This week you are going to sit down and imagine something catastrophic happening with your character, what happens is up to you.  The catch is that the story cannot have a finite ending but it must have an ending that is clear.  Something that leaves the reader hanging.  This is an exercise in catching the reader’s attention.

Write until you are done.  There are no specific rules other than that this week.

Thanks, Ian. Leave your writing in the comments below, please….

I buy groceries with the help of my toddler. He likes naming and counting food. I like getting the job done. Win-win. Today in line, a young woman offered me her nannying services while in line. Total stranger. Hit me up for a job.

We can learn things from this experience.

On the plus side:

• She observed the first rule of freelance job hunting: tell everybody what you do, and ask them to pay you for doing it.
• She opened the conversation by demonstrating knowledge of her field. In this case, she engaged me about parenting and her experience with children.
• She asked me for work in a straightforward, almost abrupt, manner.
• She told me about her experience level, and offered to provide references.
• Her entire communication was professional, yet approachable and friendly.

An overall excellent pitch. Now for the bad news.

She was dressed in a ratty sweatshirt and very (very) tight camo pants. I know it was Sunday morning at the grocery store, and she apologized for the outfit. But if you’re in the game of asking for work every time you leave the house — be dressed for work every time you leave the house.

She smelled like cigarette smoke. I don’t consider this the sin many people seem to think it is these days, but is a deal-breaker for anybody who wants to spend time with my kid — and it’s a common deal-breaker in my part of the country. That’s simple market research. If a certain behavior will keep you from getting good clients…discontinue that behavior.

As it turns out, I already have an excellent nanny. I took her information and plan to pass it on to some parents I know who are smokers themselves.

What can this tell us about job hunting as freelancers? Comments below, please….

Howard Tayler's Schlock

Webcomics are another way freelance writers can make a viable career on the web.

For the three of you who haven’t heard of them, webcomics are just like the comic strips you see in your daily newspaper…only on the Internet.

In many ways, this medium is previewing the fate of other writing forms. Independent distribution, direct-to-advertiser income deals and self-published collections have been part of the landscape for 15 years. It’s how a webcomic artist makes a living. In the past few years, we’ve seen the same shift begin in fiction and nonfiction publishing.

Take a moment to check out some of my favorite webcomics. Besides enjoying the humor and art, pay some attention to their business models. What can we apply to your own careers?

• Schlock Mercenary is the far-future saga of an interstellar mercenary company. Author Howard Tayler does a great job of combining thrilling plot with effective punch lines.
• Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew is a comic for Dungeons and Dragons players. It follows the story of an adventuring party, with equal parts of situational humor and pokes at the game and its culture.
• PVPOnline reminds me of 1980 sitcoms. Take the employees of a gaming magazine. Make their personalities over-the-top. Add a troll and a homicidal panda. Scott Kurtz makes it even more fun than it sounds.
• XKCD is for the true geek, with jokes about everything from advanced math to obscure history. Randall Munroe’s stick figures show you can make it as a webcomic with few art skills — as long as your content is excellent.
• Sluggy Freelance has been around for almost 20 years. Join two best friends, their pets and assorted hangers-on for quirky adventures. Was really funny in the 1990s, but Peter Abrams has transitioned the strip into more serious storylines.
• User Friendly is another granddaddy webcomic, with author Iliad’s first panels showing up in the mid 90s. The cast and general attitude remind me of Bloom County, only for geeks.
• Darths and Droids takes panels from the Star Wars movies and adds speech balloons to make it the results of a wildly dysfunctional role-playing game. It’s a team effort, still in progress, that has worked through Episodes I, II and III — and is in the early stages of “A New Hope.”
• Alien Loves Predator experiments with the form. Instead of drawing panels, Bernie Hou poses action figures and takes photos, then adds the speech balloons and other effects. It’s hilarious, often crude, and occasionally NSFW.

This is definitely a geek-centric list, but so is the genre as a whole. We geeks love our comics, and were among the first to enthusiastically embrace the web.

What are some of your favorite webcomics? Comment and link below.