Remembering my father and father-in-law on Memorial Day

This weekend, amid the smells of barbecues and fresh flowers at gravesites, and the sounds of children playing and new flags snapping in the breeze, my thoughts will be with two men for whom Memorial Day was custom made: my father and father-in-law.

My dad was a Depression-era child who came of military age as tension mounted in Korea and would have missed war entirely had he gone to college instead of the Navy after high school. So when most of the young men he knew in school were just learning to shave, he was learning how to keep his clothes dry while bunking on the damp anchor-chain deck aboard an aircraft carrier plying the Pacific.

He chose the military because he had no money for college. And he opted for the Navy because a favorite uncle served in that branch. The same uncle had jumped off a sinking carrier into burning oil during the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942, and my dad remembered seeing the scars across his arms and back from that and thought of him as a true hero.

My dad did nothing so risky during his service, but his contribution was no less important. He parlayed an interest in photography into a post with Naval intelligence, helping to map out battle plans. He served on two carriers during a duty spaning the end of the Korean conflict and the return to peacetime. Although he never picked up a gun, his work in the dark recesses of the carriers disseminating classified information was weapon enough. Even now, more than half a century later, he refuses to discuss what he worked on down there.

My father-in-law, Gene, on the other hand took his life into his hands nearly each day he set out from port. A dozen years older than my dad, he was among what Tom Brokaw called "the Greatest Generation," and his duty took place aboard the cramped, creaky decks of Liberty ships sailing to stock American troops and their allies. While with the Merchant Marine, Gene sailed both oceans, crossed back and forth through the Panama Canal and saw more of the world than an Illinois farmboy ever expected.

He does not speak of his service; I had to pry stories out of him. And what I heard amounted to fascinating and frightening tales. He recalled the days he crawled to his post at watchout, hand over hand, as storms crashed his ship and three-story waves rose over the deck like granite cliffs, and the nights when he saw flashes of fire knifing the inky black as ships on the fringes of the convoy were torpedoed and sunk. More often, he rode the center of the convoy, on the ships loaded with armaments. Gene said he had to force out of his mind thoughts of what might happen if a torpedo hit one of those.

And so while many Americans everywhere celebrate a three-day weekend and the first nice weather of spring, I content myself with the images and stories passed along from my father and father-in-law. Instead of barbecue, I recall from my childhood the musty smells of yellowing yearbooks embossed with the carriers my father sailed on and filled with photos of 3,000 or so of his colleagues. Instead of enjoying the pageantry of parades, I prefer sifting the dusty snapshots of my father-in-law in his Merchant Marine uniform, so large it seemed to hang on his small frame.

They would prefer I go out and enjoy my weekend. But it's not really my weekend, you see. It's theirs.

7 tips on how to spot a freelancing scam

As print publications retrench and online publications expand, both are trying to figure out what to do about generating fresh content at minimal expense. And with staffing costs rising, it makes sense for both to hire freelancers.

But apart from the reputable publications vying for their services are numerous shady operators trying to take advantage of a freelancer's eagerness and talent.

It used to be that the quality publications were easy to spot — they had highly regarded, established reputations and stately brick-and-mortar addresses to house them. Plus, they carefully mined the freelance market for only the best contributions and set the bar for newcomers trying to put their names in print.

These days, all it takes is a computer and a Web connection to feign legitimacy.
So, when shopping the market for possible publishers, be wary of potential charlatans preying on a freelancer's good faith. Here are a few things to watch out for:

Too little detail in ads — Sales pitches that are devoid of information, or those that merely highlight links to job-bidding sites instead of company websites, probably are trying to lure freelancers into something other than a job. Do a little homework on a potential employer before entertaining ideas of becoming a prospective employee.

Payment in advance — Some sites promise long lists of job offers or professional contacts and preferential treatment for a freelancer's work in exchange for a monthly or annual fee. Don't bite. Nobody should have to pay just to be considered for employment.

Specific requests for original work — Legitimate publications may ask writers to contribute general samples of their writing to judge a contributor's style and readability. But those that get specific regarding subject, format, keywords and source links may be only mining the marketplace for free content. A way around this: Suggest writing two or three paragraphs, or just the lead, to demonstrate an approach. Back away if they are hesitant in allowing that approach.

Exaggerated promises — Sure, the job may be a great opportunity for budding writers, with the promise of big pay later. Or the ad is hiding a larger truth: that the job really means working long hours for nothing in return. Avoid writing for free; the promised payout of regular assignments later as sole compensation now rarely works to the contributor's advantage. Freelancers never should sell themselves or their talent short, because promises don't pay the bills. Furthermore, jobs that sound too good to be true probably are.

A flood of ads — Requests for content that turn up everywhere, and repeatedly, suggest the purveyor is desperate and prefers volume over quality work. Steer clear of anyone trying too hard to attract attention.

Website sign-ups — Sites that insist on registration just to be considered for a job could be doing that to drive up their number of original visitors, especially if they are sites that also have forums encouraging reader comments. Not all sites utilizing this approach are untrustworthy, but exercise caution if they place a premium on comments and lengthy profile information, as they may only do that to bombard visitors with spam.

Grammar and spelling errors — What publisher that promises great things in exchange for quality content lacks similar quality in its sales pitches? Probably not the kind of publisher that's worth a self-respecting freelancer's time.

David Sheets is a sports editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.com, and president of SPJ's St. Louis Pro chapter. Reach him by e-mail at dsheets@post-dispatch.com, on Twitter at @DKSheets, or on Facebook and LinkedIn. This post first ran in The Independent Journalist, the Society of Professional Journalists' blog for freelancers.

Plan well before freelancing

If you haven't browsed the market for freelance writers and editors lateley, take a look around. Even a glance on Google shows the horizon to be virtually limitless, with the scope of jobs available out there capable of keeping a person busiy through this lifetime and perhaps another.

But how many of us want to dive that deep? A pool of bottomless opportunity, while inviting, may be difficult for some independent journalists to navigate for its potential to consume one’s life. So, before taking the plunge, weigh a few facts.

Time management is essential — The first thing newcomers to this line of work want to know is how much money they’ll make, and the answer is rather simple: as much as they want. If they throw themselves into their jobs, chances are the wages will satisfy. But we all have lives away from our careers, and those lives also must come into account. Therefore, set firm working hours and stick to them — avoid distractions during these hours such as Netflix and that new book just downloaded from Amazon.

It should go without saying that a good diet and plenty of rest are essential work tools as well, though even the most-committed among us need reminders of this from time to time. This usually happens when …

Sickness happens — There will be a day or two, probably more, when a scratchy throat in the morning devolves to low-grade fever by mid-afternoon, or a family member becomes ill, and working becomes impossible. Better to admit defeat and come back stronger the next day.

This means making allowances for sick time. Many businesses allow for up to 10 days of paid sick time per calendar year; use that amount as a guideline when drafting a work calendar. And by all means be honest and forward with clients when illness arises and threatens a deadline, so they can adjust their schedules, too.

Clients accept that sickness happens. Freelancers should be honest with themselves and accept it, too.

Bad clients are everywhere — Of course, for every five or 10 understanding clients, there’s one who’s impossible to please, or who’s lax giving instructions, or who’s shameless about taking freelancers’ ideas as their own. Like illness, these people require freelancers to make contingencies, but the key is to avoid them before they pose problems.

Prior to taking on a project, conduct plenty of homework. Find out some background about clients: scrutinize their websites to see who receives credit for content and how, and mine the freelance marketplace for feedback from other writers and editors for indications of trouble.

Then, when the time comes to discuss potential projects, insist that clients provide specifics instead of generalities. And listen carefully not just to what clients say, but also how they say it: rudeness or curt behavior may allude to larger problems later.

Self-promotion bolsters success — Freelancers can write or edit stories all day and still feel as though their careers are stuck in neutral. Thus, a measure of innovation may be required to move things forward.

To start, it helps to master social media — Facebook, Twitter, Quora, etc. — the fastest form of communication growing. Story sources and editing clients may prefer one of these venues to share basic information, pass along content changes and, in general, stay in touch. (Having said this, I must stress that phone calls are still the most meaningful form of direct communication apart from face-to-face meetings.)

Social media also is essential for self-promotion, though it takes considerable time and care to develop it for that purpose. For example, in the publishing world, the informal time-management rule nowadays for book authors is “80/20″ — spending 80 percent of their time promoting themselves and 20 percent actually writing their books. This large percentage devoted to promotion includes such things as teaching workshops, speaking at engagements, and working with other authors and editors to develop their craft.

Granted, an 80/20 split may not suit most freelancers, given that their success depends largely on volume. Nevertheless, a nod toward innovation can boost potential and expand one’s reach in the marketplace.

Freelancers are their own bosses — the greatest perk of the business. They’re also entirely responsible for their own failures. Extensive care and planning, and the willingness to innovate, will go a long way toward keeping those failures to a minimum.

David Sheets is a sports editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.com, and president of SPJ’s St. Louis Pro chapter. Reach him by e-mail at dsheets@post-dispatch.com, on Twitter at @DKSheets, or on Facebook and LinkedIn. This post first ran in The Independent Journalist, the Society of Professional Journalists' blog for freelancers.

Don't plan on getting sick? You should

The moment I knew something was wrong my day already was booked, solid. I had a book-writing project to work on before sunup, interviews and reviews to complete before lunch and an evening of editing that would last past midnight. If I escaped my desk for fresh air and a glance at blue sky, I would be lucky.

But then an itch started down deep in my throat, past the point where coughing scratched it. A flood of morning coffee failed to drown the symptom; granola for breakfast just made it worse. By lunchtime, the odd dizziness accompanying fever joined in to knock me out of my desk chair and into bed.

Yes, folks, freelancers suffer illness, too. Not all of them, however, are prepared to handle it. As trouble sets in they could be like I was: enduring symptoms as well as guilt, the latter caused by my belief that inactivity at work meant lost income.

The trick then is figuring how to suffer in peace rather than panic. So, before considering a new project, freelancers also should consider what it takes to keep the money coming in when the work isn't, particularly during illness.

To start, it helps to have healthy habits. A balanced diet and regular exercise should be tools of the writer's trade because they help ward off problems and minimize the onset of others. Before my illness set in, weeks had passed since my last exercise; as a result, my back was sore from sitting all the time and my stomach had spread over my belt loops. Returning to exercise changed my mental as well as physical well-being — I could concentrate better and see more clearly the planning errors I had made that probably contributed to my illness.

Among those other errors was having a datebook that resembled an overstuffed suitcase, filled with too many projects and appointments and not enough time set aside for rest and relaxation. Sure, I love to write, but like the saying goes, "Too much of a good thing …"

Thus, I had to dispense with the mentality that caused the overloaded datebook. I had been piling up projects thinking that the more on my plate each day, the more money I would have in my pocket, not realizing that I was devaluing myself in the process. When billing for work, freelancers should look past the day's expenses to the larger goal of possessing a lifestyle that allows relative comfort and benefits, such as insurance. Never ignore the possibility of becoming ill and losing a day's worth of work, or more.

Finally, explain this larger goal to clients up front. Make it clear that good health and well-being means good work on a project. And if an itch in the throat turns into something worse, have no hesitation to call clients and explain the problem. In my experience, clients understand that sickness happens. Better that freelancers understand that, too, so they can keep the job and the life they love.

Tips from other sources:
* How to handle sick days as a freelance writer
* Freelancing during an illness
* Illness: The freelancer's best frenemy
* Where can a freelancer find health insurance coverage?
* Employee benefits for freelancers

David Sheets is a sports editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.com, and president of SPJ's St. Louis Pro chapter. Reach him by e-mail at dsheets@post-dispatch.com, on Twitter at @DKSheets, or on Facebook and LinkedIn. This post first appeared in The Independent Journalist, the freelancing blog of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Tips on landing freelancing jobs at newspapers

(This post first appeared in The Independent Journalist, the freelancing blog of the Society for Professional Journalists.)

Thanks to the economy — or maybe no thanks to it — the market for freelance writers has grown exponentially this past year. America spent much of 2010 pulling itself out of recession, and though that offered hope for a broad rebound entering 2011 publications and corporations that once had large writing staffs still opted to downsize and turn to contract work to save money.

What many freelancers may not realize is that newspapers are among the top enterprises making this turn. Newspapers, of course, suffered through substantial layoffs in 2010 and may yet in the new year. Still, they have print and electronic pages to fill and the pressure is great on the few people remaining in the industry to continue doing that job. What's more, veteran print journalists are under other pressure from non-profit and "hyper local" journalism models to remain relevant, vibrant and competitive despite diminishing resources.So, while looking around for new markets, consider calling the local newspaper to ask if it's willing to farm out one or two or more writing assignments. But before calling or writing an editor, do a few things:

Expect to start small — Any aspirations of uncovering another Watergate-size scandal should stay in a drawer; rarely do first-time newspaper contributors receive a big investigative project to start, regardless of experience. The early assignments will be small — low-level government meetings, high school sporting events, etc. — to help editors determine a freelancer's dependability, writing skill and ability to accept criticism. Believe me, not even seasoned journalists shine in all of these areas, but being amenable is key to getting more assignments.

Expect the pay to be small, if at all — Typical pay ranges between $25 and $50 per story, with three-digit sums possible for feature pieces after a freelancer has a body of work under the newspaper's masthead. Sometimes, however, newspapers will propose first-time assignments without compensation but dangle a contract if they are impressed with the results. Keep in mind that assignments may not be frequent or fulsome enough to constitute steady income.

Know the value of deadlines — Newspaper and online journalism are a fast-paced, get-it-done-now businesses that do not suffer people who miss deadlines. If an editor says a story has to be completed and on his desk or in his e-mail inbox by a certain time, get it in well before that time if possible. And if that's not possible, stay in touch with the editor to explain the situation and ask for guidance; they can be understanding when the situation calls for it. But missing a deadline — just one, even — can undermine a writer's credibility and make it that much harder to receive additional assignments.

Read the newspaper — This may sound like a no-brainer, but in fact newspapers often hear from hopeful writers pitching ideas that lack a local story peg, ideas that already were printed in some form, or ideas that amount to writers talking about themselves instead of talking to other people. Take time to carefully read either the print or online version of the newspaper (preferably both) and study several editions. Newspapers, like magazines, have writing styles and subjects of particular interest to their audiences; know what these are to have intelligent conversations with assignment editors.

David Sheets is a sports editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.com, and president of SPJ's St. Louis Pro chapter. Reach him by e-mail at dsheets@post-dispatch.com, on Twitter at @DKSheets, or on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Crowdsourcing: What it is, how it works

(This entry first appeared on Net Worked, the digital media blog of the Society for Professional Journalists.)

Technology's impact on American society the past decade has been tremendous. We can communicate and interact with each other easier than ever — technically speaking. Amid this progress, however, is a heap of new terminology some of us are only now beginning to understand.

The burgeoning list of terms is too long to dwell on here in one post, but elements of that list are poised to become day-to-day jargon during the next decade, and one of them is "crowdsourcing," a word believed to have appeared first in Wired magazine almost five years ago and now readily on the lips of anyone who spends much time building social networks.

Crowdsourcing amounts to what's called a portmanteau — two distinct terms blended in form and meaning to create a third. In this case, the words "crowd" and "outsource" were combined to underscore the narrowing gap between amateurs and professionals due to shared, inexpensive technology. Now, thanks largely to the ubiquity of non-wired and portable networks, professionals in assorted fields can solicit answers to problems from whole groups of people at once and maybe tap a collective wisdom not easily discerned by questioning one person at a time.

A form of crowdsourcing has been used to try solving complex math problems, troubleshoot software, edit literature, search for missing persons, monitor international borders and fund a Broadway play. One blogger even tried it to drum up paint color selections for the inside of her mother's house.

Journalists, too, are warming to the idea of crowdsourcing to help them report the news. As reported in Editor & Publisher, the technique was applied by the Washington Post at the rally by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert last month by having rally participants connect through a beta website to share information. The nonprofit, Minnesota-based MinnPost.com has used crowdsourcing to sift for government fraud, among other things.

Meanwhile, the Miami Herald, Charlotte Observer and the online-only ProPublica and St. Louis Beacon are among the news-gathering organizations using something called the Public Insight Network, a sourcing service affiliated with American Public Media that maintains a large network of experts on a variety of subjects.

Of course, two heads, or for that matter 2,000, are not always better than one, what with the potential for inaccuracy or unreliability inherent in an uncontrolled group. Thus comes the distinction between "bounded" crowdsourcing and "unbounded" crowdsourcing. With the first kind, as exemplified by the Public Insight Network, the "crowd" possesses defined boundaries and its members have specific professional skills. The second kind relies mainly on opinion and the emotion of the moment — good for collecting random YouTube videos of a rally at the National Mall, for example.

Crowdsourcing, as a word and an approach to gathering news, gained considerable traction in 2010. Expect to hear it a lot more — and use it a lot more — in 2011.

My mother, my grandparents, and Pearl Harbor

On a bright Sunday morning 69 years ago, my mother looked out her parents' kitchen window and saw black smoke rising in the distance.

Then she saw planes soar out of the smoke, and the whole world was forever altered.

That morning, my mother watched the attack on Pearl Harbor from her home. She was a child, living across the harbor from the U.S. Navy yard. My grandparents' house sat on a hill slope, their back yard overlooking the battleships moored in port a couple miles away, and on this Sunday morning in December my mother and grandparents saw the smoke, heard loud bangs coming from the same direction, left their unfinished breakfast sitting on the kitchen table, and went outside for a better look.

They heard the planes before seeing them. A whining roar, as if from a million large, angry mosquitoes, echoed across the hillside, gaining in volume, until the planes appeared as black darts flung across the bright sky. My grandmother remarked how unusual it was to see military maneuvers on a Sunday. My grandfather noticed these planes were unlike any he had seen parked on the airfields.

The planes came closer at incredible speed, and there were more of them each passing moment. It occurred to my grandparents that they should move back closer to the house when one plane, so close now the Rising Sun emblem on its fuselage was clearly visible, wagged its wings on approach to the slope, pitched starboard and with the tip of one wing carried off my grandmother's clothes line.

My mother recalls seeing the pilot's face. She says that given enough artistic talent, she could draw it now, 69 years later, from memory.

Everybody ran back into the house to watch the black smoke and noise intensify across the harbor, and it was at about this point when they saw a bright flash followed by the swelling bubble of an intense shock wave envelop the harbor and race up the hillside to rattle the kitchen windows. The USS Arizona, already critically wounded, burst nearly in two as the ammunition magazine ignited.

At that, the event became profoundly personal: What should we do? Where should we go? Neighbors were walking out into the streets crying, shouting, comforting each other, even as the planes continued to zip overhead. My grandfather, who had joined an all-volunteer civilian defense corps a year earlier as tensions heightened between Japan and the United States, expected he would be called to do … something. But no word came; the few phone lines around the island were jammed.

Hours later, a Jeep came down the street. The military police officer behind the wheel was going around asking every able-bodied male, particularly those who had guns, to meet in the town center for further instructions. My grandfather expressed concern about leaving my grandmother and mother alone, to which the Jeep driver responded, "Look, we're expecting an invasion by the Japanese. If you don't get down to the beach now to try stopping them, we're all screwed anyway."

So, my grandfather packed his only gun, a small-caliber pistol, and boarded a truck en route to a long shallow beach a few miles past Honolulu where Japanese landing craft loaded with troops were expected to appear overnight. Dozens of civilians in several trucks made the trip with him, including one man who brought the only weapon at his disposal: a pitchfork.

Upon arrival, the men busied themselves initially by digging shallow trenches and building defensive positions behind rocks and trees. Then they waited, the only sounds coming from the surf, the only light from the moon. And waited.

And waited.

By daybreak, the threat of invasion had subsided, though the intensity wrought from the previous morning never did. Thereafter until the war ended, the Hawaiian islands, not yet one among the United States, were under U.S. martial law. The rationing and blackouts common elsewhere in the nation during this period were many times more constraining in Hawaii because of difficulty protecting the islands' supply line to the mainland. And the happiest times of my mother's childhood ended as the freedom she had to play with friends and roam was curtailed by stringent rules on civilian movement except for essential needs such as school, work and hospital visits.

The onset of war ended my grandfather's job, servicing the pineapple harvesting equipment owned by Dole foods, as many industries on the islands shuttered during wartime. About a year later, my grandparents and mother left for California, riding a cargo ship under destroyer escort.

There was one humorous moment out of it all. When my grandfather returned from his beach patrol early on the morning after the attack, he went to put his gun away and noticed a box of bullets sitting open on the bedroom dresser. That's when he remembered …

He had forgotten to load the gun.