{"id":1315,"date":"2002-09-08T18:59:00","date_gmt":"2002-09-08T18:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/2002\/09\/modern-times.html"},"modified":"2002-09-08T18:59:00","modified_gmt":"2002-09-08T18:59:00","slug":"modern-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/2002\/09\/modern-times.html","title":{"rendered":"Modern Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, while Adam&#8217;s car, which finally died, gets towed to the shop, I can sneak in a blog, although I promised I&#8217;d cook dinner while he followed the tow truck to the shop in my car.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, so I know it&#8217;s totally cheesy, but I read this book I checked out of the library (single income families don&#8217;t One Click their books as they did when they were two income families without student loans) called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/0517547856\"><i>How to Be a Freelance Writer<\/i><\/a>. Of course, I don&#8217;t need it anymore, since I&#8217;ve gotten a job offer (oh, you thought I told you everything, did you? Even I can keep a few things up my sleeve). When I checked it out, I didn&#8217;t realize it was written in 1981. The crux of the information is still accurate, of course: targeting pieces, writing query letters, dealing with editors. But some of it is simply laughable. I mean, 1981 doesn&#8217;t seem that long ago. I remember it. Yet reading this book, 1981 was another era. Advice such as:<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<\/p>\n<li> &#8220;&#8230;editors <i>will<\/i> assign stories to writers who type their queries on manual typewriters, but no manual can ever give your final drafts the high-tech professional appearance of an electric. The pros use electrics.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/li>\n<li>use carbon paper to make copies of query letters because it&#8217;s important you keep a draft for yourself and it will save you lots of money on photocopying.<br \/>\n<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;As you probably know, many libraries have installed computer terminals to help patrons locate various research materials. If your local library has such a computer, by all means, learn how to use it.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/li>\n<li>You can record phone conversations for interviews by using a device available at Radio Shack.  A cord connects to the recorder, and you place a suction cup over the listening end of the phone.<br \/>\n<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The next step up from a machine such as the Electronic 75 [a typewriter with computer memory] is a full-fledged word processor. The most sophisticated of these computer age, text-editing machines consists of three separate units: a keyboard, a televisionlike cathode ray tube, and a printing unit&#8230;. a word processor uses magnetic disks that offer a removable memory. Such disks function much like the cassette cartridges used in tape recorders&#8230;. you can get a &#8216;hard&#8217; copy of the text by merely pressing the &#8216;print&#8217; button&#8230;.the price for a full-fledged modular word processor ranged from $7,500 to more than $20,000&#8230;.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/li>\n<li>A section entitled: &#8220;Is There an Answering Machine in Your Future?&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;To save money on your long-distance phone calls, remember that Ma Bell charges her highest rates on weekdays between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM, local time&#8230;. consider subscribing to a special long-distance service such as M.C.I. or Sprint&#8230;. in addition to your long-distance charges, you&#8217;ll also be billed a flat monthly fee&#8230;. such services will not permit you to dial every phone in the U.S&#8230;..In order to subscribe you must have a touch-tone phone, and you must be willing to press twelve <i>extra<\/i> buttons before dialing each long-distance call.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;budgeting on a freelancer&#8217;s volatile income can prove as vexing as trying to unscramble a Rubik&#8217;s Cube puzzle.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;[He wrote] a story on the metric system for <i>Braniff&#8217;s Flying Colors<\/i>.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m sorry but this just cracked me up.  I think the Arlington library needs to update their books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, while Adam&#8217;s car, which finally died, gets towed to the shop, I can sneak in a blog, although I promised I&#8217;d cook dinner while he followed the tow truck to the shop in my car. Okay, so I know it&#8217;s totally cheesy, but I read this book I checked out of the library (single [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}