TURN SUMMER FUN INTO CASH

Summer is the worst time for most of us who write for a living to do actual, serious, money-making work. Or is it? Of course, there is usually much more going on to consume our time than in the winter, like hosting visiting relatives and friends, attending outdoor functions, holding cookouts, traveling, working in the garden, and numerous other things that we just don’t do during colder months.

However, in most of our lives, much more happens during the summer that provides interesting activities to write about. We’re going places, seeing things, and having experiences that are worth committing to paper. That makes this the perfect time to write down our reflections on those experiences and our memories of good times so that we can remember them later when we need the information and details for an article or book. And what if we’re too busy to research markets for our article ideas at the moment? We surely have time to make a list of ideas as they pop up, and most of us usually have a camera in tow to take pictures of what we’re seeing and doing.

So make notes of what’s happening every day—even if it seems mundane. Who knows—even the least important thing we see or do could become part of an article, or a character’s experience in a novel. A day spent gardening can later reveal some gems that are article worthy, such as: planting a small backyard garden, a backyard cookout, including making homemade ice cream or simply playing a favorite board game around a table set outdoors, or a picnic in the woods, or a day spent at home doing repair work around the house or even really boring jobs (boring to me, at least) such as cooking and ironing. Any one or more of these activities can become either the basis for an article or an essay.

Say you’re cooking for company and everything seems to go wrong: you start preparations a little late and realize you have to run out to buy eggs for one of your recipes; you look for a special pan or dish and can’t locate it, then find it’s in the dishwasher with caked on gunk and the washer hasn’t been run in days. Around our house, any number of calamities can befall me when I start to cook. Still, sometimes everything works out and the meal becomes a special memory. This could become the basis for an article for a women’s magazine on “cooking nightmares and how to avoid them.” A day spent in the backyard could become an article in a parenting magazine on “turning everyday activities into special memories for your kids.”

And be sure to take notes on places you travel. Where did you go and what route did you use to get there? Were there any special problems or circumstances as you made your journey? What costs were involved? What were the exact names and spelling of the places you visited? What were the names and phone numbers of the people you met, or your hosts? What type of weather did you have? What did the scenery look like? Make a list of the places you stay enroute, whether an inn or RV park. What did you learn about the area that was unexpected? Road trips can become articles for a variety of magazines if you keep good notes and take photos to include with the manuscript.

The beauty of keeping a journal or separate notebooks for each of your activities is that in the winter when things have slowed down, you can pull them out and write. Most magazines, in particular, want articles on summer activities while frost still covers the ground. They must plan their magazines about six months in advance for release during the summer months, and will want your summer manuscript ideas or the completed articles submitted while many of their readers are still shoveling snow. If your article won’t appear in the next six months or so, you’ll need to contact your sources to make sure pertinent information is still accurate, or places you visited are still up and running.

If you’re not sure what types of notes to keep, simply read some good articles on various topics and make a list of the information included in each one. Did the writer include small details, such as the shape of clouds in the sky over a famous monument? Was there any mention of costs involved or names of places stayed? What about other small things that might interest readers that you might not ever think to mention, such as the names of shells found on the beach, or how they looked on the sand at sunset with the tide slowly washing over them?

Notes made on tiny details will serve you in many ways in the future. First of all, they’ll make you more aware of your surroundings. Second, you never know when such a detail can be used in a variety of ways, including your own memoir if you ever decide to put your life story on paper.