The economic slump is turning out to result in a slump for freelance writers. At least it is for me.

Three of my consistent clients are not currently utilizing freelancers to cut back on expenses, and it’s created quite the conundrum for your truly. I’m definitely beating the bushes for new work, but what does one do besides that during the lull? How does one spend the day?

Answer: Sell books!

Buying and selling used books online is a great way to supplement your income as a writer, give you a feeling of accomplishment on the really slow days, and broaden your repertoire as a writer. By shopping for good-quality used books at library sales, thrift stores, and yard and estate sales, you can easily make three or four times what you spent. And if you make less than $600 in a year, you won’t need to claim your earnings on your taxes.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. For me, desperation has made me a bookseller. And I love it.

UPDATE: Here is a link to my Amazon Storefront.  Remember, 85% of the proceeds put food on our table, and the rest goes to Amazon.  Grrr….

What’s on your “writing” bookshelf? Here’s mine:

The spiraled books on the right are, from the right, The AP Stylebook from 2005, The Everyday Writer, and the Abilene Christian University “AnswerBook.”

Writer’s need a space of their own. Especially if we work from home, we need a separate room or section of the house where we go to think, write, make calls, do research, etc.

That said, finding “space” has been difficult for me. Since I became a freelancer last year, a steady string of friends and family have stayed with us, some for an extended period. (my office in our old place doubled as our guest bedroom) Less than a month ago, my wife and I moved into our new house, which has a finished basement for our roommate and future guests AND a separate office for me. Setting up my office with a comfortable (but not too comfortable) chair, functional desk and shelving, and attractive decor was one of the first things I did when we moved in.

But because of some mix-ups with our Internet company, our wireless wasn’t active until two weeks after we moved in. Well, for me, business continues, and without Internet, I’m sunk. So my office became the local cafe with free WiFi and $1.50 coffee. I was surprisingly productive there!

I’m happy to report that I am now writing this from the comfort of my home office on a wireless connection (that we pay for!). Despite house guests, a constant roommate, a dog running around, and various other distractions, I can now work with some semblance of consistency and organization.

Where do other writers out there work best? What are your secrets for productivity when working from home?

Garrison Keillor has quite the way with words. In a 2006 Salon.com column, he admonished writers to “quit whining” about how hard our craft is.

OK, let me say this once and get it off my chest and never mention it again. I have had it with writers who talk about how painful and harrowing and exhausting and almost impossible it is for them to put words on paper and how they pace a hole in the carpet, anguish writ large on their marshmallow faces, and feel lucky to have written an entire sentence or two by the end of the day.

He insists writing is no harder than any other profession, and even goes a step further in suggesting that those who complain the most are drunks. That getting hammered the night before would make any profession difficult: golf, alfalfa planting, or parts assembly in a factory.

I agree.

I’m no drunk, of course, but I’d say the difficulty of writing isn’t the writing part, but the time management part. The part where your brain tells your tail to plant itself in a chair for 5 hours and hammer something out. Anything. Once tail obeys brain and hammering commences, writing is actually quite easy.