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Jen A. Miller
For the inaugural installment of A Standard Workday, a periodic job interview with freelancers about how they get the task carried out, AHCJ’s freelance neighborhood correspondent Barbara Mantel interviewed Jen A. Miller. Miller is an award-successful freelance writer and author and a frequent contributor to The New York Times and Offer Chain Dive. She has also created for The Guardian, SELF, BuzzFeed, The Washington Submit and The Philadelphia Inquirer, amongst other people. She also shares insights and assistance about how to build a thriving freelance career via Notes from a Hired Pen, her publication and e-e book collection.
Preferred new assignment
I wrote a piece for Oprah [Daily] about how I discovered to surf at 40 several years aged that I imagine encapsulated COVID pressure. I realized to do it in 2020, when you could not truly be all over persons. I experienced a surfboard that was 8 ft long so no person could get near me. I’m awful at surfing. And I wrote about it and how I appreciated making an attempt to do anything that I’m genuinely poor at.
Dwelling base
I live in southern New Jersey, in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I can see Philly from the stop of my block. I work largely at my kitchen counter on a stack of cookbooks in the early morning simply because the sunlight is definitely great, and then in the afternoon, possibly in my place of work, which is a deep, loaded blue, or at my dining place desk. I acquired this home for the gentle. It is fantastic.
Every day schedule
It improvements a little based mostly on the time mainly because I’m an ultramarathoner. When it’s warm out, I wake up with the sun due to the fact my pet dog wakes up. I choose her on a stroll, feed her and water her, and then I go run, occur again in and have breakfast. My mornings are devoted to composing. I have normally been a early morning particular person simply because my brain is sharper then. Right after producing, I get an additional crack, stroll my canine all over again and make lunch in the kitchen area that was just my office environment. In the afternoon, I test to do telephone phone calls, interviews, administrative paperwork, collections, that type of stuff. And I have a 4 o’clock sharp cut-off time.
Every day rituals
I look at my financial institution harmony every single morning. A great deal of my clients who have been continue to sending paper checks switched at the get started of the pandemic to direct deposit due to the fact people weren’t going into their workplaces. I also get knowledgeable shipping and delivery notifications from the U.S. Postal Support, which are scans of your mail coming that working day. And I participate in Wordle.
Keeping concentrated
These several hours in the morning that I set apart to produce are pretty substantially untouchable. I never have any notifications set up on my Apple look at, on my mobile phone or on my notebook. I put on WRTI, which is the Philadelphia classical audio station, and I just create. I pretty a great deal write until finally 10 o’clock without having halting. And then I look at my e mail, and if I’m not completed with my story for the early morning, I continue to keep heading right up until I have to stroll the canine in advance of lunch.
Favorite tool for monitoring tale tips and assignments
I use Excel. I know that is not attractive, but I have the exact same Excel worksheets from 2006. It’s very practical when I’m going back to figure out who I wrote for and wherever, to see if anyone is however there. I have a Google calendar with all my assignments, the same information and facts as in the Excel worksheet, as a backup. I also keep a huge wall calendar on my kitchen area doorway. Very little is written on it. It just will help me visualize dates and spaces in time.
Recording and transcribing interviews
I use my Iphone to record, and I form when I’m interviewing. I’m a genuinely rapid typist. Then I look at the get in touch with from what I have typed.
To-do lists
I have a each day to-do record that I try out to put jointly at the close of the working day. It’s in a steno notebook. I buy them in bulk. I put the day at the top rated, and the very first detail is what my training will be for the working day, and after that, it is ordinarily what I have to produce that working day and then just about anything else I have to do.
Pitching stories
I do not really pitch anymore. I have gotten to the place in which my shoppers occur to me, the good news is. In my the latest story, “Why Are General public Restrooms Even now So Rare?,” for The New York Situations, they came to me. I perform for a great deal of business publications where by they have their personal editorial calendar. I create for a whole lot of science publications, for illustration Medical Laboratory Information, where by they mail me a PDF of what they want me to generate, and then I go from there. When I do pitch, I would like I experienced a better way of trying to keep monitor of pitches, but it’s in Excel. I set wherever I despatched the pitch, who turned down it and then exactly where I despatched it up coming. I believe I despatched that Oprah essay about mastering how to surf to 7 unique areas before it was assigned.
If you would like to nominate a freelancer to be profiled for A Usual Workday, you should e-mail Barbara at [email protected].
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