Be a Freelance Writer

Read points one and two of this post and then close your eyes for a few minutes and THINK.

1) Come up with a magazine article idea.
Open your ears and listen to what people are talking about. Surf the online forums for the latest buzz. People want to find out how to be more beautiful, healthy, affluent, intelligent and/or better-liked. They want to read about their heroes, their sports teams or their cinema idols. They want to save the planet -- or at least their marriage. They want to laugh, to have great sex, to eat well, to go to heaven.
You can flip your calendar ahead by four or five months for inspiration as to what editors will be planning for in an upcoming issue since editors ALWAYS work ahead. It will be time to go back to university in many parts of the world. Formula 1 will get underway in Singapore; in Australia the 'footy' Grand Finals will be looming in the final week with playoffs underway. Grandparents Day is September 7; the first day of Autumn in the northern hemisphere is September 22. Think of what will be desired in the world of fashion at that time; what will be in season at the supermarket; what will be released at movie theatres. Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino will be starring in Righteous Kill as policemen chasing a serial killer; Jennifer Aniston, Steve Zahn and Woody Harrelson star in Management telling the tale of a traveling saleswoman who sells cheap art to small companies and motels. She has a fling with an aimless, underachieving assistant motel manager at one of her stops and he pursues her all over the U.S. In Nothing but the Truth, Kate Beckinsale stars with Matt Dillon as a Washington D.C female newspaper reporter who outs a CIA agent and is imprisoned for refusing to reveal her source. In South of the Border, Salma Hayek and Andy Garcia feature in a tale of a pampered Beverly Hills chihuahua, accustomed to riding in a purse, that gets lost in Mexico while her owner is on a spa vacation and is forced to find her way back home.
2) Fix on one idea and distill it to a coverline. Yes, focus. What's your slant? From what angle will you approach it? What makes this unique?

Now OPEN YOUR EYES. Sit down at your work station.
3) Do your research. Get exactly the information you need. You do not need to become an expert, so don't overdo it (you will also lose your enthusiasm for the idea if you work it until you are stale -- and no one wants to read a stale piece). Don't circle around the subject -- zero in. Talk to the people you NEED to speak with. If you can, reach for the BIG NAME. Use only what is quotable and sticks to your subject.

4) START WRITING