Our July interviewee and writing VIP this month is Lisa Taylor Huff. Lisa is a writer and editor living in Paris, France. She’s a “Bold Soul” with an inspirational story and I’m sure you’ll like her as much as I do.

Write Out Loud: What type of writing and/or editing do you do? What types of clients do you take on?

Lisa Taylor Huff: I do several types of writing:

1. Ghostwriting and editing other people’s book manuscripts. I ghostwrite non-fiction only, no fiction. I will edit both fiction and non-fiction.
2. Ghostwriting and editing other people’s articles (i.e. that they want to publish in newspapers, blogs, magazines, business journals or their own newsletters).
3. I have written and self-published one book, The Writing Coach’s Guide to FINALLY Writing Your Book (iUniverse 2006), a how-to book. I’m presently writing my second book, a travel memoir.
4. I have had some of my original articles published in magazines and e-zines, with many reprint requests world-wide.
5. I used to write book proposals and web site copy but rarely provide these services anymore; they’re just not as interesting to me as the other types of writing I could be doing.

WOL: How do you find clients, market your services and/or sell your work?

LTH: My web site at www.LisaTaylorHuff.com and my blog at www.TheBoldSoul.com do most of my “marketing” for me. I also get clients by word of mouth. For more than 18 years I did freelance web design and a number of those former clients have since hired me to do writing projects for them, and they often refer me to others as well. I admit to being a very lazy marketer: I do no in-person business networking anymore (for one thing, I live in France so business networking opportunities aren’t what they were when I lived in New Jersey). Just recently I have been doing a bit more with social networking web sites such as Linked-In, Facebook (I have a Fan Page where I direct people who want to “friend” me but aren’t really my friends), and Twitter so I guess you could call that marketing.

WOL: Why did you decide to become a (freelance) writer/editor?

LTH: I don’t know that it was a decision so much as finally admitting to myself that this is what I was meant to be doing all along; it just took me until I was in my 40s to recognize it and start doing it. I have always been a writer… you might say it’s a calling more than a career for me. I plan to make my living as a writer until I’m in my 90s.

WOL: How do you schedule your day?

LTH: This has always been a challenge for me because I dislike routine and schedules, but they’re necessary. Within the past 18 months, I met and married a man in France and now live with him and his three children; I am still trying to get some sort of regular “routine” down for writing, but it seems to shift on a weekly basis depending on which kids are with us (two teens and an 8 year old) and what my client projects require. I am constantly juggling and changing priorities.

Oddly enough, I used to keep my schedule on my computer using ACT software until my computer’s hard drive crashed last summer; since then I’ve converted back to the old fashioned way of just keeping a date book. I don’t miss the old software except when I want to find someone’s contact information from the past.

WOL: What portion of what you do is writing/editing and what portion would you say is other business related work (e.g., marketing, networking, querying, etc.)?

LTH: I know a lot of people believe you should be marketing more than writing, but I’ve found it’s the other way around for me. As I’ve said, I’m a lazy marketer and in most cases this is fine as the clients just seem to show up and find me when I’ve got gaps in my schedule.

I do want to spend more time getting into paid magazine writing and this will require more of my time in sending out queries and tracking them. Same thing when I’m ready to get a publisher for my second book (which I do not intend to self-publish); I’ll need to put a lot more time into that as well.

WOL: What are your favorite tools for making your work easier?

LTH: My favorite new one is my Asus Eee PC 1000HE netbook because it’s light enough and portable enough that I can now get out of the house when I want to, and do some writing in a café or even the park! Writing tends to be so isolating, and I also have days where there are young kids in the house and that’s not conducive to getting much work done, so being able to go elsewhere to write has been fabulous.

WOL: What resources (books, websites, courses, etc.) do you regularly use or have been useful to you in the past?

LTH: Chicago Manual of Style online and Writers Market online. Now that I live in Paris it no longer makes sense for me to keep these printed books on my bookshelf when I can just pay for an annual subscription. I use www.dictionary.com (and the related thesaurus) when I need to check spelling or find a synonym. Wikipedia is often a good research source although you have to double check facts. There may be others I use less frequently but I can’t recall offhand.

WOL: What skills would you say are most important to your success as a writer/freelancer?

LTH: I think first and foremost, you have to love what you do. There are so many different ways to earn money as a freelance writer (technical writing and copywriting are other things I’ve done in the past but didn’t enjoy as much, although they can also be lucrative) that you need to focus on what you like and what you’re good at. I just seemed to attract clients who needed a ghostwriter or editor, right from the beginning, and since my long-term intention is to one day be paid solely to write my OWN books, working on other people’s books seemed like a good way to get experience and transition into the writer’s life.

If you’re doing this type of writing, you have to be good at asking the right questions because your clients may not know what information to tell you. You have to be part coach, part journalist, and part sleuth to draw them out and get the information you need to do your job.

WOL: Where is your favorite place to work? What is your favorite time of the day to work?

LTH: I have a home office but due to changes in the family it has become a bit of a storage area so I have been working more in our bedroom if there are others in the house during the day, or if I’m alone I might work at the kitchen table or in the living room. At least one day a week I now like to go out to a café or tea salon with my netbook and write there. I don’t necessarily have a favorite time of day to write, it varies by day and the family demands on my time; what used to be “ideal” for me when I was single no longer works now that I’ve got a family around me. We’re hoping to have a baby and that will require a whole new plan for my work, if that happens! But I have a friend who has had four books published, and she wrote all of them while either pregnant (once with twins) or while raising her family and simultaneously running her business, which often requires travel. So it’s possible, you just have to figure out what will work and stick to it!

WOL: What strategies do you use to stay on top of deadlines and manage multiple projects?

LTH: I’ve had to give up being a perfectionist and sometimes I just have to call a project “done” or “good enough”. Writers are often terrible perfectionists and we always can find another way to write it, and we want to tweak it again and again. I’ve had to stop doing that so much. And sometimes I find I am apologizing to my clients a lot more than I’d like. Fortunately I choose clients who are about as patient as I could ever ask for.

WOL: What one piece of advice would you give to other writers who are hoping to build a freelance business?

LTH: If you love it, then do it. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t.

Lisa Taylor Huff is a freelance writer and an expert on Living Boldly®. She writes about and guides others on how to create the life you want and achieve your boldest desires. A former “Jersey Girl”, Lisa now calls Paris, France her home. She went to Paris as a single 45-year-old woman in 2006, intending to fulfill her life-long dream of living and writing there; less than a year later she met a Frenchman and fell in love when she stepped off a bus at the Luxembourg Gardens, and married him (and his three children) about 8 months later… proving that when you take a chance and go for what you really want in life, anything can happen! You can find Lisa at www.LisaTaylorHuff.com and www.TheBoldSoul.com.