I’m grateful for my day job and I love my freelance night job, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing both.

Christmas lights, freelance entertainment journalism and the perils of a solitary life. Not bad for one blog post!

Just letting everyone know that I’m alive and what I’ve been doing that’s taken me away from the site.

An upcoming one-on-one interview unlike any other celebrity interview I’ve ever been on. It could be awesome or embarrassing.

Lindsey Darden shares her experiences as a freelance writer trying to make a name for herself.

Too busy to write, because I’m busy writing. Here’s some quick catchup and brief Hollywood opinions.

The pleasures of writing, the frustrations of miscommunication and the agony of waiting.

A quick glance back at where I’ve come from and where I am now in terms of my writing career.

It takes a particular kind of driver to deal with Los Angeles traffic without spontaneously combusting or running people off the road.

Social networking, MySpace Profile 2.0 and an upcoming industry event in West Hollywood. No rest for the weary or entertainment journalists with day jobs.

As a freelance writer or journalist, the people you rely on to do your job will inevitably let you down. Be ready for it and know how to deal with it.

If you’ve been following the news, you’ve probably heard mention of the fires that are engulfing Southern California. If you live in Southern California, then that’s all that’s on the news right now. It’s nothing new for us. Fires seem to be more frequent then earthquakes these days — at least memorable ones — not counting the one we had a couple of months ago that was epicentered right below Chino Hills, where I live. Anyway, I’ve always viewed California fires the way I imagine most non-Californians do: with a certain level of detachment since it’s just happening on TV.

I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve just been down this past week. What the heck is wrong with me? I have zero motivation to do anything. Usually, I can’t wait to get home, especially on the weekends, and just spend all of Friday night and Saturday day writing or working on my Web site (mind some minor adjustments in that regard, by the way), but not this week. Instead, I blew off my writing partner — I had a legitimate reason of course — and stayed in to finish Mallrats. Not the best movie in the world, though it has its charms. It’s the movie you were thinking of at the end of every conversation where you said, “This needs to be in a movie!”

As a freelance writer, you’ll probably run into a lot of fly-by-night publications that are looking for writers to supply them with content. These outlets are great for new people trying to beef up their portfolio with tear sheets or just get some experience. Typically, these publications won’t pay you. Most of the time, writers put up with it, because they usually have a day job anyway.

Once you’ve written a few articles, you can start being a little picky about which fly-by-night publication you want write for. Sooner or later, you’ll get picked up by a regional rag that actually has some good connections.

Since this is my professional blog, I made a conscious decision not to blog too much about work since the only reason to write about work on your personal time is just to complain. I submit to you that I’ve let slip a complaint about work here and there, but nothing that I thought was flagrant or would put off a prospective future employer. Recently, however, work has gotten me down — to the point of depressing me — and I just feel the need to get a few things off my chest.

I’ve been playing video games since the Atari 2600 when I thought I was gosu for being able to “dodge” enemy lasers on Berserk by letting the lasers pass through the pixels that separated my avatar’s head from his body. Damn, those little Psylon dudes were irritating, especially when you bumped up the Difficulty lever a couple of times and the bad guys fired an endless stream of lasers.

Of course video games have come a long way since then, but I’ve been there each step of the way, playing Nintendos, Playstations, Xboxs and finally settling on the PC.

Life as a freelance writer is easily summed up in one word: temporary. One day a publication may need you to write movie reviews, the next day restaurant reviews. The day after that, they may not need you at all. That’s why you have to keep moving and keep scrounging for more work. It’s like [...]

I don’t want to speak out of turn here since I’m not a freelance writer by trade (anymore), nor do I have tons of experience doing it. On the other hand, I think I’ve experienced enough to give people just starting out in the freelance world some good advice and safety tips. Some of this [...]