Mastering the Lateral Move: How to Get Out of Your Current Position and Into Full-Time Journalism

Course Details

You've always wanted to be a journalist, but you listened to your parents and went to law school (or medical school, or became a teacher, or a financial analyst, or a construction worker). You realize now you want very badly to quit your job and fulfill your life's dream of becoming a full-time freelance journalist. But don't make any rash moves! At least, not before you learn the concrete tools necessary to start you off as a journalist. In three hours, corporate lawyer-cum-full-time freelance journalist Rachel Sklar will teach you about the careful planning required to go from a steady paycheck to the freewheeling freelance life. This seminar will help you minimize the pain.

• Make the most of rejections
• Capitalize on your expertise (yes, you do have expertise!)
• Capitalize on your hobbies, interests and passions
• Capitalize on friends, family and colleagues, and learn to see the great story ideas surrounding you every day
• Establish relationships with editors as someone who didn't go to j-school
• Continue your media education - what you should read, watch, attend
• Become an active part of the media community - you get what you give
• Squirrel it away: how much of a cushion will you need?
• Set up reliable workflow
• Manage yourself as a business
• Impose structure on your day; or, how to avoid staying in bed until 4 p.m.
• Cut costs (trust me, you need to be aware of these tips!)
• Maximize your non-writing earning potential
• Stay motivated
• Avoid debt
• Change your lifestyle to accommodate your new career

Instructor Bio

Rachel Sklar's Courses

Rachel Sklar became a full-time freelance writer after spending almost four years as a corporate lawyer in New York and Stockholm. She has written on a wide array of topics from punk rock legend Dick Manitoba to the behind-the-scenes action at the World Hockey Championships in Russia to how to properly enjoy a Cupplerobe (answer: in small doses!). Her work has been published in The New York Times, Glamour, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune, Wallpaper, The New York Post and numerous publications in her northern homeland of Canada, where she also published her first book, A Stroke of Luck: Life, Crisis and Rebirth of a Stroke Survivor (with Howard Rocket, 1998). Rachel received her law degree with honours from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and still occasionally spells things the Canadian way.

Testimonials

The seminar was fantastic. Rachel's honesty was not only helpful but inspirational. She gave me hope that I can one day make the transition to freelance writing. -- Liz Davis, paralegal