|
Changing newsletter hosts?
Our newsletters are delivered via
Aweber.com, a reliable, spam-free newsletter service. If you are considering a
new newsletter host, please click above, and tell them Hope sent you.
VistaPrint is the supplier of FundsforWriters
business cards and postcards. Very simple and inexpensive for quality products.
Use this link to order and receive a discount offer.
Our new ebook release - Agent in Your Pocket
- 140+ agents and lots of agent-finding advice. PDF format
A new ebook release - Short Story Writer -
240+ paying markets for your shorts. and tons of writing advice - PDF format
| |
It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Tax Time!
By Gwynne Spencer
I often wonder how Superman dealt with his receipts. I bet he
had some doozies. Fifty sets of lost Clark Kent clothing and
eyeglasses, to start with. And probably a number of newspaper-
related receipts to throw off the wiles of Lex Luthor and his
henchmen at the IRS.
Now that all of us honest and fearless writers have survived
another taxable year, it's time to consider our wicked ways
and find better organizational strategies. I've done an
officially informal survey of fellow writers and superheroes
and found the following ideas to be helpful for those of us
who seem to be missing the Organizational Gene.
If you are like some writers I know, your Big Social Event
(analogous to Ferris Buehler's Day Out) is The Daily Trip to
the Post Office. So those receipts are like gold. If you are
like most writers I know, you have occasional irresistible
lapses of willpower when you must go to the bookstore and
fondle the magazines and books and of course, buy some. Yes,
the library is fine, too, but in our world if you value it,
you BUY it. And if you are also like most writers I know, if
it goes into a file folder it means you are DONE with it,
forever. Here are some other ideas:
Plan A
Get a bunch of those cute little laundry baskets at the dollar
store (they're 7"x10" on the bottom) and set up a sorting
system: postal receipts, supplies receipts, nondeductible
receipts that I'm afraid to throw out, research- and travel-
related receipts (but keep your mileage log in the car with a
pen tied to it with a shoelace), and book purchases. Every day,
empty out your pockets, your backpack, the bags you brought
into the house, into those little cute bins. Do not let the
cat, the hedgehog or the children play in them.
Plan B
Buy one of those desk diaries that looks like a Day-Timer but
it's a bound book (usually about $8 at office supply stores)
and every day, staple or scotch tape or at least stick the
receipts dujour into the book with a short note telling where
you went and why. When you input all of these into Quicken at
the end of the year (or quarter or month) you can always input
day by day and sort into categories later. No need to sort the
receipts, just keep that book as your "journal of highly
original entry" as the CPAs would say.
(HOPE's SUGGESTION - Purchase a Byline Daily Calendar - see right
side of main page
www.fundsforwriters.com )
Plan C
If you have TONS of receipts, get a loose leaf binder and
put a package of paper in it. Each day, staple your receipts
and activity notes onto a sheet of paper with the date. Use
two pages if you must. At the end of the month, take all
those pages out, staple them together and put them into a
10x13 manila envelope with the month written on the outside.
You could decorate it too if that would make you feel better.
Plan X
Lock yourself in the house, never go anywhere, never buy
anything locally, only on the Internet and save all the
receipts and your credit card statements and you're good
to go. Crazy, that is.
Plan Y
Put every single receipt you collect in a nice big friendly
looking basket all year long and then next year, spend two or
three days sorting and inputting into Quicken and trying hard
to remember what each receipt was for. This is a great exercise
in Creative NonFiction. This is also good for large doses of
remorse.
Plan Z
Hire a bookkeeper (did you know bookkeeper is the only word
in the English language with three consecutive double letters?)
and pay said person gazillion dollars to do your organization.
As they say in the Alps, "Heidi unlikely."
I hope these non-file folder strategies may prove helpful in
your never ending battle to preserve Truth, Justice and the
American Way. Or at least stay clear of the Kryptonite.
BIO
Gwynne Spencer is a freelance writer and writing teacher
and editor in Monmouth, Oregon. Contact her at
gwynnespencer@aol.com.
| |
The Shy Writer: An Introvert's Guide to
Writing Success - trade paperback and ebook - ISBN 1-59113-583-4
Time to order your 2008 Bylines Calendar - only
$13.95
Hope's Blog!
Not too long with a paying opportunity and a
tiny smidge of news and opinion. One of the most concise and informative blogs
for writers on the web. Voted one of Maria Schneider's 20/20 Blogs in 2007!
READ THE BLOG
Hope's Columns Elsewhere -
Your ad, book or service can be placed here.
See our
Ad Rates for both the web site and the
newsletters.
Paying contests, grant calls, agents and
publishers seeking submissions, writing jobs and markets listed in the
newsletters and on web site for no charge.
Send to Hope.
|
High Hope for the Freelance Writer