I did everything in my power to avoid writing the last two days. I’ve watched every news podcast on the planet. I’ve spent hours watching Ellen DeGeneres and Eddie Izzard on YouTube. I messed with the coding and almost killed this blog.

But now the deadline is getting closer, so I must place butt in chair, put fingers on keyboard, and write.

There have been extreme ups and downs lately. I haven’t had trouble getting assignments or even getting paid, but many of the publications I write for have been putting their budgets in deep freeze. This has almost forced me to look outside my comfort zone. Which is not a bad thing, necessarily, but it takes all the more effort to market. Effort I’d rather be spending on stories.

That said, January was the best month (financially) I’ve had in almost two years. And March has already topped that.

I don’t know what it is that I did right, except that I’ve kept my head down and continued to focus on what I do best. I’ve continued to find stories I care about, pitch them, sell them, write them. I’m collecting rejections too, but so what? Regular readers will know that in every rejection I see two opportunities: one, to send the idea elsewhere, and two, to send the publication that has rejected the idea another one.

I just finished writing a long-ish piece as part of a cover story for The Writer about how freelance journalists are surviving in the current economy, so I’ll share some tips from that once it’s in print. I’m quite thrilled to be sharing that story with some of America’s most successful freelancers, including the former President of ASJA (American Society of Journalists and Authors).

In the meantime, to keep it simple, here’s what you need to be doing: connect with editors, find out what they need (their needs have likely changed), provide it, and do the best job you can on every assignment.

Not all that different from freelancing-as-usual is it?