Spotters fees have been a traditional by-product of real estate agents. In fact, spotters fees can help you make additional cash by referring property owners to Realtors, or even calling in accidents. But how about spotters fees for freelance writers?

What gave me the idea was an event that happened to me yesterday. I received a phone call out of the blue from a magazine editor up north. She had been referred to me through a local young man who also happens to be one of my readers. Jylan Wynne, a 15 years young and very talented web designer was kind enough to refer my services to this lady, after she inquired with him for a local writer.

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In yesterday’s post The Dark Side of Writing I was touching on the often neglected or overlooked aspects of running a freelance writing business. While in an ideal world everything is rosy, there will be challenges in your business. The sooner you recognize them, the better you will be prepared to deal with them - as long as you stay true to yourself.

As promised, I’m writing this article to talk about my solutions to the challenges my own writing business has brought me in recent times. Quite frankly, I’m getting to the stage where I’m overworked and if I don’t act now, I will end up having a melt down eventually.

Running a freelance writing business is a great way to make a living. On the other side it also has its drawbacks. I like to talk about them in this article as I see it. You might already know about the benefits of working from home. Not only can you establish your own working hours, but you can also claim certain tax benefits which should not to be laughed at.

Blog communications are happening all around us. They happen on your blog, on my blog and the blogs of your friends. Have you ever put thought on how those communications can affect thousands of people we will never get to know?

If you think about it, most of us go around in circles. We visit Brett, Cath, Jenny, Friar, Kelly, MwP, Davina, Rita, WD, Cathy, Bec, Alex, UP, UL, Leanne, Steph, Ebele, WD, Liz, Melissa, and the dozens of other bloggers I have failed to mention. All these people are individuals or couples who we have come to trust and love.

Since many of you like to keep up with what’s happening around the blogosphere I went in search of some link diet.

Alex Fayle is pursuing happiness and what better way to find out than by talking to the happiness queen herself Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project. We can all do with a little more happiness for sure.

Lindsay has a good tip for all of you looking to make money online. His tip: don’t focus on making money, focus on solving problems is spot on.

This might be embarrassing. But then it might not. In fact, if you think I’m going to make a fool of myself, go blame the Urban Panther, or the Urbane Lion. See, they started this meme tagging thingy. Since the lion said it’s for all the people he loves, I’d like to consider myself one of them, therefore subjecting you to a rarely seen meme right here on my blog. Plus, how could I resist to show you my brilliance?

This post is entirely dedicated to Patrick O’Brien. After my negative post on how to beat lack of motivation yesterday I am already feeling much better, thanks to all of you! You made me cry with your beautiful and heartfelt words and I can’t say thank you enough to each and every one of you who left a comment.

But enough of me. This post is about Patrick O’Brien. Patrick O’Brien is an amazing, strong and very inspiring person, a person who suffers from the terminal illness ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).

Ok, I admit it. I’ve had a shocking weekend and an ever worse start to my week. I don’t even know why. Actually, those were my first thoughts, but I do know why after taking some time out (read on to find out). Right now, I just experience this dark somber mood.

The reason I’m writing about this is to show you, that we all struggle with motivation, me included. While I’m generally happy, upbeat and full of passion, I also have my bad days. Normally this isn’t a big issue, however, trouble is when those bad days stack up like right now.

Olympic athletes all have one thing in common. That one thing is what separates them from millions of people world wide. It is their mind set. A strong mind set can open doors to hidden places you never knew existed. A strong mind set can also be the driving force to develop your writing career. But for Olympic athletes, a strong mind set is the number one reason they are in fact - Olympic athletes.

In my quest to decode the reasons why these athletes are Olympians in the first place, I went digging for some enlightenment. If you want to attain the same mind set attributes like an Olympian, you can, by adapting the following:

Article query writing for magazines can be one of the most lucrative ways in which writers can pitch their ideas to earn an income. Not only is the pay of magazine article writing well above online rates, the thought of getting published in a glossy magazine certainly makes many hearts beat a little faster.

It’s not that I think magazine writing is the means to all ends. Far from it actually, but for some reasons I have always dappled with the idea of becoming a travel writer. Combining both passions of mine together sounds like the ideal solution to me.