Kristen Hall-Geisler

Category: Freelancer

  • My Shitty Mantra

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    Kristen
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    Mr. HG and I had both had long, stressful workweeks, and a non-rainy Sunday was in the forecast. A couple hours under the trees with the dog would be the mind-cleansing, soul-restoring excursion we needed. It was true — our minds were cleansed by exhaustion and our souls were restored by surviving. It was a…

  • The Bottom Line Is Not Just a Figure of Speech

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    I’ve been a freelance writer and editor years longer than I’ve had proper accounting software. (A quick hat tip to Freshbooks for making the switch from home-brewed spreadsheets to software not so painful.) The basics are easy (invoice! expense! bam!), and I have a brilliant freelance-friendly tax accountant. But I’m still learning a lot about…

  • What I Learned from HowStuffWorks.com: Research and Documentation

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    I do lots of work for lots of different outlets, but there are a few publications (online and print) that I work with regularly. One of those is HowStuffWorks.com, which is part of the Discovery network. I’ve been writing for their Autos channel since 2008 — nearly three years — and the most important thing…

  • To Holiday or Not to Holiday

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    Kristen
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    I am writing this at my desk, in my office, on Memorial Day, an official holiday in the United States. Yet here I am at my desk. Most people are camping this weekend — or as a friend of a friend on Facebook called camping, “drinking near trees.” I did not leave town for the…

  • On the In-Person Q&A

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    A few months ago, my friends Kristin and Ali (founder of Indigo Editing) asked if I would be available to answer questions about the freelance life. I said sure. Ali mentioned that I was requested by someone, which was flattering. She never said who the requester was, but she doesn’t know my mom, so it…

  • Freelance Tip #2: Twitter

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    Though Twitter has only been around a couple of years, it’s spawned a little industry of books on how to effectively use it — and a big group of Twitter haters. I use Twitter and have for a long time, if we’re measuring time in internet terms rather than, say, geologic terms. Here’s my Twitter…

  • Freelance Tip #1: Lunch

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    Basically, you have two options for lunch as a freelancer: eat in or go out. Let’s explore the options for and implications of each. Eat In Do not eat at your desk. That is for people with “regular” jobs who have to work in cubicles. You are a freelancer. So eat somewhere nice, like at…

  • On Freelance Breathing Space

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    Recently one of my favorite editors at one of my favorite freelance gigs sent out an email announcing that we all — staff and freelancers alike — were being given “breathing space” for a few weeks. I don’t know if this is a euphemism for being a bit broke or if things really were getting…

  • The Monday Morning Freelance Plan

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    Kristen
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    As a freelance writer and editor working from home, getting out of the house is always nice. So I’ve instituted a new ritual: the Monday morning freelance plan. It gets me out of the house and makes the rest of my week far more productive. The basic idea: This takes about an hour, maybe a…