A ranch of her own
There's a piece of advice to freelance writers suggesting you re-sell every article you write to three different publications. I hate that advice.
The purpose, I'm sure, is to increase a writer's cash flow by generating multiple paychecks from a single piece of writing. The problems with the advice are twofold: 1) The writing is only a small portion of the work involved in selling an article; there's also the research and correspondence involved in selling it. 2) Obsessing about a single article, or even multiple spins on the same basic topic, is boring. If you're willing to be bored in order to make money, there are far more productive ways to go about it.
Thus when Montana Magazine asked me to write about Caroline Lockhart's ranch, I didn't want to simply provide an excerpt from "The Cowboy Girl," nor did I want to rehash some of that same territory. I wanted to do something fresh and new. And while touring the ranch with historic preservation specialist Chris Finley, I found it. Because I was familiar with Lockhart's life on the ranch, I was able to spend the tour thinking more about Finley's job, his character, and what a great match they make. Then when writing the article, I was able to talk about not only Lockhart's challenge in trying to establish an incredibly remote ranch, but Finley's challenge in trying to preserve it in a perpetual state of near-decay.
The result is "A Ranch of Her Own," running in Montana Magazine's current (March/April 08) issue. (The article is not available online, but a table of contents is here.)
