannot handle that amount of energy right now. 

Baga Baga

Baga Baga (fager fager) is  kikuyu word for restlessness it means, you are too busy. I feel like I am staring at prints and stripes and lots of sunshine and I feel confused.

We like calm, but you keep getting up every few minutes. You are unnerving us. We feel like we need to step out to give your ADH some space.

You are asking questions

Gathoni, are you okay?

 Gathoni, are you bored?

 Gathoni, are you feeling alright?

Are you sure you are not bored?  Shall we leave?

Gathoni, say something.

I am okay, I am not bored, I already said I like the party, I am having fun sitting here, saying nothing. Okay?

You have info and you want info.

 We like to listen to stories, but not stories about other people’s domestic arrangements. That is worse than watching Mexican soaps. We don’t want to know who bought a big house but is now broke.

You are surprised we didn’t hear Kim broke up with Monica?

 Tell us about the strange shoe maker who makes fancy clocks out of old shoes. That, we wanna  know.

You like to twist our hand

We introverts can be very very free, easy, laid back  and all that. But if we discover you have  found a way to make us do things we haven’t thought about, planned for and turned it around the head for the last three months, we will keep off. Whether it is something good or bad. We move at our own pace.

It’s true, I like that dress, it’s only 200 bob, it would look good on me. But I am not gonna buy it. Not today, and don’t even try to buy it for me, I’ll never wear it, unless you are a female relative, then I don’t have much choice.

New: The fatherless race and the animals we fear the most- The Elephants.

The white Elephant

This is  when things don’t get talked about and you all act like it’s not there. But the thing with an elephant is that it’s too huge and it cannot be ignored. The more you ignore it, the bigger it grows and it starts to shed toxic mold. My white elephant almost squished me In my last year of high school. It was my last year at home. I didn’t want to leave home. I wanted to prolong my time and clung to the last bits and hoped it wouldn’t happen. Now that I have learnt that talking about the white elephant scares it; I know I should have sat my grandma down and told her, “I am not going to the city, I want to stay here and cook and clean for you and look after the animals.” But I was too scared of the adults.

The Money Elephant

The money elephant is a sibling to the white elephant. Mine used to be the- who will give the child the money elephant- Because you are everybody’s child but no one’s in particular.

The Sunday before going back to school would be my worst, when my mother didn’t give me cash because she assumed my grandma gave me some, and my grandma didn’t give me because she assumed uncle gave me some. In the end it would be my uncle’s wife giving me money for pads and underwear, and me learning not to ask for money, ever.

 The money elephant drags me down even now, I still don’t ask for money, even when it is owed. This results in me doing a lot of charity work, or getting cheques three months later. It doesn’t help that I am a creative, and I recently discovered I have the creatives’ curse. That thing that makes you charge Ksh 500 for a job worth Ksh 5, 000, and you still wonder why you cannot afford that trip to Maldives.

The Warped Personality Elephant.

This elephant differs from one illegitimate to the other. It could be Low self esteem, bitterness, Perfectionism, Anger. I have been boxed by each one of these. But with time I am finding ways to get out from beneath the elephant’s foot. When my self esteem hit rock bottom, at 12 I found a way to deal with it . Not the best way but it helped me manage adolescence. If someone asked -why don’t you have a father- I had a ready cutting sarcastic answer that ensured they never asked me anything else; ever, even what time it was. 

Self esteem comes and goes, but I have learnt how to work around it. I do things I am good at, I hang out with people I like, and I help people. 

per·fec·tion·ism

pərˈfekSHəˌnizəm

noun

noun: perfectionism

refusal to accept any standard short of perfection.

My perfectionilism/perfect mode/perfectionism Elephant dissolved exactly one year ago, September 2015. I will tell you about it sometime. It is called the rotten orange story. It is in my notebook somewhere.

The Trust No one Elephant.

 

We  learn to trust no-body early. I guess it is from the idea that they will just up and go and leave you.  I would never admit I have trust issues, but a close observation at the kind of relationships I keep is telling. I used to be a very private person, my life I lived in the pages of my diary. I sorted my issues by myself. I broke friendships very quickly when trust was broken. I was self reliant, and even trusting in God was a problem at sometime. I always needed a backup plan.

 We, of the fatherless race have a shield all around us, it’s like a motto- before you hurt me, I will be so far away. If you gain our trust, then you are a superhuman. I have friendships spurning 18 years. Mostly people who know that if I am telling them something, they better guard it with their lives.

Thanks google for pics.

Finding God: Four Books and a Video

When I was five or eight and an adolescent; my favorite song was,

 Ngai wakwa nĩ mũnene

Ngai wakwa nĩ  mũnene

Ngai wakwa nĩ  mũnene

Nĩ  munene nĩ  mũnene muno.

My God is big x3

My God is very big

I would hum it all the time, especially when I was sent to the fields to guard the maize against baboons…..have you ever had a good look at a baboon?

 I would climb up the tree and sing it over and over and hope God heard, the baboons heard, and people on the opposite ridge heard there was a child in the centre of a maize plantation, just incase…

 When the substitute Sunday school teacher asked us to draw God, I drew a girl with many stars on her head. There was a kid who didn’t draw anything, and the teacher said, he was right, no one can see God.

 How was I supposed to know it was a trick question? And Shaggy hadn’t yet wandered if God is a woman. I guess it had to do with me being surrounded by superwomen.

 The stars. If you live next to the Aberdare forest, looking up on a chilly night when the sky is starlit, feels like looking at God… I guess. But I think the kid who didn’t draw just forgot the homework.

Anyhow, I still think God is big, and reading these books has proved it right.

Is there a Creator who cares about you?

I decided to read this in 2013 and was surprised to find it talks about my favorite subjects; Space, Art and the uniqueness of Humans.

 It quotes famous professors who ponder over  hard questions like: “Why do people pursue art so passionately?” asked Professor Michael Leyton in Symmetry, Causality, Mind.

 Once I got started I couldn’t put it down. It was science and logic, facts and physics, stuff I usually need someone to explain to me… my mind was blown away. The language used is simplified.

Imitate their Faith.

 One time, someone I trusted turned around and did me an injustice. I could not understand the unfairness of the situation. I had to run to my big God and explain the situation to him. When I calmed down I remembered the story of Elijah running through a desert to find his God when he felt afraid.. so I read it and could handle anything. I like the story of Peter, Hannah and Abel too.
 

My Book of Bible stories.

 Hands up if you read this book in your childhood? Hands up if you have asked at a bookshop if they stock it? They don’t, and if they do they shouldn’t unless it’s free. Jehovah’s Witnesses give it to people at no charge.

If you didn’t read -My book of Bible Stories- in your childhood, you missed a big chunk of it. It used to be yellow. My neighbor had it and I loved to go there just so she could read it to me and let me look at the pictures.

Young People Ask Volume 1 and 2

So many times I find myself referring to these books again. These books remind me that God is very cool. He is not just about vocabularies and 610 laws. He comes down to my level to explain to me things like:

 The Wonders of Creation Reveal God’s Glory.

I wish this video was out when I was in high school wondering why chemistry was a compulsory subject. I might have spent time reading science books and less of Meja Mwangi. It talks about water, DNA, how the moon and gravity are related..ooohhh goose gumps. It makes me feel small, but not insignificant when I think that I am one of God’s wonderful creations.

And now I hum
 

Mbingu, za mbingu, hazimtoshi Yehova,

Hakuna awezaye kushindana naye…
The heaven’s themselves are too small for Jehovah to fit in them J

No one can overpower him.

women telling stories

Tell me your stories

 Let us curse, cry then laugh.

 I promise to listen

 I promise to nod and shake my head in all the right places

Let your stories not burn a hole in your heart,

 Or cause you sighs to tear your diaphragm.

Tell me your stories as we sit in the smoky kitchen

 as your  tears mingle with the coughs from the wet wood.

I’ll blow into the fire

 And let you blow your nose

 In your sweater cuff

 And hand you the tin cup of tea.

Tell me your stories while we still got time

 For family is only family as long as we can talk

Tell me you reasons for the decisions

 I’ll imagine I was there

And justly take sides with you.

I promise not to judge

 I promise to tell you I understand

 I promise not to look into your eyes.

 Tell me about your years on sojourn and self search

Tell me of struggles that only you could manage.

 I will tell you my stories too

 I will let you peek inside my heart

 I will curse and laugh in spite

 And let you see my late tears.

Let us talk until the moon comes out

 Let us talk like we are in a bubble

 Let us talk as if no one can hear us

 It will soon be morning, and our

Voices will be mixed with the weaver birds

The donkey and sounds of a village dawn

 Do not be silent

Pass me another splinter.

(When a person tells you a story,

they forget about their missing front tooth,

they forget that accent they’ve been trying to attain.

 When people tell you a story,

it gives you a reason to observe them,

 and see details in their face you don’t see in normal conversation.

 When I started talking, and contributing to conversation, I started to lose my ability to observe, study and listen keenly to people. But I am trying to get it back. Last week I sat as my grandmother and her friend told me stories, some I’ve heard before, some with a new remembered detail)

all pictures google availed ;0)