#ignore that my calendar is still set to December I keep forgetting to change it

[crimson-iden]

SO YALL I GOT MY FIRST DRESS RECENTLY !!! Transition goals I am loving this thing it feels so nice

[extasiswings]

Ohhh 70 (“After everything we’ve been through, you still don’t think that I love you?”) OR 93 (“You’re more than that.”) for the prompt thing, whichever you prefer! I always adore your writing, thank you so much for sharing it with us ☺️

OR? No, both. And thank you, you're very sweet. On ao3 here.

Most of the time, Buck feels like there’s no one in the world who understands Eddie as well as he does. Most of the time. Because there are still some other times when he’s completely in the dark.

And sure, okay, it makes sense on some level because they all have their blind spots—of course he’s going to have a few where Eddie is concerned as well—but they never fail to catch him by surprise.

A month after Eddie comes home from the hospital, Buck is having coffee with Carla while Eddie’s at a physical therapy appointment and he offhandedly says—

“Not sure why I never see Ana. You would think Eddie being shot would make her want to be around more, not less—”

“Buck,” Carla interrupts, a strange look passing over her face. “Honey...Eddie broke up with her three weeks ago.”

That stops Buck short, makes him feel like he’s missed a step on the stairs.

“What?” His mouth is dry. He swallows. “He—why?”

Carla picks up her cup and takes a long sip, as if she needs the extra seconds to figure out what to say, and Buck backtracks.

“No, forget it, that’s—it’s not my business,” he says. It’s not. Even if it feels a little like it should be, even if he doesn’t understand why Eddie would tell Carla and not him, even if he’s Eddie’s best friend—

Buck knows that Eddie’s a private person. He knows that sometimes Eddie keeps things close to his chest while he’s thinking them through. Eddie hadn’t said a word about Shannon until she walked into the station and aired their business for all of them to hear. He barely talked about Ana in the first place. He changed his will and sat on that information for a year—

Buck’s not upset it’s just—it feels—

The thing is.

The thing is…He’s not oblivious. He knows how he feels about Eddie. How he’s felt for at least the past two years. Like he can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t look at him without feeling like he’s screaming with it, bleeding love all over, unable to stop it dripping from every pore. Exposed and pathetically obvious, and the whole time Eddie has just—said nothing. Ignored it, Buck assumes, because he can’t not have noticed, can’t not have seen.

And maybe sometimes Buck has wondered if Eddie wasn’t ignoring it. If he felt the same and just couldn’t say it. Because he was grieving and wasn’t ready—

But then he was. He was ready. And he chose Ana Flores.

That was the end of it. That was supposed to be the end of it. Because Buck’s not a masochist, he knows he hangs onto things for too long, but he’s been working on knowing when to let go.

Except—except Eddie got shot. Eddie got shot and Buck sat on a hospital bed and stared as Eddie said no one will ever fight for my son as hard as you and you act like you’re expendable…but you’re not and the words felt…heavy. The air, weighted. And Eddie couldn’t look at him and Buck could swear that he was trying to say—

Buck knows he shouldn’t be. But there’s a part of him that’s angry. That wants to pace and run and clasp Eddie’s face between his hands and ask really? Now? Because—because Eddie got shot. Eddie got shot and Buck barely survived it, thought if Eddie died, he would have died with him, was more terrified than he’s ever been in his life. But he did survive. And he moved on. He kissed Taylor. He closed the door.

So Eddie’s not allowed to make big declarations that he could have made a year ago and then break up with his girlfriend when Buck is finally trying—

Okay, maybe he’s a little upset.

The rest of him though—most of him, really—knows he doesn’t have any right to be angry. Which is why most of him is just…tired. Tired and terrified and still so in love.

Buck thinks maybe Eddie was right all those months ago. The universe doesn’t scream. It just laughs. At him.

“Buck?” Carla’s gaze is soft. Steady.

Buck clears his throat. Drains the last dregs of his coffee. He tries not to feel like he’s swallowed glass.

“Did I tell you I’m seeing someone?” He asks, forcing a smile. “She’s a reporter. She was—she was at Eddie’s homecoming actually, maybe you met her. It’s still pretty new, but we’ve been friends for a while. Going pretty well so far.”

Something flickers in Carla’s eyes, but she takes a breath and smiles.

“That’s great, Buckaroo,” she replies. “I’m happy for you.”

He’s trying. He’s really trying.

He doesn’t ask Eddie about the breakup.

*

Recovery is slow.

Buck doesn’t really like thinking about it as recovery because Eddie’s the one who got shot. Eddie’s the one who was in a sling and in physical therapy and had to spend months waiting to be well enough to get cleared to go back to work.

Eddie’s the one who got shot. The one whose blood flooded the street. The one who spent days unconscious in the hospital. The one who almost died.

Eddie’s the only one who has anything to recover from.

Dr. Copeland doesn’t agree. Buck mentions that he’s having trouble sleeping, that his chest gets tight if he goes too long without seeing Eddie and Christopher, that he can’t breathe sometimes when he’s on shift and Eddie’s out of sight.

She refers him out to a trauma specialist. He tries to argue that it’s not his trauma, but she just looks at him for a long moment.

“When you say you can’t sleep, is it insomnia? Or do you have nightmares that wake you up?”

Buck bites his lip and looks down at his hands. When he blinks, they’re streaked with red. When he blinks again, they’re clean. He curls his fingers into fists to prevent them from shaking.

“A little of both,” he admits.

“And when it’s nightmares, what are they about?”

“…blood.” Eddie’s blood in the street, on his hands, splashed across his face, on his tongue—

She hums.

“Evan,” she says quietly. “It’s okay. It’s not a weakness to admit that you need help. And just because you weren’t shot yourself doesn’t mean you didn’t experience something traumatic. You’re allowed to seek treatment.”

Buck swallows. “I feel like…I should be better by now,” he admits. “Better than this. Shouldn’t it be easier?”

“Recovery is a process,” Dr. Copeland replies. “A journey. And it doesn’t always move in a straight line. There’s no timetable.”

Recovery. He makes a face.

But, he goes to see the specialist. He’s not sure how much it helps.

Blood splashing across his face, water running red, skin scrubbed raw—

Buck sits up gasping, cold sweat beading across his brow. Taylor is sound asleep on the other side of the bed, the distance between them a chasm he doesn’t know how to cross. He doesn’t know if he wants to even if he did.

He shivers. Grabs his phone. Quietly descends the steps of the loft to settle on the couch.

“Buck. Hey.” Eddie’s voice is gravelly and soft from sleep. Buck winces.

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I don’t mind,” Eddie replies. “You know I don’t mind.”

Eddie pauses. “What was it tonight?”

Buck exhales shakily. “Your heart stopped in the truck before we could get to the hospital. I couldn’t get it to start again. I know it didn’t happen that way, but I still—”

“It’s okay,” Eddie says. “I’m okay. That—it wasn’t real.”

“Yeah.” It felt real though. Buck can still feel ribs cracking under phantom compressions, the slick of blood on his hands. He can taste Eddie’s blood in his mouth.

“What do you need?”

Buck stretches out and closes his eyes, the phone pressed hard to his ear.

You. Just you. Always you.

“Can you—” His throat clicks. “Can you just talk? It doesn’t matter about what, I just—”

I need to hear your voice. I need to hear you alive.

“Christopher picked a project for the science fair,” Eddie says. “You have to promise to act surprised when he tells you though. He’s really excited.”

“Oh yeah? I can do that. What is it?”

“Well…”

Buck falls asleep again with Eddie’s voice in his ear and he doesn’t dream again. Taylor wakes him on the couch in the morning, an odd look on her face—he doesn’t know how to explain that it’s not her fault. She just can’t help him. Perhaps she never could.

Buck thinks maybe there’s still a part of her that wants him to chase her. But he’s in no condition to chase anyone, even if he wanted to. It takes enough out of him to hold himself together. And to fight against what seems more and more inevitable.

So. Maybe he should stop fighting it.

He sighs and scrubs a hand over his face as he sits up.

“I think we should probably talk,” he says quietly.

Taylor tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and sinks down onto the couch next to him.

“I think we should.”

It ends as quickly as it began.

*

Christmas takes him by surprise. It’s not that Buck doesn’t notice the fall slipping away—a Halloween shift, a Veteran’s Day that has Eddie a little quieter, a little shakier, than usual, and Thanksgiving lasts practically a whole week with all the leftovers that end up in the station—but somehow it doesn’t fully register until he looks up at the calendar in the middle of December and sees a smiling Christmas tree sticker on a date ten days out. They’re not working, so the only question is where he’s going to end up, if anywhere. Although, he supposes even that’s not really a question.

He knows where he’ll end up.

Five days before Christmas, a last-minute tree has been wrangled into the Diaz house and Buck is fighting with a tangled set of lights while Eddie pulls out wrapping paper and ribbons and retrieves the hidden stash of gifts for Christopher from his closet. Christopher himself is fast asleep in his room, worn out from the day of running around, and without the extra person to focus on Buck takes a moment and lets himself just...watch Eddie. Sitting on the floor in low light with his legs stretched out, surrounded by ornaments and boxes and stray clippings and a small pile of somewhat lumpy, clumsily wrapped gifts, his lower lip caught between his teeth as he focuses on trying to figure out the right way to fold the wrapping paper—

There’s a stray piece of tinsel in his hair and a laugh catches in Buck’s throat, even as the rest of him aches with a sudden, fierce urge to brush it away.

He aches. Because this—this is what he wants. Eddie and Christopher and going around town to finish the Christmas shopping, picking out a tree and decorating it as a family, coming home to this day after day after day and knowing it’s where he’s supposed to be—

Eddie got shot. Eddie got shot and it was the worst moment of Buck’s life. He thinks sometimes that he would rather have his leg crushed under a thousand ladder trucks than risk going through that again, but—but running away didn’t make him stop loving Eddie. Dating Taylor didn’t make him stop loving Eddie. Time hasn’t made him feel anything less, if anything it’s just cemented things.

So...so if Eddie is going to have the power to hurt him that badly regardless of whether Buck admits it out loud, if the risk of loss is going to be there anyway...shouldn’t he at least get to have everything? All the good parts?

Don’t they deserve the chance to be happy?

“Buck?” Eddie’s brow is furrowed in concern. “You okay?”

Buck opens his mouth, intending to reassure him, but what comes out is—

“Are you in love with me?” Eddie freezes and Buck resists the urge to panic and take it back.

“Because—�� Buck clears his throat. “Because sometimes I think you might be, and—”

“Yes.” It’s quiet, barely a breath, but that single word hangs in the air. Buck’s heart races.

“You could have told me,” he replies. “Why—why didn’t you just—?”

Eddie looks away and Buck catches a familiar look flickering across his face. Doubt, shame, fear—everything that he himself has felt—

Oh.

Blind spots.

He never considered that Eddie might be just as afraid of rejection as he is. He never considered that what’s been so painfully obvious to him, might not have been to Eddie himself.

Buck gets up from the couch, stepping carefully around the mess on the floor until he can kneel down next to Eddie. Eddie, whose jaw is tight, shoulders tense, like he’s waiting for a blow.

“After everything we’ve been through...you still don’t know that I love you?” Buck asks quietly.

Eddie sucks in a startled breath, turning back to look at him, his gaze searching. Buck holds it steadily and waits. It’s not the first time he’s walked out on a limb. But it is the first time he’s had someone else out there with him.

If it cracks this time, they’ll fall together.

“I didn’t think—” Eddie’s eyes close briefly as he clears his throat. “I didn’t think I was enough.”

“You are,” Buck replies. “You’re more than—Eddie—”

“We have a life,” he says when he can get his thoughts in line. “We built a life. Together. Even if we didn’t say that was what we were doing, it’s what we did. So, maybe—maybe we can try being a little more honest about what we want while we’re living it? I don’t—I don’t want to waste anymore time.”

Eddie looks down—then, he reaches out slowly for Buck’s hand, his fingers finding the spaces between Buck’s and slotting in.

Buck squeezes gently. Eddie squeezes back.

“Okay,” Eddie agrees. “Let’s try that.”

Buck does pluck the tinsel from Eddie’s hair, but when he tosses it away, his hand comes right back, fingers sliding into the strands to keep Eddie still. Eddie’s eyes are dark in the dim light, but his lips curve faintly up as Buck leans in.

Kissing him feels like coming home.

[tradeshowguy]

The Art of the Tradeshow Follow Up

As a marketer, it’s pretty common to come back to the office with a healthy list of names and contact information that you’re planning to follow up on. And don’t do it very well.

Follow up is necessary in any sales endeavor, but you’d be surprised (or maybe not) by how bad or ineffective some salespeople are.

Example: a couple of years ago I was pitched on LinkedIn (not my favorite way of being pitched, but that’s a story for another day), and thought the offer was something I was at least interested in checking out. I ended up spending $50 or so on an hour consultation, which was useful, but was set up as a prelude to a bigger prize: a longer-term commitment to bigger and better ongoing, personalized consultation.

When we wrapped up the initial hour – at which we both had some time and money invested – the implicit understanding was that I would be hearing from him about possibly engaging me on a larger purchase.

I never heard from him again. Had I, I would have seriously considered his pitch. I thought his initial information in the one-hour consultation was useful, and I saw some potential for doing future business.

But it never happened. Because he never followed up.

When I meet exhibitors at a tradeshow, I look to get a name and business card – and then leave them to their business. I’m not trying to sell anything there. That all comes later. Yes, sometimes we do get into those sales conversations – at their lead.

And in this industry – tradeshow exhibit sales – the sales cycle is long. Companies don’t make capital investments in tradeshow exhibits often – maybe every 5 – 7 years. Or MORE. So the key to making a sales is to be someone that is remembered when the time is right.

Which is why I follow up as many times as it takes when I have a lead I feel is worthwhile. Not every lead develops into a sale. But the leads I let drop and don’t follow up on NEVER lead to a sale.

Lead Follow Ups

What’s your lead follow up look like? Do you have a system?

There are no absolutely right or wrong ways. Any follow up system is better than no system at all. But to me it makes sense that your follow up system should include most, if not all of the following:

A way to track everything. I use Excel, creating a spreadsheet that tracks date, name, company, potential client, reminders, phone numbers and other pertinent notes. I tried Salesforce and used it for a couple of years, but the tools were way more than I ever needed, and the cost couldn’t be justified based on the usability. Tried Pipe Drive, too, but it wasn’t a good fit, either. To me the spreadsheet may be a bit clunky, but it’s easily searchable, and if set up right, can easily track all pertinent data.

Calendar to remind you of follow-ups. Google calendar works great for me. As soon as I get off the phone and enter a note in my spreadsheet, if there’s a follow-up call agreed on, I’ll add it to my Google calendar and put a reminder notification about ten minutes prior. Google calendar is also very useful because you can copy and paste phone numbers and other notes, which means you don’t have to go searching for the notes in a spreadsheet.

LinkedIn: not everyone I follow up with is on LinkedIn, but a good 90% are there. That way I can scan their profile to get a sense of the person, and if something pertinent comes up I can reference it (went to same school, worked in same city, root for the same team, or whatever).

Ways to Follow Up

About the follow up itself, here are the ways that I use:

Email: make the initial contact after the show via email within a few days. Short, to the point – “nice to meet you, just wanted to reach out and express my hope that you had a great show, etc.” if there is a specific follow up that you both talked about, bring that up.

Phone: I call people a lot. It’s hard to get in touch with people on the phone, but it’s much more personal than an email, and harder to ignore. Plus, my pleasant personality (of course!) shines through. It’s pretty easy to tell within a moment or two if there is a real lead there.

Snail Mail: If I have a pretty good lead, I’ll send one of my books. Hard to ignore, and easy to remember as time goes by. If you don’t have a book, send some swag. In speaking with a marketing pro in the last year or two, we came up with some things to send that can make an impression, including stress balls (including note that says “don’t stress over your next show!”), measuring tape (“measure your success with us!”), microfiber cleaning cloth (“clean up your booth and clean up on your competition!”), a custom-printed company calendar (in December of course), coffee gift cards (“let’s chat over coffee!”), sunglasses (“when you work with us, the future’s so bright, you gotta wear shades!”), and so on. Lots of ideas. Send one every few weeks for a year, combined with email outreach and it becomes harder for them to forget you.

And if your personality allows you, have a lot of fun with it!

Don’t forget hand-written thank you notes when you acquire a new client, or even when you have a successful in-person meeting or phone conference. People love to get thank you notes.

If you have prospects that are not qualified for immediate business, but them in a long-term follow system. Do outreach (email, snail mail, phone call) every 4 – 6 months, just to remind them you’re still there. Things do change, nothing is ever static. People move, new people take over. I’ve made sales at companies where I thought I had no chance, but suddenly there’s a new person at the helm and they are looking for something new.

The Three Keys

The three keys to follow up success in sales, whether the lead came from a tradeshow or somewhere else:

Patience is a virtue. Play the long game, don’t give up. Persistence is the other side of the patience coin. Use both.

Be consistent. If you’re going to engage with prospects on a regular basis

Be yourself. Just because a system works for another sales organization or another person doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. Keep tweaking, keep working, keep what works, don’t keep doing what doesn’t work.

It all sounds so simple, right? But sales, whether from tradeshow leads or direct or from other forms of lead generation, takes consistent planning and work.

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[sarahzwexler]

My Tips for Freelancers

I’ve been supporting myself as a freelance writer for over six years now. Sometimes people wanting to make the leap ask me for advice or what I wish I’d known before I started. Here’s what I’ve learned. Knit yourself a safety net before you jump. While you still have your day job, spruce up your portfolio, get your website up to date, and start a file of ideas, so you’ll be ready to pitch on day one of freelancing. Also, use your lunches and coffee breaks as an employed person to meet up with potential clients to build those relationships, so it doesn’t feel like you’re emailing them out of nowhere to ask about getting assignments when you do go freelance. Also, you might start getting work on the first minute of the first day you go freelance...but depending on the client, it can take about three months until you actually cash the check (my best record is three weeks from assignment to payment–and my worst is 14 months ). So, before you quit the day job, it’s smart to save up for four months’ worth of your living expenses–don’t forget that unless you’re on your partner’s or parent’s plan, you’ll be adding the expense of buying your own health insurance. This way, you can initially act as your own bank that you borrow from until the new checks come in, so you’re not starting your freelance career by running up credit card debt. Get a work email address. It’s a great way to separate your personal from your business and to keep work-life balance; when you look at your phone before bed, you can choose not to check your work account in a way you can’t if emails from your mom and from your demanding client come to the same account. When you start freelancing, send your introductory emails to your contacts from this address; it will make life a lot easier for setting boundaries between work time and down time, and you’ll be glad that you can easily put up an out-of-office just for work emails when you’re traveling. Set a monthly goal. My smart friend and fellow freelancer Alice Oglethorpe gave me this advice when I was starting out, and it saved me many times from hours of ambivalence or guilt: set a monthly income goal of how much you need to survive, plus a small cushion. (This can and should increase over time–mine went up every year, so it’s okay to start closer to the edge of what you need when you’re just starting out and add from there once you know what’s realistic.) Pitch yourself like crazy and say yes to everything clients send your way, working your ass off, until you hit your monthly goal. Maybe that’s on day 30 of the month, but maybe that’s on day 17; it may change every month. When that day does come, do a little dance, because the rest of the month is yours. You don’t have to continue the grind of pitching, so you can take a break to revive your creativity stores. You can turn down projects that don’t sound fun, guilt-free. You can work on your screenplay or take a trip or volunteer, without any I-should-be-working guilt. You can pitch or take on a project that sounds really interesting to you, but doesn’t pay well or is pro bono. Or, if you’re in build-your-savings mode, you can keep taking on work and squirreling away that extra cash. The best thing is that it gives you motivation to hit your goal, and then frees you to spend the rest of your time as you choose, without fretting over what you “should” be doing. Ignore the pajama-shamers. So many people told me to get out of my yoga pants and get dressed in “work” clothing, even to work from home. This was the worst advice for me, because it wasted precious time I could be working, or, you know, doing all of the things that make it a joy to work from home. I do try to make frequent plans on weeknights to make sure I shower and put on pants with a non-elastic waistband, but I don’t think there’s any reason that “has to” happen by 10am for you to feel good about yourself or be an adult. If wearing dressy clothes helps you feel professional, do it, but if you don’t want or need to, don’t feel pressure. You’re the boss of yourself now. Keep a “pitched” list. Not sure if this one will translate to other industries, but I find it helpful to keep a spreadsheet with each story idea, along with the editor/publication I pitched it to and the date. After I pitch, I set a reminder on my calendar for one week out to follow-up. If an editor responds that they’ll include it in an idea memo or present it at a meeting on X date, I put a reminder for the following day in my calendar so I can check in. In my follow-ups, I include a line about how I’d love to work with them on it but will need to pitch it elsewhere if it’s not a good fit for them right now). If I still haven’t heard back a few days after my follow-up, I move on. To make this a less disheartening process–and I find there is a lot of rejection as just part of the pitching process–for each story, I make a list of three editors I could see being interested in the story. That way, when one doesn’t go for it, I move down the list, which feels more positive and actionable than wondering what to do with it next. Pitch at the right time of day. Don’t pitch on a Monday–most people are scrambling to catch up after being away from the office for a couple days, and your email will likely fall to the bottom of the pile. Also don’t pitch on a Friday, since most people are burned out from the week and in autopilot or trying to check everything off their already-too-long to-do list to get out of there for the weekend. So, I prefer Tuesdays or Wednesdays. I also think there are sweet spots during the day, like 10:30/11am or 2:30/3pm. In my experience, these are less frantic times when people tend to be less swamped and more responsive. You can write those emails whenever and use Boomerang to schedule when they’ll send. Use tech to your advantage. I’m sure there are so many more awesome services you could use, but here’s what I vouch for: A lot of places email PDF contracts for you to sign, and I use Hellofax ($4.99/month) to e-sign them with a real signature and email or fax them back, without having a fax machine; you can also receive faxes this way. Use Boomerang to schedule when your emails will send. I know some people use programs that let you know if your email was read, but I don’t really see how that’s helpful. Always back everything up in a cloud-based service like Dropbox. I use Google Voice to record phone interviews (only works on incoming calls, though). I use Rev for interview transcriptions ($1/minute), which aren’t perfect (“your/you’re” type issues) but generally really good and are completed within a few hours. And I love Trello, which is basically the online version of a bulletin board, for a visual way to track and manage projects. Organize your desktop. My actual desk area can be piled high with stacks of papers, mail, and used water glasses, but my computer has to be organized if I’m going to find anything. My system is to make one folder for all freelance work (which automatically backs up to Dropbox, so I can access it from anywhere and don’t have to worry about my computer crashing). Within that, I make tons of subfolders–one for each publication/client–and one for general business housekeeping, like my W9, contracts, bio, and invoices. Know there are ebbs and flows. In August, people are on vacation. In December, everyone’s only thinking about the holidays. In September, people are out of money and trying to squeak by until the new fiscal year, which for a lot of companies in October, though they may not know their next year’s budget until November. Long story short, every freelancer will tell you there are high-income months and low-income months. When you hit a high month, put some of that extra money away. When you hit a low month, know it doesn’t mean you suck, that you’ll never work again, that you’re talentless. You’re awesome. Rely on the extra cash you saved during a high month and tell yourself the work will come back in a few weeks. Since the waiting can make you crazy, when work is slow, I try to work on pitches or new ideas for an hour a day, then enjoy the rest of the day. Since spending money when you don’t know what’s coming in can be stressful or guilt-inducing, I do cheap or free things (walking my dog, working in the garden, craft projects, cleaning closets, take a hike, have coffee with a friend), so I actually enjoy my time off, feel useful, and haven’t dug a financial hole. I also find that it helps to ping some clients I’ve established great relationships with and say something like, “Hi! I just wrapped up a big project for X [something I’ve done in the past few weeks or months] and am coming up for air and thinking about what I really want to focus on next. I loved working with you on Y Project–do you have anything in the pipeline that we could team up on again?” It’s a way to let them know you’re available without sounding super desperate, and I often got work this way after a quiet period.Record Keeping & MoneySorry, this part just sucks. You probably didn’t start your own business to spend your days meticulously keeping spreadsheets and hounding people to pay you, but so it goes. Keep a tight ship. Even if you’re not an especially type-A person, you have to keep a type-A record of your assignments, the fees, and whether you’ve been paid. (Believe me, I learned the hard way how embarrassing it can be to keep nagging a place to pay you...only for them to prove they already have and you never wrote it down.) I know some people use Quick Books or various services, but you can use a good ol’ Excel spreadsheet. I like Trello, which is basically the online version of a bulletin board for us visual folks to help with project management. I make Boards for each of the different stages of the process: Researching, Writing, With the Editor, Revising, Approved, and Paid. Then I make a card for each assignment (including the name of the client, the name of the project, my contact’s name, when the assignment is due, and the fee). This way, it’s easy to see what stories I haven’t been paid for when it gets to my invoice day. I also keep a separate board for each month where I keep a running tally of what I’ve earned that month in assignments to see how close I am to hitting my monthly goal. Get your money. Sending invoices to get paid and dealing with contracts and other paperwork is insanely boring, but it’s the only way to get paid. To keep the majority of your time focused on your actual work, but so you don’t forget to bill, set a recurring calendar event for every other week at the same day and time to send invoices. Go through your spreadsheet of the assignments you’ve finished but not been paid for, and start sending off those invoices. This sounds obvious, but is really easy to forget to do in the moment: make sure when money comes in that you mark it down as paid. I always found this easy to do with paper checks, but more places are moving to mandatory direct deposit or even PayPal-only deposits. So on your Deal With Money days, first run through your online accounts to see what deposits you’ve received so you can check those off before you start invoicing or following up on unpaid fees. Create a “taxes holding pen.” Few things feel worse than having to make a payment plan with the IRS because you thought the money in your checking account was yours...so you spent it before you realized a third of that wasn’t actually yours to spend. Taxes aren’t withheld from freelance jobs, so you’ll need to DIY for both to the Feds and the state (unless you happen to live in one of the few no-income-tax states). Depending on your state and your income, this could change, but it’s a good guide to plan that of the money you earn freelancing, you’ll need to pay one-third of that amount in taxes, with 25% of your income going to the Treasury Department and 7% or so to your state’s Department of Revenue. It feels a lot less painful–and prevents you thinking you have more cash than you actually do–if every time a payment comes in, you instantly transfer one-third of it to a separate account you use just for a holding pen for taxes. Then, when it’s tax time, you know you have the money, and you don’t have to deal with the gut blow of seeing your personal checking or savings account take a big hit. Pay Uncle Sam. I’m a writer, not a tax accountant, so please use this as a loose guide and not the gospel and ask a tax professional about your specific situation. Generally, freelancers have to pay estimated quarterly taxes or face fees later on. Check out the IRS’ super-clear and easy-to-understand (HAH JKJK) instructions online on the Form 1040-ES, the Estimated Tax for Individuals. The main things to note are the four dates when you should make payments by (ie, for 2017, they are: April 18, June 15, September 15, and January 16, 2018, in addition to your annual April 15-deadline taxes that everyone pays) and the address for where to mail your check–which varies by which state you live in–and the IRS form. You’ll need to Google your state’s estimated quarterly tax form as well. Then use your spreadsheet of where you’ve recorded your monthly income, and figure out what amount you need to send to state and federal (I’ve always done around 25% of my income to the Treasury Department and about 7% to my state’s Department of Revenue.) Make sure you also mark down in your spreadsheet the date of the quarterly payment and what amount you paid to state and federal, since you’ll need this info for your April 15th taxes. Start a retirement account. Sadly, there’s no company-matched 401(k)s for freelancers. You can put $5,000 every year into an IRA (Traditional or Roth), or open a SEP (Simplified Employee Pension Plan), which honestly is a little more confusing, but you can potentially put away a lot more, depending on how much you earn as a freelancer (you can contribute 25% of what you earned that year). You got this!